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Well, good Tuesday morning, everybody.

I am Glenn the Geek from Ocala, Florida.

And I'm Karen Chatten from Gardnerville, Nevada.

And you are listening to the monthly endurance episode of Horses in the Morning on the Horse radio network for November 12th, episode 3560.

Good Morning, Horse World.

When your start times on Saturday and your finish times on Sunday and it.

Doesn'T get much better than best conditioned.

And completing the challenge is the challenge.

You're an endurance rider.

That's right.

It is endurance day here on Horses in the Morning.

Karen is back and she's been on a few endurance rides.

We're going to talk about in a minute, but in the meantime, Karen, who do we have coming up on today's show?

You have a, you have a full one planned?

Yes, we do.

First off, we have Ashley Wingert who tells us all about her adventure riding in the Tom Quilty Gold cup, Australia's premier 100 mile ride.

Dr.

Lucian Spataro Jr.

On how to increase participation and endurance.

We're also going to talk about negative splits, which is riding the first half of an endurance ride slower than the second.

Listen in.

All right, great.

But in the meantime, you have a new favorite horse.

Your new favorite horse's name is Jovi because we don't hear about the other one anymore.

So Jovi, you've done a ton with Jovi since we've talked last.

I have, I've got, the two younger new ones are still, still getting started and trained so that they're, you know, they're coming along.

But Jovi, I've put the last good two years into getting him going.

And of course he is named after a rock star, which he is living up to his name.

So we're, we're having so much, I've been having so much fun with this horse.

He's turning out to be just golden.

I just, I just adore him.

So I've been since the last time we talked, Glenn, I have done, I did a two day raw hit.

Jovi's first two day ride back to back 50s at Riders of the Lost Sierra in Northern California.

That was in September and the ride was really, really tough.

We turned out to be the only team horse and rider team that completed both days.

And so we earned the Mountain Warrior award which was Kind of cool because it was a tough ride.

Tons of elevation.

The ride started with us leaving camp and immediately going through mud bogs.

So that's fun.

Yeah, yeah.

Right off at the start, right.

You know, when they're all fresh and everybody's, you know, and it's slowed them down.

Morning.

Oh, gosh.

And so, yeah, then we're literally climbing mountains and up and down and up and down.

And that was an interesting couple of days.

We, you know, we had a really good time on.

I think it was the first day there were loggers because they log up on this big mountain that we were on.

And we ended up.

There was like three of us riders on our horses coming along down the trail.

And one of the loggers kind of tells us to stop, and he says, we'd like for you to stop here and wait while we fell.

This tree, and this is like this big.

I mean, it's two feet wide at least.

Ginormous, enormous pine tree.

There's a guy who doesn't understand horses.

And we all.

We're.

I mean, we didn't even have to look at each other.

We were like.

All of us were like, nope, nope.

We are not gonna sit here and wait for that tree to come down.

Are you kidding me?

We're like, no, we're gonna keep.

So we all just were like, we're going.

We're gonna get out of here.

Goodbye.

Did he let you.

I mean, he was okay?

Well, yeah.

I mean, he didn't have a choice.

We were going because, I mean, there's no way you would sit there and watch a ginormous pine tree fall because.

They make no noise when they fall either.

Oh, my God.

Can you imagine?

Oh, gosh.

You know, normally they're not even supposed to be logging up there on the weekend, but for some reason they were.

And so anyway, we kept on going.

And then the next day, I'm riding along, I come around and turn it just in time to see some gu.

Probably in his early 20s, racing up a super almost straight up hill on his motorcycle.

And needless to say, he got so far up when gravity took over.

Yeah.

Who got down first, he or the motorcycle?

Well, they both were just rolling and bouncing and da, da, da, da, da, da.

And I pulled out my phone and of course, I only got the photo of them near the bottom with the guy lying on his back.

And all of his friends were running up to him and they turned around and saw me.

They said, hey, did you get that on video?

Oh, my God.

Yeah, we don't care if he's all right.

Did you get it on video?

Exactly.

I was like, I'm sorry.

I was like five seconds too slow for that.

I was so close, though.

But I saw it.

I was like, oh, my gosh.

How did these people ever make it to adulthood?

It's.

Good job.

He's like a trooper.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

He did really good.

So after that ride, the next month, we went to the red Rock Rumble 50, which is just north of Reno.

And I rode for that one then.

That's right.

No, that one.

That one's a really.

Yeah, really nice.

It's only just a little over maybe an hour, hour and a half away.

So that was.

That was nice.

And so that gave us a successful completion of all three of the Nastar Nevada Allstate Trail Riders.

Fifties.

This.

And I got to ride with my friend who previously this year, you might remember, I was talking about.

God, what month was that?

June, where her horse spooked and bolted off the side of the mountain with her.

And they.

And he went tumbling down through the rocks and just got really bad.

Sliced his knee just.

Oh, it was.

It was awful.

And by some miracle, I was able to find him.

And she got him down the mountain to the vet clinic, and they stitched him all up, and he's already back doing 50s, and he's doing terrific.

So that was kind of a cool thing.

I don't know.

I do.

I just.

I'll never forget watching that.

It was like the man from Snowy river.

But not the same outcome, because clearly.

Yeah, different outcome.

