another event rider killed

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lorenababbit

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I think this has come up in another thread somewhere but schenefeld CIC*** meeting in germany has been abandoned after a rider was killed in a fall on the early part of the course in the preceeding lower level class. I do not know anything about the rider and cant find a link in english but thoughts and sympathies to the connections of the person. i am sure we will all become altogether too well informed in a very short while.
 
Tina Richter-Vietor was 32 and competing in the German Eventing Championships. She parted from her horse and hit the ground real hard... On site medics tried to bring her back to life but couldn't...
 
Oh My God, i cant believe this..
Somewhere there has got to be a reason for all this
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different style of riding over the last 10yrs
different style of courses over the last 10yrs
 
Very sorry to hear this & sympathy to all concerned .

The type of course has changed in 10 years , but as a fence judge I have to log every fall ( even an unseating with no harm done . )
Then the info goes onto a sheet that is passed on for reasearch .
I always find ' Reason For Fall ' difficult as so often , I & other judges can see no reason .
One day , I fear I will have to report on a fatal fall - I have to push it to the back of my mind though & remember the emergency procedure .
 
I think things have changed a lot over the past 10 years. Courses have become more technical havent they? When things get technical, its much easier to screw up and get a stride wrong etc.

It is very sad when a rider is killed in our sport. But sadly eventing is dangerous. We all know the risks when we go through the start. Horses and riders do fall and I think it's just down to luck as to the result of that.

I dont know what they could do to make it safer. I dont think you can ever make a sport which involves galloping a 1/2 tonne of horse over large solid fences safe.
 
I'd agree - the sport is high risk & cannot be made 100% safe.

I've seen riders & horses a bit battered , but basically unhurt after a rotational fall . The TA & Health & Safety move fences they consider a bit dodgy ( often due to weather conditions ) & the new rules that came into force after the terrible year in 1999 should have made things safer , but things do go wrong , sadly .
 
Sad news indeed and my sympathies to all involved.

Everything has changed so much in the last 10 years, courses as much as anything by becoming so technical instead of flowing and natural. Nowhere near as nice to watch as say the Lucinda/Toddy and before era IMO.
But also, what about the different class of horse and the abilities of some of the riders?
The horses are completely different, some being warmbloods now whose forte is not naturally cross country; great for their paces for dressage and showjumping but sadly lacking the brain for XC and many are pushed through without having good basic cross country experience as earlier ones would have originally been grounded in hunting first; nowadays many seem to have never learnt how to cross country naturally and in balance, they are always being set up by their riders; horses do - or should have a brain and they can think for themselves if they have been taught properly, sometimes the riders need to let them!
The technical riders can do brilliantly but if anything goes wrong there doesn't seem to be as much 'seat of your pants' type riding now except perhaps for the likes of Andrew Nich' and co. Is this because the experience of natural and normal rough and tumble of learning by your mistakes has been virtually taken away or are they too drilled by their instructors in the 'pretty way' to be able to think and act for themselves?
I don't know but I wouldn't like to bet against it!
 
I'd agree with you too .

I will have to look out some old videos of Badminton that I have somewhere . There were plenty of ' rider frighteners' that jumped fine , but not sorry to see the huge drops all but gone - thinking of the horses legs .
 
My genuine condolences go out to this girl and her connections, and the following comments in no way relate to her particular tragic circumstances, of which I have little knowledge.

However, I do believe that not only have courses changed, but the riding has too. I agree that the "Reason for Fall" bit is difficult to judge on occasions, and is a bit subjective.

Last year I was judging at a fence which was, in effect, an extremely large and solid oxer with an uphill approach, which followed on from a fairly technical sunken road complex. However, the fence was faced with birch, and in the programme it stated that as a brush fence it was one to gallop on at! I was staggered at the numbers of riders who cracked on at the fence, and we had several near misses before a well-known and experienced rider had a crashing rotational fall with the horse landing heavily on him. By the grace of God he was only winded and badly bruised (horse was ok), but it was the type of fall that kills.

