Why the French are so amazing at endurance
Have you followed the World Endurance Championships 2024? If you didn't, have a look at the different media available. A start in the dark in a huge thunderstorm and then 160 km of tough muddy conditions, really testing all combinations at this top level of our sport. Being a Dutchie in the UK, I supported 2 countries, cheering on both the Dutch and the UK teams, but I'm forever in awe of the French team: they always ride consistently and in contention for medals. Very often even bringing all 5 team members to the finish, I love checking their speeds and recoveries, it is just the very best.
Bella Fricker wrote a blog just after the WEG, having crewed for fellow UK resident Dutchie Shanti Roos, have a look at it here: https://www.bellafricker.co.uk/post/france-dominate-at-the-worlds-in-more-ways-than-you-first-thought . It gives an overview of the French riders and horses in the WEG and their experience and dominance in these championships. There also was some discussion on one of the endurance FB groups on French-bred horses and why they do so well on top level endurance. Should we all get a French-bred horse, or is there more nuance to it?
The fact is that the French horses and riders are really successful. Let me try and highlight several factors that contribute to that success and what can we learn from that, perhaps use some of it to our own advantage.
Endurance is big in France, probably bigger than in most European countries, and many countries worldwide. There is a huge history of epic rides such as Moncuq and Florac, running 60 years or thereabouts. This means there is a vast amount of experience and knowledge about riding all these tough and technical rides passed on through the generations. Many riders are professional or semi-professional, making their living from breeding, training, selling and of course a lot of competing. It is a tight community where a lot of people know each other and the riding reflects that: they will often ride together, like a peloton in cycling.
This peloton riding is interesting and as far as I am concerned a key factor to good endurance practice: French rides usually only have a 20, 40, 60 and an 80 km class so the entries per class are bigger. Besides that they have group starts a little earlier than we have in the UK (though some European countries have mass starts even at 40 km rides). With more horses in each class, and more horses starting together, combinations learn to ride together at a much earlier stage. The French horses get that first "peloton" experience at these rides, forming a little endurance chain where the horses and riders ride in the same pace, ideally a steady calm ground-eating canter, trot when they must and walk only when it is absolutely necessary. This conserves energy and the horses like to be in company so they are calmer and help each other through tricky parts of the ride.
When progressing in distance most horses learn to ride at an average speed that suits most horses, some learn to speed up a little, others to slow down a bit. In the young horse championships in Uzes for instance the 60km horses will start in groups of 10 and most of them stay together and finish together or closely. Recovery and final HR will show the difference in talent and with that their ranking. In the larger competitions, the slightly faster cantering combinations will lead a group, others will form a mid or slower chain, still staying in a steady comfortable pace, and recovery and HR being important factors to how well they do.
That brings us to breeding, the genetic attributes for a top endurance horse are the right mix of a large lung capacity, a good-sized heart, a lot of type 1 (slow twitch) muscles and very good thermoregulation (thin skin with many capillaries). The better these qualities the lower the HR's and the faster the recovery. Dominating in the sport are Arabs, sometimes crossed with some Anglo Arab, or saddlebreds with a lot of TB, but nearly always 75% Arabian or more. And whilst we talk about French Arabs (i.e. Arabian horses born in France), these are often a mix of a lot of Arab strains (which themselves are intermixed). The French focus on performance, not on lines/strains.
The so-called French-bred endurance horse is often a combination of:
* Russian lines: mostly the old Tersk breeding. The most famous example is Persik: imported from Russia into the Cevenne region in 1973 where he was used first on the hardy non-recorded origin trail mares, and later on Arab and Arab cross mares. Many of his progeny are still top of the bill in current day endurance, nearly all of the top 10 in the 2024 WEG and a lot of the French-bred horses have Persik in their pedigree. Persik, although classed as Russian is himself a mix of Egyptian, Old French, Crabbet (originating in desert-bred Egyptian lines), Polish and Weil/Marbach (which is a German stud, using old Egyptian lines)
*French racelines: A popular cross with Russian and Polish lines, or just race lines alone. As there is a huge amount of Arab racehorses produced in France, many that were not fast enough were tried in endurance and did well. The most famous sires are names like Manganate, and his sons Dormane and Djelfor are probably best known. Another famous French racehorse Tidjani is out of a full sister of Manganate. These old French race lines can be traced back to desert-bred Egyptian horses, imported into France around the 1900's
* Crabbet lines: Many Russian, some Polish and modern French horses descend from old Crabbet lines like Skrownek, but I feel that especially the Crabbet mares have contributed to the success of French endurance horses. Famous Kankan (sire to Persik and Prizrak (and therefore grandsire to Drug) is an excellent example of this.
* Polish lines: Well-performing Polish sires in French endurance horses are Zulus (and sire Palas), Diarex and Arax (bred Polish but imported to Tersk where he produced great offspring).
* German Marbach/Weil lines through Hadban Enzahi sons Dahman and Masan which you will see throughout a lot of the popular and successful horses
* Tunesian. Less common but often really strong types
Show-bred Arabs are used in endurance, but you see them do well in top-level endurance only as an exception to the rule. I feel this is down to a number of factors: they are bred to show, and therefore selected not only on looks but also on excitability, something we do not want in endurance. This excitability can cause slower recoveries and a higher susceptibility to injury. Their upbringing has also been very different, usually stabled a lot.