So that was kind of cool.

We finally actually did get to finish a whole 50 together instead of having it in like the other one did.

And then the week after Red Rock, I went to a new ride that just got brought back by two new ride managers took on the Hat Creek Hustle 50, and they did a really terrific ride.

This one's also in Northern California.

It was nearly all single track trail.

Pretty good footing.

And Jovi was, you know, by this time now, he's been doing all this stuff.

He's totally just reliable, sensible.

All of these rides that I've been talking about, every single one, he finished with all A's.

His finished vet check.

Wow.

How old?

So he's learned.

He's been learning to take care of himself and take care of me.

Then the week after I did.

How old is Jovi?

He's 10.

10.

Okay.

Yeah.

And so the week after I did Hat Creek, we did the Nevada Day Parade.

Oh, yeah.

You do that every year we.

Yeah, we've been doing that every year.

This was his fifth parade, I believe, and he finally got it.

Like the year before, he was dancing around in the state.

You know how parades are.

You're in staging, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting.

My gosh.

And then they've got the jets to fly over and the big, huge military helicopter, and it flies over really low and slow, carrying a big flag.

And so you've got all these things going on.

They love.

They love drummers, too.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Also.

And then they put us behind the entry in front of us had a kid in the back of a pickup truck with a bubble blowing machine.

I swear.

And so the horse I was paired next to, he didn't like the bubbles.

And so I ended up with Jovi in the very front of the whole group.

Can we say, can we have somebody on the committee that plans these parades is actually a horse person, please?

Exactly.

And so Jovi thought the bubbles were fun.

He was trying to eat them.

And so I'm like, okay, so all this.

All this work, all these things I've been doing with this horse, it's all turned out.

Oh, my God.

Parade people, they really need to.

We really need to have somebody on the committee that knows what they're doing.

Oh, my gosh.

I was like, oh, dear.

Really?

You know, and that's not the worst.

One year, we were like two entries behind the musket shooters from Virginia City.

Oh, there you go.

Yeah.

And I'll tell you what, muskets are not like guns.

No.

They sound like a cannon going off.

They're much louder.

They're deeper.

Yeah.

I remember I was almost jumping out of my seat, and then.

Because every 30 seconds for the whole parade, for miles, boom, boom, boom.

You know, so that was probably one of the worst.

And then one parade, they tried to put a group of kids that were kicking soccer balls around.

Oh, yeah, that was fun, too.

And so we literally did go and say, hey, you are going to have to move them.

You cannot have little kids kicking soccer balls.

Find a group of.

Yeah.

Do you want.

Do you want people trampled to death or not?

So you.

You are absolutely correct with some of these people planning this stuff, they really need to look.

Look at things.

And, you know, the one last parade I was in was with Dr.

Wendy.

I was in.

At the horse parade in Georgetown, Kentucky, right near Lexington.

And when we lived there, it was 10 years more than that ago.

And she's like, let's drive.

And she wanted to bring her horses and we had a three, if I remember right.

We had a unicorn hitch, two and then one in the front.

And they were having no parts of this parade.

I mean, no parts of it.

It was.

Got so bad that we had to.

We had to clear a group on a side street.

We had to tell everybody to move.

And we headed down the side street and bailed out because it was not going well.

I was so glad we had a banner up, a horse radio network banner on the carriage at that time.

And I think Jennifer quietly just pulled it in.

You don't know us.

We weren't ever here.

Yeah, we're just here.

We're not part of any.

That's the last time I was in parade.

Did not end well.

I mean, we didn't kill anybody.

So there was that.

Good.

Yeah, yeah.

That's always a good outcome.

All right, let's head to your endurance tip.

We're talking about negative splits, which is riding the first half of endurance ride slower than the second.

Is that unusual or which wouldn't with the normal person, which is faster?

Well, you know, it just depends.

It's a strategy you have to think of ahead of time and plan because what ideally you do want to finish the second half of the ride strong on your horse.

So it does take planning the strategy out.

The benefit of doing negative splits is that when you start out, your horse has a slower start.

So it allows your horse to warm up.

It helps you find out if you know if there's anything going on that could be wrong early on.

It helps conserve energy so your horse, you're not allowing your horse to get hot and mentally sometimes, like I have found with my own horses, sometimes it's the mental aspect of managing them that is the heart.

The more challenge in doing an endurance ride versus controlling them physically with how fast they're going.

So it's.

It's kind of meeting the two parts in the middle.

Keeping your horse so that they're warming up slowly, you're conserving the energy.

You're reducing the risk of having a metabolic problem because usually if a horse is going to tie up, they're going to do it early in the race.

So by learning how to pace your horse, keeping them slowed down, you start out slow and gradually increase speed and you do that through the ride.

You can use GPS's heart rate monitors, so you kind of have an idea of where your horse is.

You know, then once you get halfway through the ride, everything's going well, you know, because you've taken it easy.

You haven't over stressed him or her and they're eating and drinking and taking good care of themselves.

Then in this second half of the ride, now you can speed up a little bit, let the horse go a little bit more.

And now you know what happens.

You start passing up the riders later in the ride because their horses are fading out, because they took off and now they're tired and they're wearing out and they're slowing down.

But guess what?

