Eventing People.......

[nic85]

I havent read all the repiles yet but wanted to have my say before I forgot!

My OH does British stage rallying. (for those of you who dont know its the equivalant of eventing but your driving a car!!)
3 years ago tests and Licenses were introduced so now anyone who wants to drive a rally car has to pass a BARS(British Association of Rally Schools) test. Among the licensing etc before each rally the car and their equipment get scrutineered, so the Fire proof overalls get date checked and the cars seats, belts and roll cage too, also helmets and everything is put into the cars logbook (very much like Horse passports) I think some sort of scrutineering would be great for eventing but im not sure how or who would/want to do it. I like the idea of Licensing for eventers too.

At the moment it looks like my totally UN-Horsey OH could buy a good horse, join BE and compete and probably kill himself in the dressage

(I could be wrong, I havent joined BE yet so not sure what your asked etc!)

 

[teapot]

Very interesting film that one and CF's article in Eventing is also a very good one. To mention another point that he talked about and that vid does too - Clayton mentioned the fact that a decent/good rider will walk away from a horse that isn't suitable or feels dangerous jumping. The scary thing is that someone goes and buys this same horse (that the pros wont touch) for a JRN or a YR just so they can get that elusive foot on the beginning of the ladder.

I don't event (probably never will as don't have the jumping confidence) but have a number of friends who do (and all incidently hunt the same horses) and we all tend to have many dicussions about the sport & safety etc. One thing I noticed the other week at Smith's Lawns was the increased number of pony riders. There was one who stood out as it was TINY as was the kid being shouted at by her mother in the warm up, bouncing around in her PC tie and hair in bunches type. I couldn't believe that she was going to do the exact same xc course my friend was and said friend's horse was about 4 times the size of this pony! How can course designers build a course that's suitable enough to decrease the risk of accident but yet still cater for anything from 13.2 ponies up to 18hh solid irish hunter/eventers?

That's what struck me more than bad riding!

 

[Skhosu]

teapot-the ponies tend to go round very well, both ponies and juniors have to be assessed before riding (over here anyway) and unsafe combinations will be warne.d

 

[CaleruxShearer]

[ QUOTE ]
or perhaps we need projections of fences, with lasers to measure whether the horse has "hit" them or not!

[/ QUOTE ]

That would be quite cool! I agree though I would be slightly happier knowing that if i did totally cock it up i wasn't going to kill myself or the horse.
As for the comment in the video that wealthy young riders are being bought horses that are too advanced for them, I have to say I agree, I know a 14 year old girl in my PC whose parents have bought her an advanced eventer, simply because they have the money. Yes, I would love an advanced eventer but I know in reality it would be dangerous because I do not at the moment have the competition experience or riding abilitly to own a horse like that.
.....One day though

 

[teapot]

They do here too BUT surely it's only going to be a matter of time before something happens due to a pony failing to make a big spread fence that was built for some 17hh eventer (I'm stereotyping here but just trying to highlight the two extremes). It's a little bit different if said pony was of the calibre that Teddy O'Connor was and indeed the experience of the person riding him.

But of course for BE - opening it up to juniors equates to more money...

Also wonder if frangible pins were designed to work under the weight of a pony instead of a horse?

 

[Skhosu]

ponies over here aren't allowed to compete above novice. Besides which most of the ponies competing have more talent and fifth legs than a lot of the horses out there.
In Sjing, ponies are jumping 1.30m, eventing they're only being asked to jump 1m/1.10 which is not a great height at all.
There are two extremes of height but I have yet to see it cause a problem.

 

[Daffodil]

Sorry, but where are all these "crap" riders? I've fenced judged at Tweseldown for years (a good course used frequently by horses and riders just beginning their careers or older horses who are not going to progress beyond Intro and PN), and I don't recall seeing one I would class as dangerous. All, and I stress all, struck me as eminently competent, though not perhaps likely to represent us nationally at any stage! The question of ponies jumping fences designed for 17hh horses was been raised. Again, from what I have seen at Tweseldown, (and other courses I've FJ'd at) the ponies (and the riders) are by far the more confident and are usually having a whale of a time. I've yet to witness (thank God) any accident which could be blamed on this. Accidents, even though we all do our very best to avoid them, are always going to occur, at any level, from Into to the Olympics, and in any sport you care to name.

