Arena Eventing Questions about safety

S

sidsmum

Well-Known Member
Joined
4 November 2006
Messages
345
Visit site
I quite fancy having a go at some arena eventing but I am unsure on the safety aspects of the discipline. How does it stand up risk-wise compared to a hunter trial say?

XC fences need to be staked down so how do you get around this with portable XC fences on an arena? Presumably you cannot stake them down without damaging the membrane?

Does speed have anything to do with it? You will be going slower in an arena I guess so is that a factor?

What are people's general thoughts about arena eventing?

Thank you in advance!
 
I did an indoor X Country back end of last year. Apart from the fact that we had to wear BPs it was like SJ but with XC style fences. Great fun but no more risk than your average SJ comp as far as I could tell. None of the jumps were fixed apart from the roll top which was only lightweight plastic poles. I am looking forward to the next one. Go for it and enjoy :)
 
Really depends on the style of competition. Some events billed as "Arena eventing" are in fact indoor SJ with rustic fences and no more risk than straight forward sj. However portable XC fences such as corners and roll tops cannot be pinned in an arena and that has led to questions about safety. Following the death of horses in falls both in the UK and more recently in Canada the future of the "express eventing" style of competition is being considered. The issue being, as I understand it, that if you hit an unpinned solid obstacle it can roll with you making any type of fall massively more serious. Pony Club also no longer permit the use of unpinned portable XC type fences which means any PC run indoor eventing cannot use them - and I suppose might be said to be safer as a result. BE also do indoor eventing style classes - billed as JAS classes - which don't use unpinned solid obstacles.

Personally- we do a lot of indoor eventing or indoor Eventer's challenge in the winter. But we pick our venues and know the safety considerations. As other posters have said - great fun!
 
and an issue with horses putting legs through the plastic versions of roll tops/corners (I think JAS use these?). I'm left a bit unsure tbh. I would probably rather jump wooden portables with sandbags than their plastic alternatives, or just more of a workers course with knock down poles.
 
Last edited:
Depends on the venue, I have been to one that used working hunter fences for the xc part so there was no issue with fixing fences.
 
It's Kelsall Hill if anyone has been there, I've watched a couple of youtube videos of people competing and it seems to be a mixture of show jumps and 'proper' wooden XC jumps ie corner jumps, roll tops, I can't see any plastic ones bar the show jumps - I'd link a video but it feels a bit odd to link a random persons video who's just innocently jumping a course lol!

This is the link to the youtube search I did though!
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=arena+eventing+kelsall

I'd only be doing the 80cm class.
 
Shay said:
Pony Club also no longer permit the use of unpinned portable XC type fences which means any PC run indoor eventing cannot use them
Click to expand...

This isn't quite correct. The new Pony Club insurance exclusion regarding unpinned fences does not apply to indoor or outdoor arenas. It is common for arena eventing to use sandbags on fences and some venues such as Pontispool have proper permanent XC obstacles such as ditches and water within their arena.
 
This is the blurb on the Kelsall Hill website.

Kelsall Hill will be running arena eventing competitions this year. The competition will run on Saturday 24th January 2015 and clear round will run on Sunday 25th January 2015.

It will take place in the Landtech Arena on a surface, course designed and built by BS Designer Gilly Millner incorporating both the BE show jumps and cross country fences into a course to test both horse and rider.

Sounds like they will be using portable cross country fences, but I'd give them a call and ask them any questions you have.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top