Because you were just steady and consistent and took it easy for the first half, now you've got a strong horse and you can let them move out a little bit more and now you're going to be able to go in for a strong finish.

Now this is something that is going to take some time, especially if your horse is kind of new to the sport.

And there are times of course where it's going to end up being like a really hot day or something with humidity and you're going to need to slow down to accommodate for that because you're climbing a big mountain or something.

But lots of times, if you plan the strategy out, take your time in the first half then.

And this is how I've always kind of ridden multi day rides I like to ride.

The first half of the first day especially is going to be my slowest time.

And then as the horse, as we continue and the horse is taking care of themselves, then you start to increase your speed or just bump up your average moving time throughout the rest of the event.

And that has always worked really, really well for me.

So which do you end up doing most of the time?

You know, it just depends.

Starting a new horse, I'm always just happy to live through the right start and just to get through.

I try to be pretty steady and consistent, but also I think by trying to employ at least some form of doing negative splits, I like to know that at the end of the day in the last 10 or 15 miles that I have horse left and I think that's been paying off for me and Jovi.

That's why he's been finishing his last rides, doing so well.

And it's kind of brought him along because a year ago was when he did his first 50 was last October a year ago and he had not yet really learned how to take care of himself.

They don't really know how far they're going.

So I mean.

Right, right.

And, and so, so he's learned.

But I think by taking it easier in the first half then letting him move out a little bit more with a little less Restraint.

He kind of, you know, finally the light bulb came on.

He realized, you know, he's an endurance horse.

Oh, my God.

And so now he's just.

He's loving it.

And so does it mess with him.

When you then do 75 and 100?

Well, I'll let you know.

We'll see.

See, right now, I'm the weak link, so I'm kind of.

I'm still working on my.

I have some nerve pain in one of my feet.

And so he's finishing sound.

I'm not always finishing sound.

He's an A.

You're a C.

Yeah, exactly.

So we're working.

We're working on that.

Yeah, we are.

So.

All right, well, thank you for that.

Next up was Kristen with Distance Depot.

Well, next up, we have Kristen, as I said, from Distance Depot, comes on with us every month.

The Distance Depot rather comes on with us every month and chats about products that she has available.

And today she's talking about Carrots.

Kristen.

When we hit.

When Jennifer and I had our tech shop, Chris, our carrots had just started it.

And I remember they were the first ones really, to come out with riding tights.

Right.

Because they were jeans and breeches, but there weren't tights.

And yoga pants had started to become a thing.

And, you know, she came from.

She came from different sports, actually, the lady who started Carrots, and I remember carrying those, and then they had, like, black in the first year.

Do you remember that?

And then.

Yes.

Yeah.

They put a pocket in it, which was unheard of.

Yeah.

And they still do that, thankfully, through our phones.

Yeah.

And it was.

But cell phones weren't even a thing when they were starting.

A pocket in it.

And then they came out with colors, and that's when it took off.

Yeah.

Because I remember my first pair.

Excuse me.

My first pair from, I don't know, 100 years ago.

And they were my favorite pair.

And they had houndstooth on them and then black detailing.

They're really sharp.

I thought I was so snazzy.

Yeah, well, and you were.

I mean, because nobody else had anything like that back then.

That's right.

It was really just, you know, you had a couple colors of breeches, but that was it.

Or jeans.

You know, it was.

So what do you.

What are now they own the clothing world pretty much.

They do.

Yeah.

And she.

And I think she came from.

I know at one point, anyway, she had developed bathing suits.

Yes.

And then we were talking and you said she was a rider.

She was a skier, too.

A snow skier.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's why I think she has all these great fabrics and, and her fashions all relate around riding.

I mean, everything is, you know, flex and bendable and comfortable to ride in.

I think that's so important with this line.

Now.

I saw at the last trade show they have some new products coming out.

Do you have some of those?

We sure do.

And they can be found on our new page for a little while.

They'll stay there otherwise you'll find them, you know, under for the rider and outerwear.

And we have a page for gloves and so on.

Because of course they have a winter riding glove.

They have neck warmers, ear warmers that fit under your helmet, which are super nice.

I'm sorry, headbands that fit under your helmet.

I like them just to keep your ears warm, all kinds of fun things like that.

And then of course, the tights.

Probably the warmest one that we stock is the Windpro.

It sheds hair, rain, mud, and it's fleece lined.

Honest to goodness, they feel like jammies.

They're just luxurious.

I wish these were.

I'm not sure they had these when I was competing way back when, but.

But these are pretty top of the line, warm winter fleecy tights.

I love these.

And we have it in a boot cut and in the regular tight.

And then of course from there, yeah, they go down to a lighter weight.

And that's kind of a three season breech because you can wear it in the fall, in the spring and in the winter, depending on where you live.

And then they have the fleece light tight, which is super light, still will shed a little bit of the winter cold air.

But they come in a nice herringbone pattern which is super stylish in gray and black is what we have.

And then their other tight is a thermotech type, which I really like.

It has carrot sticks along the inside of the leg for a nice grip.

So that, you know.

And the other two that I mentioned have knee patches.

But the carrot sticks are nice because they're just sort of built into the fabric.

That's.

I think that's kind of a cool thing that they do.