When the FEI safety delegate came to talk to me, I told him point blank that the cause of the fall was rider error, and while he was standing there we saw several other riders having heart stopping moments over the fence (FEI guy went quite pale). The only people who rode the fence well were an older rider who is an FBHS, who went round 3 times, set each horse up and jumped it beautifully each time, and the juniors, perhaps because of their training? At the end of the day I needed several stiff drinks to recover. I later heard that the rider in question blamed his horse for the fall. He events successfully at a high level, but I have no respect for him after that.

At the end of the day, eventing is a very dangerous sport, but there is only so much that course designers and the powers that be can do to make courses safer - horses and riders must be properly trained, and then it's down to luck - good or bad - and all that goes with it.
 
What a tragic way to loose a life, did the horse not fall?

I agree with your sentiments MFH, your points are well argued. Did anybody read the guest column in H&H a few weeks ago, the guest columnist was a founder member of the Mark Davies (? apologies if thats wrong) Injured Riders fund; I felt a lot of the points in that article made a lot of sense - did anyone else think so?
 
It's not just sad, i think something has to happen (sorry, i haven't read all the replies, so sorry if i'm repeating anything)..

In the 'old' days, there were hardly any health and safety rules and regulations, people didn't wear the hats or body protectors to anywhere near the the standard of the ones we have nowadays, they didn't have the frangible pin on xc fences.. yet you very rarely heard of someone getting killed!!

I think alot has to do with the way young horses are educated now.. everything has to be perfect and winning all the time, even at home.. One recent comment that Mark Phillips made that i did agree with.. that it's stupid that you're getting Adv. horses these days aged 6, where as back in his day i wouldn't even have been to its first event till it was 6...
 
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they are always being set up by their riders; horses do - or should have a brain and they can think for themselves if they have been taught properly, sometimes the riders need to let them!

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I think you've hit the nail on the head there, at least to some extent. One thing i've always been taught and have naturally done with the young horses is let them make their own mistakes and not set them up for every fence as otherwise, they don't learn to think for themselves and learn right from wrong from their own experience. Yes you need a horse obedient to the rider aids, but no rider is perfect and you need a horse that will help you out when you get it wrong.
Also you made a comment about hunting being used traditionally to train XC horses - and I agree with that as well. Having ridden horses that have, and haven't hunted, you can really tell the difference going XC between those who have and havn't. Hunting teaches them to be bold and where to put their legs I think. Just my opinion.
 
two comments - tragedy for this rider and family and the recent other one

second is that it is a shame that Le Samurai actually jumped that last jump at Rolex in the condition of lameness he was in

Why is it that the nice and innocent suffer and the guilty seem to walk away scot free - in many walks of life including letting criminals out of prison early and in the context of the current F&M outbreak - the farmers will suffer but I bet no-one in 'authority' gets hung out to dry
 
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Sad news indeed and my sympathies to all involved.

Everything has changed so much in the last 10 years, courses as much as anything by becoming so technical instead of flowing and natural. Nowhere near as nice to watch as say the Lucinda/Toddy and before era IMO.
But also, what about the different class of horse and the abilities of some of the riders?
The horses are completely different, some being warmbloods now whose forte is not naturally cross country; great for their paces for dressage and showjumping but sadly lacking the brain for XC and many are pushed through without having good basic cross country experience as earlier ones would have originally been grounded in hunting first; nowadays many seem to have never learnt how to cross country naturally and in balance, they are always being set up by their riders; horses do - or should have a brain and they can think for themselves if they have been taught properly, sometimes the riders need to let them!
The technical riders can do brilliantly but if anything goes wrong there doesn't seem to be as much 'seat of your pants' type riding now except perhaps for the likes of Andrew Nich' and co. Is this because the experience of natural and normal rough and tumble of learning by your mistakes has been virtually taken away or are they too drilled by their instructors in the 'pretty way' to be able to think and act for themselves?
I don't know but I wouldn't like to bet against it!

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i completely agree. but i do feel sorry for the poor girl and her family!
 
