I love having crew. You don’t need crew in Endurance until you make it up to 80km races but if possible I like to have them there from day one of a horses career for many reasons. Firstly it’s just nice to have a team around you, people to help, a smiling face if you’ve had a tough section, someone to cheer you when you finish and snacks are always much appreciated!
But mainly for my horses welfare and education. Now I am NOT saying that doing Endurance without crew is poor for horse welfare, not at all and actually quite the contrary, I think riders without crew ride slower, pay more attention to natural water sources out on course and ride to the terrain and their horses energy levels more than a rider who knows they can re-fuel at the next stop. But at the higher levels of endurance crewing is an enormous part of success.
A good crew will get a tired horse and rider around a competition where others wouldn’t by carefully managing their horse and rider throughout. But when the horse and rider are on form and the crew are experienced they can mean the difference between winning and losing. If they are drilled and efficient and know the horse well, you can overtake people and make up so much time in a vet gate. If they know the horse inside out they know if they need to slow it up and give it extra hydration or let it run through and just take sloshes to keep the pace up.
They know when a rider has lost their logic and veered from the ride plan and can put them right in a crew point or give a good pep talk to put them in the right mindset for the next loop. At a race a horse will have four crew buzzing around it and be expected to relax so I feel the sooner crew are involved in a horses career the better they will take that intensive care when they get racing.
If you can take sloshes without breaking your rhythm, you know which type of water your horse prefers at each distance, you know how their heart sounds and how the heart rate reacts to certain things, if your crew know the horse and the horse knows the crew long before you do your first race you’re setting yourself up for success.
Beth Endurance 