And it does help you grip so you're not sliding around up there.

And then we have a new denim stretch boot cut type which has all the classic true jean detailing, of course, without the jean rubbing that you get when you wear jeans.

They have a super grip soft extended knee patch which gives you like a leather like grip.

And it's gray, so it's flattering.

It's a really nice looking type.

And it has a fitted calf so that the pant won't slide up.

So some really nice choices there along with wool socks, fleecy tops, merino wool top.

And again, these are all designed for riders with flexibility venting fabrics that keep you cool, you know, so if you do get sweaty, it wicks the moisture away from your skin.

So lots of nice options here.

And where do they find it on the website?

They can go to the new page right now.

Everything's listed there for the winter and fall lines.

Lots of nice choices.

And we're just at thedistancedepot.

Com.

I do want to mention too, seeing we're coming up to the holidays, that you guys are the ones that do our embroidery for our logos for the Horses in the Morning in the Horse Radio Network logo.

We actually have the new Horse Radio Network up there now.

Yeah.

So we're excited to start.

Yeah.

To start embroidering that.

And it's really nice.

And what you have shirts and jackets and all kinds of things.

Shirts and gear bags.

Yeah, all kinds of things.

Hats.

So you can put the logo on, on a ball cap, on a shirt, on a jacket, vest.

We've got lots of.

Just visit the embroidery page under for the rider and you'll see it there.

The Horse Radio Network Horses in the Morning embroidery page.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate.

I have to get a new.

Some new hats.

I, I don't.

And your hats are the nicest ones I ever bought.

Where your hats, they fit well and.

Oh, that's awesome.

You know, there's a difference in baseball hats, you know.

Yes, there are.

There's some good ones and then there's some crappy ones.

My husband's a picky ball cap wearer, so I go off of.

Yeah, well, thank you.

It's the distance depot dot com.

Thanks, Kristen.

We'll talk to you next month.

Thank you.

Thanks, Kristen.

Bye.

Bye.

Our first guest this morning is Ashley Wingert from Arizona.

Ashley recently went to Australia and rode in the Tom Cruelty Gold cup where she finished.

There were 131 starters and 78 finishes.

And Ashley was one of two United States writers to finish.

The other was J.

Marrow.

And we're so excited to get to talk to Ashley about her adventure.

Good morning, Ashley, thank you so much for joining us.

And we are so looking forward to hearing about your adventures in Australia.

And I understand this was kind of a full circle thing for you encompassing 20 year period.

So tell us about how you got started in endurance and what part Australia played that so 20 years ago, I.

Had the opportunity to go down to Australia on a family vacation.

And while we were down there, my dad and I made arrangements for a weekend adventure tour ride that was put together by.

It was an endurance rider down there who used his endurance horses to do these, what they called bush and beach adventure tours through the rainforest and out onto the beach.

What a good idea for paying for his horses, though.

That was a great idea.

Yes.

Yeah, exactly.

They basically got to earn their keep.

So it was just, it was such a fantastic experience.

It's such good horses.

And that was really my first introduction to the world of really good endurance Arabians.

Previously, most of it had been through the show type of world where I live near Scottsdale, Arizona, which is home to the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show.

So I grew up going there and that was my previous exposure to Arabian.

So this was my first true exposure to how a good purpose bred endurance Arabian could be.

And then from there that really kind of got endurance got its hooks into me at that point.

And then from there I ended up coming back home and was then invited to come crew at the Tevis cup ride later that summer.

And that was the 50th anniversary of the Tevis.

So that was actually the very first US endurance ride I ever attended was 50th anniversary of the Tevas.

Oh, wow.

So that was that, that, yes, that was a very intense but awesome experience.

And then from there I started conditioning my own pony.

And the following year we did our first AERC Sanction ride.

So that, that was kind of how that basically laid the foundation for putting me on the endurance path.

And then, you know, fast forward 20 years, I'm getting a invitation to come down and ride the Tom Quilty Gold cup, which is their national championship ride, and modeled and inspired by our Tevis Cup.

Okay, and so describe the ride for us.

Let's start with literally the start of it.

It starts at midnight.

So what was that?

What was that like?

I really enjoyed it.

For me, that time period between midnight to 2:00 in the morning on the previous hundred milers I've done, that's when I'm just, just dragging.

I feel my low point.

That's for me, my own biorhythms at that point are like we are about six hours past when we should be in bed.

So to actually have that midnight start, the adrenaline, the excitement really overrode that.

And did you sleep at all?

Did you try and sleep at all before it or did you just say I did?

Yes, I actually Basically took a long nap about 5pm, laid down and was able to sleep then till about 11 o'clock when we got up and started getting horses ready.

I think I would be one of those that wouldn't be able to sleep.

I'd just be up for the 48 hours and be done with it.

I didn't know how that would go, but I think it.

Yeah, I was surprised.

I was able to actually.

I thought I might just lay down and take a quick nap.

But once I laid down, I was actually able to get some sleep and I think that really helped.

But by the time we were off that first loop of about 26 miles, then it was like, felt totally wide awake and had gotten through that really low biorhythm point.

And so then I felt really good.

Wow.

So what was the trail like this year?

Because I know this ride moves around, so it's not always the same trail every year.

So what was it like?

