Story originally posted by: Pamela Burton

Endurance riders often run beside or in front of their mounts for extended periods during training and competition. This accomplishes several things. First, it can give the horse a breather from carrying a rider and is felt to be useful in going downhill when the horse's soft tissue (tendons and ligaments) are most at risk, or uphill through tricky ground. Second, the conditioned rider can also have a break and a stretch from riding long miles in the saddle. Stagg Newman is a top rated U.S. rider who tells us his philosophies and techniques on tailing and running.

Stagg Newman started endurance in 1982. "I started with a Thoroughbred mare," he said. She was bred to do 6 furlongs, not 100 miles". In 1998 he started riding Ramegwa Drubin, a Polish Crabbat Arabian he bought from Maggie Price, another top East Coast rider.



Newman said he would only get off uphill if it were a very rocky trail, and he tries to limit the amount of running he does. He said he learned his lesson. "In 1993, I ran about 15 miles on foot with Drubin," he said. "I was a basket case at the end of the ride. If you get yourself too tired, you don't help the horse. It doesn't take much uphill running to wear you out, especially if you are riding 100 miles."

Newman has over 3,975 American Endurance Ride Conference (AERC) competitive miles. Ramagwa Drubin, now 18, completed his 31st, 100-mile ride this year. Drubin, most often ridden by Newman, has 3,625-recorded miles since 1988, often placing in the top ten. Newman said he was so accustomed to the routine of a ride that he would do a half halt at the top of a hill to see if Newman would be getting off.

Newman said he ran long before he rode horses. I was part of the cross-country team in college", he told me. He said, "It takes years before you learn to run in a relaxed frame".

His wife, Cheryl, showed horses in jumping and eventing. "She tried to get me interested in riding, I tried to get her interested in running. She won", he said with a laugh. "I didn't have any interest in the show ring, so I took up long distance riding". Now they do many of their rides together.

Newman will run beside his horse during a race "to give the horse a break, and to take some of the weight and pounding off the horse when running downhill." Typically, depending on the course, I might run about 5 miles or a little more for a 100-mile ride", he told me. Newman rides and runs in leather paddock boots that lend ankle support, with a running shoe inner sole inside.

Newman admits that there is some argument that a horse might "pound himself" more in hand downhill than if you ride downhill in a collected frame. Newman equates training his horse to his college running. "I do think if you run downhill on a horse you must train the horse to stay in balance...and not get strung out", he councils.

A horse must be encouraged to stay behind his runner on a single-track trail, and run beside his runner if that is desired when there is room. Newman trains his horses to run beside him. He accomplishes this with the aid of a crop ... "They must stay right at the shoulder... if they try to get ahead, they get taps on the chest until they line up with my shoulder."

2001 has been a good year. In May, riding 9 year old, Jayel Super, Newman won the 100-mile Biltmore Challenge near Ashville, N.C. and got Best Condition (BC). A month later he repeated the performance at the challenging Old Dominion 100 mile ride in Front Royal, Va. In August the duo traveled to Vermont where they were on the winning Gold Medal USA East team at the Pan American Endurance Championship and placed an individual 4th . "He's a superb mountain horse", he said of Super. "He's also a horse that gets enthusiastic... At the Pan Am we left the 5th Vet Check 50 miles out, and he just tore up the climbs. Not much of the Pan Am course was level. You were always going up or down. If the footing is good on a long climb, the horse can get into a good rhythm", he admits.

Does he run on every ride? Newman said, "It depends on the terrain. On a flat ride, you would slow the horse down if you ran. In a hilly ride, I will try to run the steeper climbs, especially the ones coming into a check point, such as at the Pan Am Championship ride in August." He says he personally loves the more mountainous rides such as the Old Dominion on the East coast and the Swanton Pacific on the West coast.

Then, there is the fine art of following the horse up a climb and aiding your own ascent by grabbing the tail. Newman admits that he doesn't often tail his horse. "Once when I got off to tail uphill", Newman relates, " My horse took off, but fortunately stopped when he got to my wife's horse. Downhill, it seems to be less of a problem." There is a matter of those slippery rocks. "You must train the horse to stay behind you and be careful that you don't get your legs tangled with the horse," he said.

In the "never a dull moment on horseback" category, Newman remembers the Virginia City ride in 1992 when he was coming down the basin into Reno riding with another top rider. "I hopped off downhill, and ended up spread eagled on the rocks", he related, sheepishly. " The horse stopped, I got back on, and I do remember going on down the hill where we encountered 12 wild horses running down the hill in front of us."

Newman is a telecommunications consultant. He and Cheryl live in Candler, N. C., just outside Ashville with their 5 horses where Newman said they found "an endurance rider's property". From the back pasture there is an elevation of about 2,000 feet that goes up the mountain where they ride and do a lot of their training.