Rider Education & Resources

Competitive trail riding and endurance riding is exciting and challenging; you will expand your horsemanship abilities, enhance your partnership with your horse, and refine your trail riding skills. These events demand the successful human partner of the team to know and understand their equine partner in a way that is rarely attained in other forms of equine sports.  Many riders start at the competitive trail riding level and, if they find it to their liking, will move on to also competing in endurance riding.

The worldwide motto of the distance riding sport is “to complete is to win.”  This standard ensures that participating horses finish the distance “fit to continue.” Whether winning, completing or almost-but-not-quite making it, distance trail riding events should be a fun and rewarding experience for horse and rider. It provides the joy of many miles on the trail and knowing that rider and horse as a team are fit to do more than they thought possible.

With that in mind, we would like to offer you resources to get you and your equine partner on the trail toward success! 

SEDRA’s CTR Rookie Handbook        SEDRA’s CTR Rulebook 
AERC Endurance Riders Handbook       AERC Endurance Rulebook
List of Mentors for Competitive Trail, Endurance & Driving

Get started in distance riding with Green Bean Endurance

Endurance riding can be an intimidating equine sport. After all, the shortest distance offered is 25 miles long. But a grassroots effort has been growing for the past few years to help the newest riders to learn the sport...
Read More

Fit Rider: Five-Minute Warmup

Active stretching that activates your muscles and increases blood flow is the most productive type of warmup. Both your body and your horse will appreciate the benefits.
Read More

Recognizing and Avoiding Problems During and After a Ride

Keeping your horse — and yourself — healthy is vital to participate successfully in endurance riding.
Read More

Ride Camp Food Safety & Potluck Recipes

It is not uncommon here in the southeast to find potluck dinners at rides. Sometimes the Ride Manager will plan a potluck for one night of a multiday. Sometimes the riders get together and have one on a smaller scale.
Read More

Preventing Pre-Ride Dehydration

Most riders  would  not  start a ride with  a lame  horse. Even if they wanted to try, the  vets would  not  allow the horse to start. On the other hand, many  riders, most  unknowingly start a ride with a partially dehydrated horse. Yet, there is more and more evidence that pre-ride dehydration may be far...
Read More

Equine Conditioning Principles

As with a human athlete, the success of a fitness and conditioning program for your horse is based on the horse's body's adaptive response to the stress of exercise.
Read More

Featured Videos

If you’ve never thought about entering an Endurance ride or Competitive Trail ride, these videos might convince you to try it. Do you dream of spending all day with your horse? Do you love discovering new trails and taking on the challenge of varied terrain? Do you believe that there’s no such thing as too...
Read More

Care and Feeding of the Endurance Horse

Nutrition, Body Condition, The Foot, Beating the Metabolic Pull, Colic, Equine Gastric Ulcer Syndrome, Worms and Deworming, Vaccination and Disease, Housing, Emergency Planning, and more!
Read More

Condition Your Horse Like a Pro

That competitive edge. It might look different for different disciplines, but this intangible has its roots in the same concept: conditioning. In short, conditioning develops the musculoskeletal, neurologic, and cardiovascular systems so they can perform athletic endeavors with the greatest efficiency and the least stress on the body.
Read More

Dangers of Overtraining

Overtraining symptoms are seen most often in high-intensity sports like racing, but horses in training for any activity can suffer from chronic fatigue.
Read More

Learning To Ride My Own Ride

I admit that I am a slow study, and that it has taken me some time to figure out precisely what “ride your own ride” means, and to develop the self-discipline to actually make it happen.
Read More

Effects of Equine Conditioning

As you well know, a horse must have a certain level of fitness to perform well and endure activity without injury. This is true whether competing at a high level or merely enjoying occasional trail rides. Proper conditioning is a gift you can give your horse to ensure physical and mental health and well-being. The...
Read More

Preparing for Your First Ride.

Getting Started: Tack and Equipment( Saddle Fit, Bridles, Bits, Hackamores, Breast Plates and Cruppers); Conditioning (Learning to Pace, Other Advice), What to Pack..
Read More

Care and Feeding of “You” the Rider!

When the going gets tough, tell yourself, "I can do it. Other riders have done this before and I can succeed too."
Read More

The Long Haul: Traveling Long-Distances With Horses

A U.S. Equestrian Team veterinarian who has overseen the shipping of horses to six Olympic Games shares what steps to take before, during, and after a long-distance trailer ride. Posted by Alayne Blickle | Jun 12, 2019 | Steps to take before, during, and after a long-distance trailer ride Many owners ship horses all over...
Read More

Endurance and The Fine Art of Rest

Most distance riders spend a significant chunk of time and energy thinking about our conditioning schedule. In fact, some of us chart it, map it, and scrutinize it. Speed, distance, terrain, heart rates, reverse splits – many of us have a strategy that would make Lance Armstrong proud. But how often do we think about...
Read More

Ride without Pain, Avoid Injury and stay in the saddle!