French breeding is evidence-based, mares from proven lines (due to their own performance, that of offspring, siblings or parents) are crossed with performance stallions, sometimes with their own performance, but more often out of proven performance ancestors. Horses with low heart rates and fast recoveries are ranked high in the young horse championships. Earlier on a star system was used: either performance-based or progeny-based stars would indicate the quality of a horse. More stars in the overall pedigree meant a more successful horse. They don't shy away from using closely related horses, using line breeding (closely related dams) or inbreeding (closely related sires). And although many are reluctant to see too much inbreeding it seems to work, the desired traits seem to "find each other". Some take it a little too far though and it is wise to carefully check if there is not too much of the same name popping up over and over again.
With a huge breeding program, there will be a lot of horses that don't do as well as the horses you saw at the championships, a lot of them do not make the grade, or are average at best. It is similar to Thoroughbred racehorse breeding: there are a lot of horses bred, but only a small amount will be successful. The others end up as general sports or leisure horses. And because "production" is so high you might find that some sires seem really exciting, but in reality the majority of offspring is mediocre with some exceptions that do well. Those positive exceptions are often down to the dam line, which is really important for passing on the desired metabolic traits for 100km+ distances at a moderate to high speed. But mares produce much less offspring than a stallion, so it is trickier to research these maternal lines. The dam can very much make or break your future champion. I personally like to breed from proven mares as I feel they are the foundation, but too often a mare that has had some issues during her sports career is used for breeding anyway (because we can). She can then pass the reason why she didn't do so well onto her foals, so it works both ways.
Another huge part of the success of the French endurance horses, especially those in big and popular studs based in the South of France, is the way youngstock grows up. Vast areas with tough terrain, where the youngsters have to travel for their grazing and water create hardy horses. Slow to mature but strong, resilient and with a steady disposition as they have felt safe in a herd, these horses have had a natural way of getting their bodies strong, muscle is developed, bone and tendons have become strong and adaptable to hard and semi-soft ground, lungs and hearts have worked and developed in clean conditions. The downside to the extensive way of growing up is that there is a possibility not all the nutrients are met when growing up, often a legume type of hay is fed so some horse could be a little deficient in phosphorus. This childhood will separate the good from the mediocre: the horses that are not strong enough will show to have little issues either when still growing up, or when they start work. Some will mature slower than others and will be produced a little later.
Not all French endurance horses have grown up this extensive way, but many will have had a lot of space as young horses though some will be stabled all winter. All and all you can conclude the French have a great breeding program, with generally a very beneficial way of growing up, but with the great numbers of horses produced there will only be a few that will prove to be the superstars of the future.
It is believed about 80% of the talent of a sportshorse is inherited: mostly because of genetics, conformation and growing up. The last 20% is up to us: riders and trainers of our horses. And that 20% is something the French are very good at as well. They know how to get the young horses ready, starting the most promising early, the late bloomers get a little more time, working through the distances with a 20,40, 60km system which has limited speeds to then progress to the FEI preparation with 80's and 90's where they will start to ask a little more speed.
Again riding in groups as much as possible in the bigger competitions, mimicking the herd dynamics most young horses grew up in and keeping a steady pace with an average amount of intensity: walking uphill, faster on level ground and downhill.
Training will consist of long walk sessions in hills if available (because not all of France is hilly!), rides as fitness boosts and when the horses are starting to work at higher speeds canter sessions with progressive durations are added. You could argue the horses are starting work at a fairly young age, the promising horses doing 60 km rides at the end of their 5th year, and 90's with open speed at 6, remember that with their upbringing and relatively low number of rides focussing on the qualification rather the quantity of rides, this need not be a huge problem. Not all horses will be able for it though and as the focus is on selling, some horses will be pushed harder than is good for them, falling through the cracks on the way.
So what can we, in other countries, learn from the French system? There are a couple of countries that produce a large amount of Arab (endurance) horses, but most breeders outside of France are small, breeding a few horses in their lifetime, perhaps just their own next future horse. And then there are a few breeders that produce a couple of foals each year. I would guess most countries will only have a max of 50 (some perhaps up to a 100) foals purposely bred for endurance a year (and that is being very optimistic). But we do not need big breeding programs, we could however do with working together a bit more, using true performance horses (and for me that would be horses that have at least done 1 or more 120 km rides in 1 day). Studbooks could help in this respect, but also I feel the futurity gradings could be better oriented towards endurance with more follow up in later years.
The way forward for me would be to focus on young horses, which would hopefully be bred from proven performance lines, matured in 24/7 turnout with friends and a lot of space to move, backed and learning about simple ridden life at 4, doing a few 20-40 rides at 5 ideally with some friends going through the same stages, progressing to longer distance when ready. All at a low to moderate intensity until mature enough to speed up or tackle more technical rides.
Personally I would love to see futurity classes for young horses at a ride near the end of the season similar to Uzes, with a simple ridden class for 4 year olds, a 30/40 for 5 year olds and a step up for the 6 year old endurance bred horses. But I also feel it would be good if horses (and riders) get used to riding in groups more, working on creating a similar pace, getting used to a peloton/train style of riding when we are in flatter rides, and working together in more technical rides. Less classes, with more riders starting closer together (or even the full class at the same time). Helping eachother to get our young horses out together, creating safety in numbers so that each horse can tackle the little issues they might have on the way, not focusing on the results but on the building block for future endurance stars.
Let's find each other to give our young horses that great start and give the French a run for their money!
