Building an endurance horse

[Lynette Helgeson <helgeson@lansford.ndak.net>]

Hi everyone,
I just brought home my straight egyptian colt and now I am wondering,
how do you build an endurance horse? He has all the making of a great
horse. He has been raised in a large pen with several other mares and
foals. He was imprinted at birth, and he was left on the mare till he
was 6 months old. He was given Omelene 300 and was on oat hay and
alfalfa. He was being feed with 10 other colts, so I do not know how
much he was getting.  We picked him up yesterday and I have him started
on Equine Junior and  free choice brome grass hay. Since he came from a
fairly large breeding farm, he was not handled much but he is already
letting me measure him with a tape, picking up his feet and letting me
touch him all over. Which points to a calm disposition and a trusting
nature. His conformation is very balanced and he has a 7 inch cannon
bone and he is only 7 months old. Is that good? How much more will the
cannon bone develop after 7 months? We have over 40 acres of pasture
with some hills that he will be raised in but for now I am going to have
him in a box stall with turn out in a large corral (about 80 x120 ft.)
every day until the weather gets better and then I am going to put him
with the other horses in the big pasture. If I keep him as a stallion
what is the best way to raise him to teach him manners on the trail,
should I take him with me to trail rides, and leave him at camp or pony
him? Would it be ok to teach him to drive as a two year old? Train him
to saddle as a three year old and then do some LSD and LD rides as a 4
year old. I would like to teach him dressage, but since there are no
dressage trainers in this area, is there any good tapes or books where I
could learn dressage? When could he start learning dressage? How do you
guys that ride stallions, haul your stallions? How do you haul with
other horses and keep your stallion from biting or kicking the other
horses in the trailer? The stallion that we have now has taking some
serious chunks out of our geldings before.

I know this is a lot of questions, but he is the nicest colt I have ever
seen and handled and I am pretty excited about him. I do not want to
make any mistakes that I can not correct.

Thanks for any information.
Lynette Helgeson
In ND were the weather has been rain, sleet and snow off and on for the
last two weeks. Makes it pretty hard to travel any where, and is hard
weather for the horses. Glad we have lots of shelter for them.