Well let's see where to start. If she's serious right off the bat she'll need a heart rate monitor. They now have wireless ones that are spoken of highly on the endurance list. It lets you monitor the horse's progress in definable terms. It also keeps you from overriding a new horse in first phase training. That can break the horse's spirit right off the bat. All rides are sanctioned by the AERC (American Endurance Ride Conference.) I would suggest joining that organization right off the bat. If she does any rides at all she'll have to pay on site, per ride and the benefits far outweigh the cost downside. (They just went up to 75 bucks a year.)

AERC 701 High Street Auburn, Ca. 95603

I would also suggest a subscribtion to TrailBlazer Magazine, published in Bend, Oregon.

Before I go further she'll have a tough time getting the horse conditioned for it's first 25 mile ride. Rule of thumb is that to condition a horse not used to 5 hours of serious aerobic work she'll need to put about 100 miles a week of training trail miles (trot and canter) for 6 weeks. After four weeks the horse can attempt a jaunt of 20 or more miles. Most horses attempt only 25 mile rides the first year of competition. NATRAC (competitive trail riding) is less demanding, but stresses horseman/womanship and the 7 mph trot. They are in no way a race. Contact Jim Ferris about NATRAC.

In training canter/trot the flats and NEVER TROT DOWNHILL. Trot uphill. No need for a serious injury in training. At the end of the six week period the horse should be fit enough to attempt it's first 25 mile AERC sanctioned ride. I still strongly suggest monitoring the horse's progress constantly with a HRM. Mine has been broken for a while, but I know Rebel's metabolics and I have been using an old-fashioned stethoscope religiously. The horse should get several days rest prior to a ride. Once the horse is fit maintaining fitness isn't the time investment of starting a horse for endurance.

She'll have to train on trails. Track training is okay, but the horse has to get used to hills. Lounging is almost no real benefit except for the purposes of lossening up and jumpstarting the heart.

One thing that takes many horses a while to figure out is their need for water. Most when first started don't drink when it's available for some reason. They'll figure it out in time. Feed is very important to the endurance horse and things we do are frowned upon by almost every other kind of horseman/woman. Figure a 1000 lb horse needs 15 Mcals a day maintance, so figure the horse will need another .75 Mcal a day per mile of racing or training. Studies have shown that excercise seems to have little or no effect on the ammount of protein metabolized. So it's important that the extra feed not be of a super high protein nature. Don't get sucked into buying supplements other then Red Cell. Excessive ammounts of supplements might actually hurt the horse's ability to metabolize from grain/feed. Red Cell is recommended.

Electrolytes are important for the horse while it is under work but preloading them while the horse isn't working is useless and could cause electrolyte shock. There are dozens of commercial preparations for high dollars, but chemicals are chemicals are chemicals. For an inexpensive and highly effective electrolyte mix equal parts of lite salt, iodized salt and dolomite (powder) together. I save my old wormer tubes and put the dosage which is 1 tblspn to 2 tblspn mixed in water or applesause and administer just like a paste. One dose just prior to work and if you're working a long day (more then 2-3 hours) another dose half way through the day. NEVER GIVE MORE THEN 2 TBLSPNS AND NEVER MORE FREQUENTLY! It could cause shock. Administered properly no problem. Sometimes if the horse won't eat just after a ride a half dose of electrolytes will make him thirsty and hungry.

I have to get to work, but I'll address the topic of tack next. It's way important. Look for a post later on.

Tack, It's the single most important feature of endurance riding. Imagine a human trying to take a walk for 50 miles in ill fitting shoes. Tack is even more important. Once a back is hurt it takes a long time to recover. Months actually. Using the right tack can make the difference between finishing (if you finish at all) with a healthy, happy horse or with a horse suffering from a sore back, girth galls, or worse.

At a typical endurance ride you'll see nearly every kind of saddle known to man or beast. Many beginners ride in a traditional western saddle. It's a bad choice. First of all it's heavy, secondly they distribute the weight too far to the rear causing early fatigue. I mean they're designed to keep the rider in place whilst roping cattle and then not to come off once the rope is wrapped around the horn. Balance is not a consideration in their design. A double rigged roping saddle is the worst choice of all because the rigging is too far forward and the fenders wear on your legs. Uckkkkk! And a saddle horn just gets in the way and in case of a fall can cause real injury. As a kid I once saw another kid injured so badly when a horse went up and over he eventually died from the saddle horn injury. That stays with you.

English saddles are lighter and in that regard a good choice, but they're designed (as you well know) to transmit cues to the horse via the tree design. This is really bad over the long haul, because the weight is not distributed over a great enough area. I really hurt The Rebel Prince with one. As I said before he took literally months to recover. Some English saddles are better suited. In general, a real "Hunt" saddle is more appropriate then any other "English" style saddle.

Oz style stock saddles have a big following. They seem to distribute the weight well, meet the heretofore mentioned criteria well, but most I've seen are rather heavy. McClellans seem to offer the horse (if fitted properly) plently of comfort and distribution of weight. Here the problem is they were designed for the Army and their Spartan ways. I've used one for a fifty mile ride and rider comfort is ignored. They leave you pretty sore. In fact, I remember reading once that the designer often joked that he designed the thing with the fact that he, "loved horses, but hated men," in mind.