I agree totally with MDM - something has to happen, because eventing has changed over the last 10/15 years to such an extent now where these deaths are no longer a rarity. Young horses and riders used to gain experience on the hunting field, everyone went hunting before doing their first event and the horses learnt to think for themselves and riders learnt how to adapt quickly and without warning to different situations. I think BE can employ all the health and safety expertise in the world and analyse every tragic accident, but it won't stop them happening. Incredibly sad and we all know the risks but no one should pay with their life.
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I used to event, must be nearly 30 years ago - there were occasional bad accidents but no where near the number now, and I couldn't recall a fatality.

True, there were fewer people and fewer events, but I never thought I was putting myself in danger particularly. In fact the most serious falls I ever had were out hunting.
 
Exactly orangehorse! Do you think these courses are over technical? The accidents happen over all levels of the sport. Was your horse called Orangehorse by the way?? Just wondering if I might know you?
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Condolences to her family.

I think part of the problem is that horses now have stops schooled out of them, and yes, I think this is possible because we train them in nice schools with purpose built jumps. Out hunting every horse will stop at some point because there's a pile up of stoppers etc. It makes them look where they're going and evaluate whether they can actually jump the fence. I'm not saying every good horse out there with a fifth leg must have hunted, but I think it's reasonable to take this kind of education into account. I hack mine over all kinds of terrain and jump anything I find that's safe (and what's safe in my book might not be in others). 5 bar gates, logs, drainage ditches, no groundlines, fake groundlines - I'll do all of them if the situation is right. Bottom line is I'd like to think if we were really really wrong my horses would save both their own and my necks and stop.
 
Think T_E's hit part of the problem on the head.

Some of the GB team's best horses were all started in the hunting field. I'm not saying that they wont have falls or accidents going xc but think hunting educates horses in so many ways, far more than you could ever replicate in an arena.

And I know we all harp on about H&S etc but it is having an impact one way or another. How the hell is someone going to sit to a nasty or dirty stop on a xc course when they've never been able to ride without stirrups at a rally, or in a RS because of the latest H&S clause?
 
Ahhh now I am from the school of thought that horses are never given the opportunity to stop. When I first started eventing you went hunting, then jumping small cross country fences you could pop from a standstill if necessary rather than stop. But I think the important thing is letting them LOOK, have time to work out what they have to do, how to jump the fence so using their brain. Everything is done sooooo much faster now, not just the jumping but the getting to the fence, everything. I get grief from being too "tidy" with my 4 year old and not being "aggressive" enough but I don't give a t0ss how he comes into a strange fence as long as he jumps it and has time to see what he needs to do. He will learn to arrange his legs in his own time without being hurried along. This is all so horrid thou
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Not sure I agree entirely. I used to event some years back (mid-80's) and never hunted first. In fact my first ever event was at Weston Park (Novice - came 3rd), third ever event was an Open Intermediate which I won and the following year was selected for the Junior British 3-day event team. Sad though this news is, it wasn't unusual or unheard of >20 years ago, and the potential dangers went with the turf.
 
I was chatting to an instructor about this very recently he was in charge of the army breakers at Melton Mowbray and he said that event horses were too well trained. The types of fence being built are technical where you have to be very controlled these are not the fences causing problems its the more straightforward ones where a leg left causes a fall. A technical fence never really causes any problems you just get a smattering of 20s from run outs.

WFP is an amazing rider where his horses just do not have to think - yet Toytown thinks for himself and digs his rider out of trouble an awful lot which is why for me ZP results are not as good on other horses. Riders have got better and better and as they have horses have had to think less for themselves. I watch intro and I can genuinely say that only 25% of the riders look like they are secure xc. Unless they go hunting or TC this will never improve as xc schooling is not the same and nor is SJ.

For me the problem is that there really is no way around this. You cannot force people to go hunting nor can you set up hundreds of xc schooling sessions because they are so far from the real thing and do not teach a partnership to find a 5th fence and survive. I do not believe that the breed of a horse makes any difference I just think the continental horses coming over here are pro produced from breaking so just have never had to dig themselves out of trouble. Its not that they cannot they just have never needed to.
 
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