Most equestrians will ignore an injury indefinitely just to stay in the saddle. But over the long term, remaining inattentive to it is not the best thing for riders
Read More

The Dangers of Riding Your Horse in Deep Sand

One of the characteristics of an experienced endurance rider or competitive trail rider is not just expert knowledge of the terrain, but the ability to gauge the terrain and make decisions about the appropriate speed for the terrain. This ability is vital in determining how not just to win on speed, but to win on...
Read More

Endurance Ride Camp Etiquette

When endurance riders converge on a camp site it is often said that we form a sort of community. We refer to those who are parked next to us as our “neighbors.” This is usually a good thing with a gathering of friends who will loan you a can opener or agree to wake you...
Read More

Electrolyte Essentials — A Brain Dump

We get SO many questions about electrolytes, and over the years with our horses have made so many mistakes (that we wish others to avoid), and in recent years have learned so much by working with veterinarians and top competitors in Beyond the Basics AERC Clinics, that I thought it would be good to share...
Read More

How to Measure Your Horse’s Fitness using a Heart Monitor

Why monitoring your horse’s heart rate is important Heart rate is the most reliable indicator of your horse’s condition when used before, during, and after exercise. Since the cardiovascular system is responsible for delivering blood to the muscles and removing by-products of metabolism, it is central to the horse’s musculoskeletel system’s ability to function. In...
Read More

Trail Riding Conditioning for Horse and Rider

Submitted by Katie Navarra EquiMed-Horse Health Matters Trail riding provides horse owners an escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday life and an opportunity to experience the natural beauty of the surrounding landscape. Embarking on a trail ride can be purely recreational, a break from training, or a competitive endeavor. As with any horse-related...
Read More

Tips for Greener Horse Trails

Even out in the great wide-open there are things we horse owners can do to reduce our impact on the environment and take care of natural resources.
Read More

What You Need to Know About Cooling Out Horses

Most horse owners are pretty comfortable with the basics of cooling off their horses. But what does it really mean, physiologically speaking, to say that your horse is “cooled out”?
Read More

No More Saddle Sore

Learn how to prevent soreness in your horse on all-day rides with these expert guidelines. Plus: Rider-soreness prevention tips.
Read More

Camping Safety: Providing a Secure Ride Camp

The excitement of going to a ride and having a great weekend with your horse adventuring down the trail is a big part of the reason why we love the sport of distance riding. One big component of the ride experience that can often times be overlooked by the thrill of the ride is the...
Read More

Top Ten Questions Endurance Green Beans Ask

by Patti Stedman | Sep 3, 2017 | Patti’s Blog | [Photo by Spectrum Photography. GMHA, 2015] I believe that I shall always miss David Letterman’s Top Ten lists. After teaching so many clinics, meeting new riders or prospective riders or riders who have an inkling that they might love our sport “if only …...
Read More

Are You Riding a Lame Horse?

Would you knowingly ride a lame horse? Few people would, yet in a recent study, scientists found that nearly three-fourths of study horses had significant motion asymmetry, confirmed by motion analysis.
Read More

Horseback Riding Meets Running in the Sport of Ride and Tie

Are you a horse lover and a runner? Ever wonder if there was a way to combine the sport of endurance riding with cross-country running?
Read More

10 Tips for Hot Trips

Oh So Hot To help you understand the risks, let’s start by looking at the basic mechanisms that help your horse cool down—and how those cooling strategies are compromised when he’s locked in a box.
Read More

Rider Fitness – Nine Tips to Stay on Your Game as an Older Rider

Whatever your riding discipline is, and whatever your age, I found that the tips made a nice conversion into tips for success with rider fitness. This month, we'll cover what these nine tips can mean for your workout- and body care- success.
Read More

Keeping Your Horse Hydrated

In a perfect world, our horses would always be well hydrated. Keeping your horse hydrated is an important part of keeping your horse healthy at home and on the trail. Traveling with horses can start them down the trail to dehydration. Many horses don’t drink or don’t drink enough while they are on the trailer....
Read More

Mountain Bikes on the Trail? No Problem for Prepared Horses

Great article for all trail enthusiasts, know the trail and prepare your horse! In urban equestrian areas, off-leash dogs and baby buggies are often as common as horses. These unfamiliar, fast-moving, and loud objects can frighten horses. A few strategies can help prepare your horse for these contemporary trail obstacles and increase safety.  Click here...
Read More