It was very, very hilly.

It was coastal, so we were located in.

We're in a cove, South Australia, which is about an hour or so south of Adelaide, right on the coast.

From parts of the course, you could actually look out and just see the ocean right there.

But it was very, very rolling hills.

Reminded me kind of parts of like central coastal California, where you just have these long climbs and then these long descents.

Not a whole lot of flat in between.

We felt like we were either if we weren't going up, we were going down.

Okay.

And so what do.

What did you see or the.

Some of the differences between Aussie endurance and US endurance?

Well, one of the big things was right at the start, they run with headlamps because they don't mark the trails with glow bars.

They're just reflective trail markers with the loop number and directional arrows.

And they're reflective, so you do need some light to see them.

But everybody wears bright white headlamps.

I know some riders don't like it.

I actually did like it.

I liked being able to see a little bit more of where we were going.

The horses didn't seem to have any problems with it.

I think they're probably all used to it.

That's their typical protocols.

That was one of the big differences.

Again, slightly different protocols for trail marking, using directional arrows on sign pieces rather than our hanging ribbons.

They implement a electronic timing system into how they run their rides, where you actually carry a little timing card on you that you swipe when you come into the vet, check for your in time and then you swipe again when you're going to present to the vet.

Oh, that's interesting.

So that was definitely.

That's cool.

Yeah, that was definitely different.

I know other parts of the world do use some sort of chip timing system.

It's.

I don't know how much that's implemented here in the US or not.

Maybe some other regions do, but I know that's something that's not really seen at all in the Southwest.

So that was actually really kept things moving very quickly.

It was very efficient.

One of the other things they do is log books for the horses where instead of having just a single piece of paper for your vet card that you carry on you, they actually have logbooks that record all of the horses vet scores.

And that book follows the horse through their entire endurance career.

So you can actually flip back through and look at like previous rides, what their scores were.

Yeah, that was really fun to be able to see because, you know, we don't remember from ride to ride what our horses have done unless we've been coherent at the end of a ride enough to actually take a picture of our vet card and then we have to remember to find the picture.

You have to find it on your phone.

Yeah.

Yes, yes, exactly.

So that was a really cool, kind of a different, different thing to see.

But okay, so I have a question for you.

Why is it that the country that invents all the technology in the world is the last one to use any of it?

I mean, it's from.

From.

That's a good question.

You know, from, from how easy it is in Europe to pay with your phone for everything and just, you know, all that stuff.

You know, it just, it just blows me away how we're the last ones to implement all this stuff.

That's a good question.

Yeah.

I'm not sure what it would take to implement some of these ideas, but it's a good question, good observation.

So before the ride, how long did you get to spend with your horse and tell us about your horse.

So her name is Ms.

Dior.

Mi Mi is the breeder designation on that.

But she is a 15 year old Anglo Arabian mare.

So she's.

Her breeding is three quarter Arabian and a quarter thoroughbred.

This was her third Quilty and third finish.

So she was very, very experienced.

As close to 3,000 km of competitive miles on her record and just, she knows her job, absolutely loves her job.

She took such good care of me all day long.

She was just like, yep, just hang on and we'll get through this.

She knew the route and took you along for the ride, basically she's just.

Like, you know what, stay out of my way and let me do my thing.

You were more tired than her at the end, safe to say.

Probably.

I think so.

Probably.

Yes.

Yes.

She actually has more miles and experience technically than I do.

How long before did you go ahead?

Because obviously you have the flight.

I mean it's, it's a haul.

It was, it's almost a 15 hour flight down there.

I ended up leaving.

I was gone for almost three weeks and so I flew in there and arrived about a week and a half before the ride.

Okay, and you got to spend some time on her then beforehand?

Yes, yeah, I've got to meet her ahead of time.

Stayed there with, on the farm with my friends who had offered me the ride.

So I stayed with them and time getting to know the horse ahead of time.

I was able to do some pre riding on her.

See, I wasn't like jumping on her.

Midnight ride start for the very first time ever.

You wrote something in the post you did about the venue.

You said, I'm so spoiled to ride venues now with flush toilets and hot showers.

Another thing.

You were impressed by that guess.

Yes, it was a really nice.

It was what they call a holiday caravan park.

Guess it'd be kind of like an RV campground for us that had power hookups and permanent facilities in terms of bathrooms and showers.

So really, really nice.

You missed the porta potty.

You admit it.

Oh, they had those two tucked away, so.

Oh, gosh.

Okay, Ashley, so what advice would you have for someone thinking of making the trip to do the Tom Quilty?

Me it was make sure that you are ride fit yourself.

Definitely be prepared for.

At least for me, it ended up being a.

Yeah.

Ride experience.

I thought I was pretty fit going in and I definitely could have been even more physically fit just in terms of riding fitness and even just general fitness.

Ended up being a little faster pace than I'm typically accustomed to riding as well as just, it's a hundred miles, it's a long time in the saddle, it's a long way to go.

So I'd say the more physically fit and in shape you are, the better off you're going to be.

And I was very, very fortunate in terms of having friends that offered me a horse where I knew them, knew that was getting a really, really good ride.

So I would say if people are interested, just network, reach out.

I found the whole endurance community down there was very welcoming, very friendly.

