In which I talk about endurance gear that is no longer useful

The first time I went to a REAL endurance ride (the old Bully Wully 1998,) was also the first time I laid eyes on real endurance gear.

I felt that I had finally found my spiritual home in Henry Griffin's mobile tack store, and would cheerfully have made up a comfy place to stay forever among the nylon, biothane, gortex and rubberized nylon tack and accessories displayed for sale in the middle of a ridecamp parking lot.

I was poor in those days (some things don't change much) but there was something in Henry's display that I both wanted and needed: a crupper. My mare Story was built like a pickle barrel, with no discernible withers to keep the saddle from sliding up to her ears when we went down a steep trail.

Better than that, Henry had for sale a purple crupper. I was in heaven.

In later years, I replaced that first purple nylon crupper with a purple Zilco crupper, which held up better in our Swampish climate. I still have it...somewhere. But I don't use it anymore. Fiddle doesn't have withers, she has a dorsel fin. She doesn't need a crupper so I don't put it on her.

That got me thinking...

There have been a lot of tack shops in my life so far, and I've used a lot of different equipment combinations.

Some stuff (like the very first biothane bridle I ever bought, in 1999) I still have and still use.

Other stuff, like a handheld heart rate monitor, I discarded after the first event, because it wasn't nearly useful enough to justify hauling it around with me. (I am notoriously lazy about carrying stuff that I don't absolutely need).

(by the way, photos in this post are taken from catalogs--because I don't use this stuff any more!)

What else do I not use...and why?

Here are some more examples:

Ariat trail shoes cost about $100. Dublin makes a similar for about half the price. I wear out either brand in 2-3 years of 3-season riding. Why pay more?

I used interference boots one time at a ride, at the insistance of the horse's owner. This horse had never worn them before, because he didn't interfere. However, the owner's other horse needed interference boots, so she wanted them on the horse I was riding.

Ever hear the advice to "not do anything new at a ride"?

There's a reason that it's good advice. The horse ended up tripping continually for 10 miles until I finally disregarded the owner's exhortations to "let him get used to them" and strapped the boots to the breastcollar for the remainder of the ride. That was the end of that.

I also no longer use one of these:

Camelback hydration pack. I hate the weight on my back, and find that when I wear the pack I tend to lean forward. Since I already tend to lean forward (I have crummy posture, but I'm working on it!), the pack on my back was making a bad thing worse.

I do like having a Platypus bag in the rear pocket of my saddle bag, with the drinking tube clipped to my shoulder. I find that I drink a lot more water at a steady pace when there is no effort to reach for the suck tube. HOWEVER, I've also found that I almost always forget that it's clipped to my shoulder when I'm dismounting....yep, yanking that tube out of the saddlebag with my leg is just not graceful. I may return to the Platypus setup when I start travelling longer miles with Fiddle, as her large size and dark color dictates that she needs most of the waterbottle contents dumped on her body as we travel.

Which brings up another product I don't use much:

My friend Henry Griffin makes and sells these soft scoops. They have the tremendous advantage of being much quieter than the clatter-y plastic water scoops made from bleach bottles that many riders carry. (Jim has a gigantic plastic scoop made from a Tropicana bottle that he has carried for yonks...he found it on the trail somewhere in Oregon and adopted it for his own).

My objection to water scoops (vs. a sponge on a long string) is that the scoop requires that the rider get off the horse. My horse is tall. I am short. I don't get down from the saddle if I don't have to, because it's a freakin' long climb back up! I am capable of climbing up onto the side of a water tank and then onto my horse, so a water scoop isn't completely useless, but for most rides a sponge is more practical, especially when there are plenty of puddles to throw the sponge into along the way.

Speaking of the long climb back to the saddle, here's a piece of equipment that I will probably never use on Fiddle:

A tailing rope is used by Ride and Tie competitors and Uber Jocks who spend a lot of miles running beside the horse rather than riding astride the beastie. Yup, not very useful to me! When doing Ride and Tie-esque activities like trail-building, I use rope reins and tie those to the tree. No extra equipment required.


