Endurance riding pushes horses to physiological limits over distances of 80 to 160 kilometers, and robust veterinary monitoring and strict completion criteria are essential for horse welfare in this discipline.
Endurance riding welfare is a field-sport context where the distance between welfare science and competitive practice has historically been substantial. The metabolic demands of covering 160 km in a day push horses to extreme physiological limits, and the difference between a successfully completed ride and a welfare emergency can be a matter of management decisions over the final 40 km. Mandatory veterinary hold periods at regular intervals are the discipline's primary welfare safeguard, and horses that fail to meet heart rate and metabolic criteria are eliminated to protect their welfare. The challenge is that competitive pressure sometimes leads riders to manage horses to pass veterinary checks rather than to genuinely optimize the horse's condition. Stronger FEI enforcement and stricter criteria have reduced, but not eliminated, serious welfare events in elite endurance.