 

[MagicMelon]

MaxP - I agree, some sort of license needs to be introduced here or possibly it could just be a case of being signed off by a qualified trainer. Or even having a better system that the BSJA have vaguely brought which is levels you work towards with your trainer and its signed off, although TBH they havent made it appealing enough. They should encourage this sort of idea for BE and BSJA, whereby say you reach a certain level in training, you get a little bit of money off entries in classes you have shown you are capable of etc.

IMO the introduction of Intro classes and now even smaller pre-intro classes aren't helping the sport because it IS encouraging less experienced riders. Generally, I feel this is what unaffiliated is for. I think everyone should do PC and RC to a decent level before affiliating because IMO a lot of low-level unaffiliated courses are way simpler than a proper BE built course.

I do not think ponies are any more dangerous than horses, many ponies are WAY more agile than a 17hh gangly thing anyway. I do however think making the age younger is wrong, IMO they should still be in Pony Club doing rallies etc. and learning as they go. Of course, you get some very decent young riders but they still lack the experience.

Yes, accidents will always occur with horses BUT this should not be an excuse to allow these deaths to keep happening. 14 or 16 deaths (cant remember exactly) since 2006 is NOT acceptable. It would not be for any other sport so why do we accept it?? Far less deaths occured years ago, they are getting more frequent which I blame a big part on lower riding standards and courses being built far less "big" but more technical. You only have to look at Badminton when it first began and how the course is now.

 

[kerilli]

Daffodil, you obviously aren't seeing the riders i'm seeing then! i'm not hyper-critical, there are lots of very good and very competent riders out there at the lower levels, and plenty of others who i would regard as safe passengers on sensible horses (nothing wrong with that!) but i've seen some truly terrible riding this year at novice level, at combinations such as coffins as well as at simple let-up fences. although tbh when i was fence judging i only saw 2 all day ride badly at 'our' fence (and one of them had a horse fall at the next fence.)
there's no way around it, our sport is one of the few where you can pay with your life for an error by yourself or your horse, and i very strongly believe we need to single out the ones who look really dodgy and make them improve before they become another statistic. it's not an insult to say "you're not good enough YET" imho.

 

[nicolajoyce]

Hi there, I dont comment very often, but I feel people are actually losing sight of the thread a bit. We arent here to debate the lower levels of eventing as you dont often get rotational falls at pre intro, intro, prenovice. I certainly cant remember any reports of deaths at these levels. If people who lack a bit of experience want to compete at these levels, they are small enough for the horses to help the riders out, and dont we see that happening alot!
I think the debate is about the higher levels and the amount of rotational falls and deaths, it seems to me people have the attitude "if you dont ride properly or make a mistake then that is what happens" I think this is unfair to say, Darren Cha Chas fall certinaly didnt look like rider error, or neither the poor girl at Hartpury seemed to be. So instead of slating peoples riding we need to look at a way that the fences can allow for peoples mistakes, after all we are only human...

 

[kerilli]

some of the very bad falls have been at the lower levels, i believe.

 

[nicolajoyce]

sorry I must have missed them, who has died recently through a rotational fall at into or pre novice?

 

[nicolajoyce]

Re: Licensing. I can see the point of this, but can everyone honestly see BE refuse a license and run the risk of losing a registration fee? This sport is about money, it cannot run without it. Do the people who think that licensing would work, honestly think that any of the 14 people who have died through eventing would have been refused a licence? From what I here they were all competant riders. I completley agree something has to happen, but riders will miss and make mistakes whatever level they are at and sometime those mistakes are fatal. Just because someone has passed a test to say they are competant to event does not mean they will not miss to a fence. I really do not see how this would reduce the number of falls and deaths. I am very sad to say, that if something doesnt change in the sport it wont be around for long, but I think that change will be that the fences become breakable because I honestly dont see any other answers. People dont deserve to die just because they have ridden badly to a fence- we all do it.

 

[kerilli]

very true.
i don't think any of the recent fatalaties have been at the lower levels, but iirc some a few years ago were.

 

[Orangehorse]

That was pretty scarey stuff.

It reminds me of a x country clinic years ago that I attended when Mike Tucker quoted Frank Weldon, not very politely, that the "art" of cross country riding as "one in the gob and two in the guts." I certainly remembered that.

Some of those pictures showed horses ridden into the bottom of the fences, they didn't appear to be presented in a balanced manner at all. The horses were faced with a fence and tried to jump it, had they been less honest they might have refused.