Doesn't this fleece saddle and fender cover look comfy? Real Marino wool, ummmm.

It turns out that padding the fenders of the saddle with fleece makes the barrel of my horse seem GIGANTIC. I felt like I was riding a Thelwell pony, and my back and hips were sore for a week afterwards. These days, I have a Merino fleece seat cover, and my stirrup leathers are just fine being naked.

Speaking of naked:

Padded knickers? It is to laugh. God has provided me with plenty of padding, thankyouverymuch. Jim tried the men's version of these, and he didn't like them much either, even though God skimped on his derriere padation.

Here's an example of how A Little More Isn't Always Better:

The Deluxe Stowaway pack has not only pouches on the front, but also bottle holders. Too much of a good thing for my taste. I like to strap my pouches to the pommel of the saddle, not onto the neck of the horse, and the Deluxe is too wide to do that gracefully. Also, I find that strapping the Deluxe onto the front of the saddle (as shown in the photo) means covering up a huge amount of hot horse. Not ideal. I use the smaller Stowaway packs, and they work fine--a water bottle in each pouch, and a few essentials in the middle pack.



I also briefly used and quickly discarded a ridecard/map pocket that clips to the breast collar. It sounded like a great idea...but turned out to be more of a pain than a help, and was just one more thing hanging off the side of my horse. It wasn't necessary, and the cards and maps fit just fine inside the fanny pack I always carry, so the extra pocket went into the used tack sale.

What about a heart rate monitor?


Well, after I ran my last set of HRM gear through the washing machine (the electronics don't work very well after that), I've been too stingy to go get another set. It's been about 5 years. Maybe I'll replace it eventually....maybe not.


I have a wristtop GPS, and I use it sometimes. However, with the amount of tree cover here in the Swamp, the GPS often doesn't get a good signal. Especially on cloudy days. We have a lot of cloudy days. My GPS gets left at home most of the time.

Other equipment that I've finally decided I don't need:

Glow-in-the-dark halter, which only glows for about an hour after sundown....which is NOT when I wake up wondering if my horse is where I put her. Also, this product is WHITE and shrinks in the wash...anybody want mine? It won't even fit over Fiddle's nose. These days I ziptie a glowstick to her halter (under her chin). It's usually still glowing by noon the next day.

I also no longer take billions of buckets to camp, although a former riding partner insisted we needed to carry them "just in case." In more than ten years of camping with horses, I've never needed more than a big water bucket, a small feed pan and a medium-sized bucket for each horse. The other buckets can just stay home!

Oh, and speaking of camping, who in the world invented hay bale bags?

What a ripoff. I've never had a bale bag last for an entire weekend without ripping a seam, breaking a zipper, or just losing a random torn-off bit. I put the last set into the recycle bin, and now I use a tarp. I've used the same tarp to wrap haybales for 3 years.

I wrote a whole blog post about containing horses in camp, and my negative experience with portable electric corrals.

I don't miss unravelling electric tape in high winds one little bit.

Finally, there's my riding crop. It's true, I rode with one for years. Now it's gathering dust in the trailer.

It turns out that Fiddle is one of those type-A perfectionistic horses who wants specific instructions rather than a general comment. She doesn't want a tap on her shoulder telling her to stop doing something. She responds best to a light poke from my spur to indicate that I want her to move a particular foot in a particular direction at this particular time.

Yes, my mare is a potential dressage diva, and if it makes communication with her easier, I'm happier to use the tool she prefers:

Jim bought me a pair of "bling" Prince of Wales spurs. The (purple) rhinestones are usually covered up by my halfchaps, but I know that I'm wearing something sparkley. I love that.

Using the POW spurs has also refined my leg cues--so I'm not working so hard to ask for something, and Fee doesn't have to work so hard to figure out what the heck I'm asking her to do.

So that's good.

Now it's time for reader feedback!

What equipment have you tried and discarded? What didn't work? What was incredibly inconvenient--or dangerous?

Share your experience in the comments!