Scottish Endurance Riding Club news

Scottish Endurance Riding Club news

Candy Cameron recalls the process of introducing endurance riding in Scotland and reveals what she looks for in a good endurance horse.

Candy and Ell Daam competing at the Scottish Championships in 2022

Kris Clay TopGear Photos

For those of you who don’t know me, I have been involved with endurance riding in Scotland since 1980 or so when I pulled together a group of people in Inverness, who thought they might be interested in the sport, and we constituted the Highland Long Distance Riding Club formally in 1982 as an associate to the BHS Long Distance Riding Group (LDRG) at the time. This group was primarily interested in getting horses fit enough to qualify for and compete in the Golden Horseshoe on Exmoor. One of our founder members was Alison Craig who had taken part in the event previously and Libby Whittome was also a friend from Argyll who had competed in the very first one-day 100mile event run by the Endurance Horse & Pony Society (EHPS) in Hampshire.

Several of our founder members – Al Craig, Lu Boase, Libby and myself – all ran riding centres and did long trail rides over the hills, so our horses were quite fit anyway, and we started out by training our lead horses who were usually our personal horses. At the time I had a lovely little chestnut Anglo-Arab of about 15hh who was ideal for our type of ground. In those days we ran rides over varied ground, but a lot of it over much tougher hill terrain than we use now. To be honest, the speeds were not much slower, but we did have ‘hill and terrain fit mounts’.

Special horses

Bigger horses were not so ideal as they couldn’t really get into their stride on the rougher terrain, so around 15hh was ideal. Some Arabs were used in our centres but these were also ‘hill savvy’ and used to long days on the hills and getting their feet wet. Basically, we were using what we had, and they did us very handsomely with the right preparation. The first horse I took to the Golden Horseshoe (in 1987) was White Trooper who was a chunky type of partbred Arab. He completed the 100-mile class at his first try when only a handful finished due to the heat. In those days we would have a start field of around 60 horses.

Trooper led rides at home and was taken out to dressage, cross-country and show jumping competitions, Man v Horse and Arab marathon - so loads of cross training. He went on to do 100-mile one-day classes and represented GB in two World Championships in Virginia, USA, and Barcelona. A winning speed over a oneday 100-miler in those days was about 13kph over a varied course with a reasonable amount of hill work. There were even times when we had to ‘tail’ our horses, which meant walking or running uphill holding the horse's tail. This would be unheard of now.

The same was true for the Horseshoe where Trooper won the Best Condition in 1991 and a Gold award at that speed with a heart rate of 56 or under at vet checks. I doubt if he was an exceptional horse, but he did have basically correct conformation, apart from his feet, which in later years developed sheared heels and required him to run in bar shoes which worked well. However, Trooper did have many hours of conditioning put into him. It was quite the norm for our endurance horses to do two or three GHR qualifiers of 65-80km prior to the 100 miles at Horseshoe, usually followed by an 80km at the beginning of June (Breamore), then the one-day 100 miles at the Solstice. Usually then a short break until our Scottish Champs (with perhaps an 80km prep before it) and finally the Red Dragon. Both of the last two would be two-day 100-mile events. Many miles you might think but the speeds were slower, and our horses lasted longer.

It was also quite common to step up directly from an 80km to a 160km in a day as I remember doing with several horses, notably quite a chunky part-bred Arab, Dingo de Landas who did his first 80km at Cawdor and two weeks later finished happily at the Solstice in Sherwood Forest. Another horse that completed this same step was a homebred Tersk gelding called Red Rock Adin, who won his first one-day 160km at an FEI ride in Wicklow and went on to represent GB at the rehearsal for WEG in Aachen.

Candy winning the 100km class at the Cumbria Challenge in 2011 on Rumelito de la Boulen

Ian Cameron

Candy and Ell Daam competing at the Scottish Championships in 2022

Kris Clay TopGearPhotos

What to look for in an endurance horse

So how should we choose a horse for endurance? What are the most important criteria? What is acceptable and when would you walk away? Firstly, I think, the horse must have a reasonable temperament that you can work with. Even if he is uneducated, he must be trainable and if broken, he must be rideable. The one horse that I would not want to work with is a horse that has serious separation anxiety. This is possibly something that can be improved by building up trust over time with patience, but it causes so much stress to horse and rider when going away to compete.

Another thing that I require of a horse’s conformation is that he is as straight-moving as possible. If horses have serious medial/lateral deviations in their lower limbs then they rarely stay sound. Obviously, there are exceptions and a really good farrier can help maintain soundness with correct foot balancing and shoeing. One notable case in point was World Endurance Champion, Nobby, whose legs all pointed in different directions.

Another consideration is what type of endurance you wish to compete in. Do you just wish to do pleasure rides? In this case just about any riding horse can tackle this with suitable preparation. Or do you want to compete up to 60 or 80km in slower-paced UK rides with plenty of undulation on the routes? If so, natives, native crosses and other types are perfectly capable and, in fact, usually have a good engine to power themselves up the hills.

If you prefer to race ride or enjoy flatter courses at speed, then you should look for a lighter frame of horse that doesn’t need the same heavily muscled gluteal muscles as he will be working over the top of the ground. He should have a good length of step, dictated by the length of his neck and he should have a spring in his step. All endurance horses should be kept slim but fit – they are not needing to carry extra weight at speed. My favourite type for the faster type of rides is probably an Anglo Arab with correct conformation.

For any horse it is a necessary requirement that he should have good strong feet in correct balance – no shelly horn, flat feet, incorrect hoof pastern axes etc. – no foot, no horse. However, there are some things that I am happy to overlook when I buy a horse – after all, no horse is perfect.

I have no problem with splints if they are not reactive or impinging on mobility. They often reabsorb and become smaller anyway.

Likewise, a small nodular sarcoid that is not in any area that would be affected by tack, for me is not a deal breaker, nor are small viral warts on the sheath in geldings, nor a single melanoma under the tail in a grey (after all 80% of older grey horses have one).

Al, who came second in the 80km race ride at the Championships in September and the following day won the 30km Open against horses with fresh legs, actually has curbs on his hind legs which a vet might well have failed him on at a five-stage vetting, but so far he hasn’t failed a ride in his career. (I hope the endurance gods are not listening to this though).

Movement is key to a successful endurance horse – he must move lightly over the ground – he should make as little noise a possible when his feet hit the deck and when viewed from the side his hind leg and front leg on the same side should form a ‘V’ in trot or all four legs should make and upside down ‘W’.

I do not buy horses that are built downhill as they will put too much strain on their front legs and be difficult to ride. However, I am okay with a horse that has a degree of straightness through his hocks if he is built uphill.

I like to see a horse move loose to assess if he is naturally a trotting horse or a cantering horse, does he offer both canter leads as easily and stay in balance or does he prefer to stay in trot? I like a horse who has both a good trot and a light canter, using his engine in his hindquarters to propel himself forward rather than dragging himself forward with his shoulders. A trained horse should have at least five speeds of trot and be able to shorten and lengthen depending on the terrain, but also to pop in and out of canter to use the different muscle set and therefore give himself a rest. Lightness in all paces is key.

It is easier to see the frame of a horse when he’s in poorer condition and, as long as he has no other health issues, I am happy to work at building the muscle sets in the right places. If the conformation is good then the movement will usually be. Conformation doesn’t change – it is the appendicular and axial skeleton that a horse is born with and is the frame on which we hang the musculature developed in the specific way for our discipline – which is probably the topic for another diatribe!