I won't get into what she should buy, since that is out of the question. I've just outlined what is good and bad per my experiences. You can pick up a McClellan, deck it out with sheepskin and have a nice endurance saddle for 350 or so. Shoot the Bargin Coral in Wylie, Texas was marketing McClellans for under 300 bucks last Christmas. With Sheepskin they aren't all that bad on the rider. Anyway just stuff to think about.

Pads are a way to make do with an English hunt saddle. Never stack pads. They bunch and rub the horse the wrong way. It'll also cause extra heating in the area, which in turn will cause blood to pool and that could lead to lactic acid buildup and we all know what comes next. The traditional western pad has little resilency and covers too large an area. As to material wool pads with a foam lining work the best for me. If you can't afford wool, Kodel is my next choice.

I use a crupper and breast collar. The only material to consider for these are biothane or bioplastic as the material is sometimes called. It's strong, needs little maintance, doesn't become stiff like nylon or plastic and won't cause chaffing like leather. Leather can break causing a serious accident. Breast collars and cruppers properly fitted mean that I can ride in a loose girth thereby preventing girth galls. Once a girth gall is started it can takes weeks to go away. I use a halter/bridle with a drop snaffle. I can just drop off the mouthpiece and he's ready to eat or drink plus I donj't have to deal with changing a bridle to a halter at vet checks.

Let me make a few more statements on conditioning before I go. The whole idea is to develop the maximum potential from whatever natural athletic ability the indivdual possesses. Conditioning is as much an artform as it is a science. Once again I stress know your horse. The rider really needs to know how to take a pulse first and foremost. Remember that unless the conditioning program is conscientiously applied intuition and knowledge won't count for much. Everyone has duties that will sometimes interrupt the schedule, but it is all too easy to let one missed day become two and so on. If one day is missed it should be made up the next by riding twice as hard. If a rider is serious they must maintain momentum.

While it is true that some endurance horses have never seen the inside of an arena and some riders hope to never see one again, it's important (to me) that this work is as beneficial as trail work. Of course, stretch and bend would be the foremost iof these. I like to spend about 20 minutes a day warming Rebel up going through the 4 training level tests. Cyndie also uses him to teach school kids in hunter equitation. Keeps his mind right (I think.) Specific excercises can also help strengthen specific physical weaknesses. Last, but not least it trains a horse to be better disciplined and responsive of the riders cues, demands and needs. I often see endurance riders with little control over highly sensitive and wired up horses. Riding sideways, messing up traffic and refusing.

When getting in those 100 miles a week for the first six weeks offer as much variety as possible. The horse does get bored and after that sour. Get in a varied course of hills to develop balance and differing muscular toning. Again be very careful with downhill terrian, it can be very destructive on juvenile joints.

On the days that mileage is added be sure to cut back on speed. If they go for a hilly rough terrian don't make it the longest distance the horse has ever attempted. Just use common sense whenever the ante is upped.

A stethoscope can be purchased at Thrifty for about 8 bucks. This is essential if a HRM isn't used. I'm sure you know this Bonnie, but if you print this out and give it to the rider this will help. To use the instrument stand on the left side of the horse and put the round piece of the stethoscope just behind the plane of the elbow and underneath the horse a couple of inches or so. It helps to get the horse to place his left hoof slightly forward. Some individuals are easy to hear some more difficult. If they can't pick up the horse's beat at rest excercise him and try again. Exercise will make the beat seem louder and faster. Most horses will have a resting count of 32 to 44 per minute, but a short canter will probably make it double. As you listen you will hear a "lub-dub" sound. This counts as one beat; i.e., lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub" = 3 beats. It's easier to break the counting down to 15 seconds and multiply by 4.

How quickly a horse recovers in heart rate reflects the capacity of that horse to perform at that level. No matter what the horse is doing he should be able to recover to the low seventies within ten minutes of the time he began his excercise. If he drops to sixty or so within ten minutes of a conditioning ride it may mean that he has not worked hard enough to produce any cardiovascular conditioning. However at a ride the horse should drop to that within 10 minutes at the vet checks. If the horse doesn't drop to criteria (usually 14 beats per quarter minute) within 30 minutes the horse is eliminated at vet checks. Aside from overwork, a poor recovery rate can indicate an injury or illness. If a horse stays above 86 per minute after 10 minutes rest from conditioning excercise then you'd better detirmine why PRONTO!

The basic principal of conditioning is called PROGRESSIVE LOADING. It just means systematically exposing the horse to small but steadily increasing levels of demand. One complete adaptation to a particular level is achieved, no further training effect can be expected at that level. That's partly why I feel track training isn't so beneficial. As you mentioned you're so close to the Angeles National Forest Trails you're blessed. The trick is to realize just how much difficulty to add. Keep in mind the idea is to constantly challenmge the horse's metabolic upper limits. If you go too far the constructive STRESS becomes destructive STRAIN. Breakdowns usually appear when a series of strains overpowers the bodies ability to adopt.

The backbone of any conditioning program is called... LSD. Long Slow Distance. Keep that in mind and everything else falls into place. I suggest keeping a log of the conditioning work. It really helps.

I hope this helps. I love to see new folks getting into endurance. It's hard work, but so rewarding. It bonds the horse to the rider like nothing else I know. Please excuse any typos or syntax errors I don't have the time to proof this. :-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~Tommy Crockett~Los Osos, California USA~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~