So if people are interested in trying to find a quilty ride, I'D say start networking, join some of their Facebook groups, you know, put feelers out there and you know, just start coming up with a plan of reaching out and seeing what's available in terms of if people have a horse to lease or ride.

Okay.

And so tell us about your hoof protection.

I have to ask that.

So the Brysons, Paul and Marty that I rode with use Renegade hoof boots.

That was actually how this entire invitation ended up coming about.

And my connection to how I even met them was Renegade sponsors their competition boots.

Of course, I work for Renegade.

So when I started taking over more of our sponsorship accounts, then I started communicating with them as goes back probably five or six years now.

And so just started spending more and more time communicating with them back and forth.

And then last year they invited me to come and ride this year's.

That's so cool.

That's so cool.

Well, congratulations.

Have you taken, have you taken the buckle off yet?

Yeah, I have to take it off to sleep.

It is pretty impressive.

78.

I have 131 starters and you were one of the finishers.

So congratulations.

Well done.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you.

It was quite, it was pro, I'd say I was a life ride of a lifetime kind of experience.

It was just, everything about it was just incredible.

Even under the best circumstances, travel is stressful for horses.

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rider's nationwide 247 roadside assistance coverage for both you and your horse.

Join today@usrider.org Our next guest is Dr.

Lucien Spitaro Jr.

He is an environmentalist, businessman, educator and adventurer whose accomplishments are record breaking.

His book, the Long Ride is Beautiful.

Chronology of a place and time when three horses and a team of people were doing the right thing against very long odds.

So we're going to talk about his book, but we're also going to talk about the sport of endurance and how to encourage new participants and writers and getting them interested in our wonderful sport.

Well, good morning, Lucien, and thank you so much for joining us.

And I'm excited to talk to you about the recent article that you wrote that was in Arabian Horse magazine that AERC shared where we are discussing the topic of our dwindling numbers in the sport of endurance and how we need to encourage people to come into the sport and how they can learn more about it.

Great.

So let's get started.

There what advice do you have for somebody that wants to get involved in the sport of endurance riding?

Well, you know, the endurance sport is an opportunity for riders who have not just Arabs, but horses that they would like to use in other disciplines.

And.

And it's a pretty easy sport to get involved in only because it's really an upgraded version of trail riding.

So, you know, if you take your horse as a cross disciplinary training effort on trails and you're doing arena work, and you're just going to basically expand on that a bit and pick up the speed a little bit and go a little longer distance, it's not a stretch, a big stretch, to take a horse that's been doing trail work and get into endurance.

And a lot of riders who are in other disciplines, like arena disciplines, like dressage and roping and barrel racing, and they will take those horses and use those horses out on the trail just as kind of a secondary discipline, just to kind of, you know, train their brain to do other things.

And so when those horses are then asked to do a little bit more and a little bit more, it's not a big stretch.

And so when I did a lot of the posting on Facebook, I was really trying to reach out to people in my Facebook post who aren't in our circle of riders in an effort to convince them or introduce them to our sport.

And that's how the Arabian Horse Times got wind of my writing, was on Facebook, and asked me to put together an article that would introduce their other riders who are in other disciplines in this magazine to endurance.

So that's how we ended up writing the article.

Lucian, what do you credit for.

For the drop off?

What do you credit.

I know there's a lot of factors, but do you have two or three that are top of your list of why we're seeing it?

I think there's been a change in just the culture, I think, of younger riders.

Well, two things.

It's not really a spectator sport, so that's one big issue.

Spectators aren't able to watch us ride because we're out in the middle of nowhere on trails, and they see us come into vet checks and they see us come into the finish line and they see us leave.

So if you're a parent or if you're a partner of a person who's a rider, you sit in camp and wait for them to show up.

And it's not really a spectator sport like it would be for an arena discipline like dressage or rodeo or something like that.

I don't know.

I Got pretty bored going to dressage shows with my wife for a long time.

That's one issue, because you can't watch the participants in a big way.

You can crew for them, but you can't watch them 20, you know, as they're doing the sport.

So that's one issue.

I think also with younger riders, we have to do a better job of reaching out to them, introducing them to the sport, because I think they're exposed as younger riders to a lot of the arena sports, but they're not exposed to this particular sport like they have in the past.

And I think also with younger people and mostly women who are in our sport, I'd say it's 85 or 90% women.

They're not, I wouldn't say, as adventuresome people have been in Pest in the past, you know, growing up in the 60s and 70s and 80s and 90s.

I think it's a sport where it's physically.

It's physically tough sport, so you've got to have some kahunas to go out and do it.

So I think there's some issues there.

It.

It's physically difficult, whereas in an arena sport, you're doing it for a very short period of time.

And you can kind of endure, you know, 10 or 15 minutes or 5 minutes or 30 seconds of riding.

But you can't really compare that to being in the south for 10 or 12 hours, you know, moving at a pretty fast pace through the desert.

You know, it's.

It's true, I think, and we're seeing this in all the sports, though, because we cover everything here at the Horse Radio Network and we are seeing a drop off in many of the sports.

Part of it is that what you talked about is, you know, when, when we all grew up, you were riding a horse, bear your horse in your backyard, bare back across the field for hours every day.