 

[teapot]

[ QUOTE ]
I do however think making the age younger is wrong, IMO they should still be in Pony Club doing rallies etc. and learning as they go. Of course, you get some very decent young riders but they still lack the experience.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's what I was trying to get at - yes ponies are quicker thinkers, more agile etc but it's the age of the riders of said ponies that was the reason for my mentioning of it. It's these same kids that in the PC have to ask the DC whether they can ride in spurs but yet can go round an intro course without having to get any sort of opinion. Yes intro is the most basic level etc etc but say a kid hasn't got a secure enough leg to ride in spurs, what makes it have a secure enough leg to go xc?

The one I saw at Smiths could have been no older than 11 or 12 at the most which is what surprised me most. There was an article in Eventing about it when the rules first changed and someone is quoted as saying "I wouldn't let my 11yr old kid roam the streets at night so why would I let them go xc on their own?" An extreme example but a fair point.

Maybe I'm just old school in the sense that the PC does such a wonderful job at getting these kids experience and increasing talent then to jump ship and head to BE at more expense is beyond me. I'd have killed to have been able to be in the PC as a kid

 

[MagicMelon]

teapot - Agree totally. I did the whole Pony Club thing from a 9yo and only felt ready to affiliate BE when I was about 19! Because even back then (6 yrs ago) people generally felt they needed to be established, I certainly felt I wasnt good enough before then even though I was happily doing open level PC! Nowadays, it seems to be the norm for kids as young as 12 to go straight in at BE level which I find just crazy. What made affiliating a bit more special was that you felt you had achieved something, but now riding amongst 12 yr old kids just doesn't do that anymore. YES there are a lot of 12yr old kids who are probably better riders than some adults but I still feel their place is in PC where they can keep on gaining experience. BE should follow on AFTER PC or RC. You get to the point in PC or RC where you want more, ie. more of a challenge etc. and IMO that is exactly when BE should come into play.

 

[MissDeMeena]

I agree.. i haven't read all of this thread, as i gave up when people started going off on one about the standard of riding at the lower levels.. however they are not the people killing themselfs..
A rider licence wouldn't have saved the likes of Caroline Pratt, Polly Phillips, Sherelle Duke, Eleanor Brennan, Simon Long, Peta Beckett, Robert Slade, Jemima Johnson.. to name just a few off the top of my head, all riders riding at 4* level or even team level..

What i 100% agree on is the Jim Wofford "Eventing Lives in the Balance" article.. And am slightly shocked that once again (the same as last time someone posted a link to it) no one is picking up on what he has said about the influence of the dressage now a days.. and the new standards to which we are schooling our horses!! They are not thinking for themselfs so much any more..

 

[daisycrazy]

Haven't watched this video, but I was annoyed that the BBC (Clare Balding) interviewed Princess Haya about sport safety and proceeded to show a whole series of falls from the BBC archives. Not only were most of them well out of date, but this was tasteless and unnecessary and certainly not what the sport required to be broadcast at peak Olympic viewing times. I had to turn it off. Having had a nasty rotational fall recently the last thing I wanted was to be bombarded with video clips of them.

 

[daisycrazy]

And I thoroughly disagree with the too much dressage argument. Real dressage should put the horse in excellent balance, keep it forward thinking, strengthen its hindquarters and improve the communications and harmony between horse and rider. "Dressage" by domination may be a different matter, but even then I don't imagine it has a significant impact on the likelihood of a fall.

 

[DollyPentreath]

Off topic slightly but has anyone just received this month's Eventing magazine? Thought the Prolog mentioned on page 22 looked very interesting. I must admit I'm inclined to agree with the filmaker that fences that break are perhaps the only way forward. Yes, horses may be schooled differently and no longer hunted like they used to be but this isn't likely to change. Furthermore the majority of riders killed are all experienced horsemen and women. Only a matter of time before 'roll cage' style body protectors are mandatory? I think so..

Also, from the curent FEI website 'The current data, collected over the last five years, which reveals that most serious accidents occur at one- and two-star level, is comprehensive but does not include national competition statistics, nor a breakdown of fence statistics for the different levels of competition.' Personally, for this reason, I can't see licencsing making a big impact on fatalities in the sport eventing.. However, there's no arguing it can only improve standards but at a, no doubt, monetary cost.

 

[ponyclubnicole]

That article makes such perfect sense. Thanks for putting it up.