Now they're getting dropped off for an hour lesson and going home.

They're not getting that time, just time right with the horse in the saddle that, that you had and Karen had and every, you know, the people our age had.

I think that's missing.

And that probably wouldn't hurt endurance more than, than any of the other sports.

Yeah, it's a bit of a jump.

I mean, again, though, a lot of these riders ride their horses, but they don't do it for long periods of time.

And I think that there's, you know, there's an upside to riding your horse for a long period of time.

You really get to know your horse and the Horse gets to know you and that's a really great partnership to cultivate.

But doing this and talking about doing it are two different things.

So I think what we need to do as an organization is to reach out to these young riders and women in particular because they make up the majority of our riders.

And 4h, you know, future farmers of America in the various equine sports in the arena.

You know, working in West World, sort of the Arabian horse show and on and on and on.

Do a better job of running the sport so people can get involved and they, you know, start out with 12 mile introductory rides and move up to an LD and they're doing 25 miles at a slow pace and then move up to a 50.

And over time, the horse and the rider can adjust pretty quickly to the additional time in the saddle.

But you gotta get going.

And so I think that's what we have to do a better job of mentoring our potential riders and reducing the sport.

That's our, that's on our shoulders.

Right.

And I also think we need to increase our social media presence across all the different channels.

I think that's area where we, we really lack right now that we can improve on a lot.

Endurance in Europe is still going strong and they're maintaining and growing their numbers and we're, our numbers are lower than they have been in years past, but they've sort of stabilized at a lower level.

I understand from talking to arc, the numbers are pretty stable at this current level for a couple years now.

They haven't dropped dramatically like it did about a decade ago or seven years ago.

So I think that there are ways to grow the sport and I think, you know, people are excited to be involved in the sport and again, I think it's a great sport for horses and riders as a second discipline.

And a lot of times you want to take a break from the arena, get out in the trail and, you know, come to enjoy us.

You know, I think another thing that we can't overlook in all the disciplines is cost.

I mean, the cost, you know, you could, you go to a three day event now and you're there, it's going to cost you fifteen hundred dollars for a lower level event.

You know, a thousand to fifteen hundred.

We can't overlook that either, I guess.

Well, you know, that's interesting you bring that up because a lot of the arena disciplines are very expensive to participate in.

You've got an lq, you got a truck, you got weekend, they force you.

To get stalls, you know.

Yeah, exactly.

And where with our sport, it's actually on a par.

Probably lower cost for an event by far, you know, than going to, you know, travel to an arena and do some marine work.

How much does camping.

I'm asking this through the both of you.

How much does camping scare people off with their horses?

You know, if, again, if we do a good job of mentoring our participants and bringing them in properly and training them, our club has workshops.

Like, I'm hosting a workshop at our house next this coming weekend for confirmation and endurance horses.

We'll bring a couple of endurance horses, and we have 25 or 30 people coming to the workshop.

If we mentor them properly, it's not a scary endeavor at all because we have techniques and tools that we use to camp with that, if you know what those are.

It's pretty, pretty, pretty simple and not scary at all.

But you need to be mentored or trained or someone needs to go along with you on your first camping out, and you phase it in, and if someone explains to you how to do that, then it's a pretty.

It's a pretty easy transition to make.

Well, Lucien, let's just mention your book and your adventure when you rode across country.

Now, had you ever heard about the sport of endurance when you did that or did tell us why you were inspired to do that ride?

So I grew up in.

I.

I grew up in Ohio riding horses, but I moved to Arizona and in 1979 to finish my Master's and PhD and I ended up meeting Daisy Tankersley from Al Marabians.

And so I spent a lot of time with Basie in Tucson, and she became a mentor of mine through the 80s and 90s.

And along the way, I had mentioned to her in passing that I had an interest in riding my horse across the United States when I was younger.

And I thought a great idea would be to use that endeavor to introduce people to the plight of the rainforest in South America, because it's an environmental disaster in South America and it's huge problems.

Right?

And so I thought riding a beautiful white Arabian horse across the United States, I could introduce that issue on the front page of the newspaper in these various communities, you know, because people would be attracted to the horse, they'd want to listen to the story, and they'd learn about the rainforest and on and on and on.

So it became kind of an interesting subject for Basie and I to discuss.

And eventually I told her I really wanted to do it.

And so she said she'd sponsor me with Mrs.

Hearst and Julie Wrigley and Knight Ritter papers.

And so we decided to do the ride and it was pretty successful.

We raised a lot of money.

Rode 3000 miles and 150 days, 20 miles a day on average, using three Al Mar horses.

First horse, Sweet William, went from LA to Oklahoma, 1800 miles.

We were probably the first real endurance effort to use Easy boots.

And EasyCare was owned at the time by the inventor Neil Glass, who came out and said the horse for boots up in Flagstaff.

After traveling from LA to Flagstaff and going through three sets of steel shoes, it wasn't working.

So we had to shift and rode on easy boots all the way to Oklahoma.

Learned a lot about easy boots and how to use them properly.

And that was helpful for Neil as the inventor because no one had worn them for that long a period of time.

And so it was a great experience.

And we used it, or I used it as a way to bring attention to that issue, the rainforest issue, and worked with the Rainforest Action Network.

We were on the front page of 100 newspapers, CNN, Good Morning America.

Yeah, we had a lot of actors and actresses involved like Ted Danson and Sylvester Stallone and Michael Landon before he passed away.

So we had brought a lot of attention to the issue and raised some money.

And, and so I thought, you know, three white, you know, gray.

Well, white.

Everyone thinks they're white because they don't know horses, but, you know, white Arabians on the front page of the paper in, you know, Missouri, people are wondering what you're, what you're doing here.

So it was a great way to promote the issue.

You know, people who do these long distance things, you know, and have these great adventures, whether, whether it's, you know, hiking one of the long trails or they all say the same thing when they're interviewed.

And I want to ask you that question.

They all come back to the people they met and the people they saw along the way was the highlight for them.

Was that true for you?

Oh, yes.

You know, I wrote that book as a thank you to all the people who helped us.

You know, the book, the Long Ride is, you know, just a chronology of our ride across the United States, but it's really about the people we met along the way.

You know, you can get a lot of things done if you have people around you.

If you don't have people around you, it's difficult to get things done.

So, you know, it's an important piece of the puzzle if you want to get something accomplished.

You know, they say travel with people.

You know, if you want to go Somewhere, a long way off, you know, go with people.

So that was a great, great opportunity for me and I met a lot of people during that time and they all were very helpful all the way across America, from LA to East Coast.

Is the Long Ride still available?

Yeah, you can buy it on Amazon and they still sell it on Amazon.

I don't think they went through the first couple of printings.

It was for about a year and a half, Amazon's number one best seller in that particular genre.

That very narrow tail of long rides and that sort of thing.

And.

But I don't know, there's.

They aren't printing them anymore.

So I think you can buy new and used copies on Amazon still.

Okay, very good.

Well, I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well.

Before we let you go though, I got to talk to you about some of the other weird and wild things you've done over the years.

In 1982, you organized some scuba divers to set the Guinness World Record for the time and distance in underwater biking.

First of all, what is underwater biking?

Let's start there.

So.

So I was a scuba instructor in the 1980s, a patty scuba instructor in the 1980s.

And we did a lot of kayaking and, you know, expeditions all around Central America and, you know, and South America, Rios and the center river and, you know, all kinds of crazy things.

But anyway, we had a group of guys who we're doing.

We did some mountain climbing and did the scuba diving and Mount Orizaba and all that.

And we wanted to do something and set a couple world records.

So I came up with the idea of doing an underwater bicycle ride for the longest time underwater continuously, 64 miles and 60 hours in a swimming pool in Tucson Acres in a swimming pool.

And oh gosh, I was the rider and rode for 60 hours straight underwater.

And they dropped tanks down to us down then.

But you're an Olympic sized swimming pool and you can only travel at about a mile an hour.

I was going to say it would be really slow.

Yeah, very slow.

And travel downhill to the center of the pool very quickly and you travel uphill, you know, to the other side very slowly.

So it's this continuous around and around and around in circles.

And it was great.

We broke an axle, fell into the, you know, fell asleep in pool and went into diving.

Well, and all kinds of stuff.

But we were able to get that and that record held for about 15 or 20 years.

And then a group in Australia, not a group, a guy in Australia basically copied our effort and he think.

I think he did.

He beat us by an hour or two.

You've done some fascinating things.

You really have.

Well, you know, and I wish that, I wish that, I wish that you did.

We didn't have to talk about the rainforest anymore and that your efforts had been totally successful.

But obviously that's not true.

And it's something that's still a battle to today.

Struggle continues.

Yep.

Yep.

Well, thank you.

You know, and the battle also continues to get more people into an endurance.

And thank you for writing the article and for doing all of that.

We'll put a link to your website in the show notes and also the book you, I did check and you can still get it.

There are some used copies and stuff like that available as well.

So thanks for joining us.

Solution.

Appreciate it.

Yes.

Thank you.

Anyone has any questions, they can contact me the email address on their phone number.

We can bring them into a workshop.

But again, all across the country, all of the ride managers in all of the regions have a green bean program and they're in an effort to attract new riders, all reaching out.

So it's pretty easy to connect up with the organization and the riders to get into the system and begin doing rides.

So if people are looking for rides, I realize we're coming into the winter season, actually the rides will be moving down my direction here in the next month or two to and in Florida and in the south.

So if people are looking for rides, where do they go?

Go to aarc.org and look up the right calendar.

Very good.

And you can find links to today's guests in the show notes@horsesinthemorning.com or right there on your player.

Just scroll left or right and you'll see the show notes and the links right there.

Also, we do have radio thon coming up.

That's at the end of the month on December 1st.

If you're into holiday fun, we're going to do six hours live from 3pm to 9pm and that'll be over on the Horse Radio Network YouTube channel is where you can catch that.

And Karen, where do they find you?

Envy Endurance rider.

NV Endurance rider.

All right, very good.

If you missed past episodes of this, you can find them at horsesinthemorning.com or just go to horseradionetwork.com and you'll find the endurance riding podcast on there and you can find all the past episodes in one place.

And that's it for today.

Thanks.

Many thanks to our sponsor.

Thanks to Kristen over there at the Distance Depot Well, Karen, we'll talk to you again next month.