How do we stop these accidents please? ...

Yeah, its when they catch their front end and basically flip tail over head, which usually means they land on the rider unfortunately, and that is a lot of weight to come down on someone. With frangiable pins - the top pole is meant to drop given enough force onto it which hopefully messes up the rotation of the fall so they don't do a full flip.
 
Can I just add - everyone is talking about the time being too quick but once again would like to point out rotational falls do NOT happen at speed.
Does anybody know the percentage of rotational falls in the last year of these tragic accidents by any chance?
 
Exactly GI, I just wonder if thats the cause, it used to be gallop flat out at these great big, huge, imposing fences and now its a case of slow canters for the many combinations that have taken over.

How often do you see a rotational fall at a big ditch and hedge fence? You don't, because the ride has got the speed up.
 
Yep precisely! It used to be about big bold scary fences you galloped at and if you left a leg you were sent into orbit, but these days its about setting up and slowing down because theres a skinny followed by a corner followed by a drop....

Though i also have to think that fitness - both rider and horse - has to play a part in this, particularly at the "lower" levels (novice etc).
 
I was talking to someone the other day about this - who rode at top international level, Badminton, Boekelo, WEG etc - and we came to the conclusion that it IS the technicality of the sport now that is causing these accidents. She was saying the only time she ever saw a rotational fall in the "old style eventing" was when (I can't remember which event she said) there was a big tiger trap over the edge of a hill, and this girl came into it and just got slower and slower and the horse was quite gutsy and went for it, but got a leg left behind because it really didn't have anything to jump from. Can't remember which event she said, but it was a big 3*/4*.

I've also got Training the Cross Country Horse by Andrew Nicholson - ALL the fences are rider frightners that you had to be bold and gallop at.

I also think as GI said, it does partially come down to fitness, but if they have removed the roads and tracks and steeplechase elements from top level 3 days how can they expect people anywhere down the level to be as fit as the used to HAVE to be.

Just a few thoughts...
 
i think there are two options. either accept that it is a risk sport which we choose to do in full awareness of the risks, in which case the accidents simply can't be stopped, or make every fence frangible. e.g. use polystyrene logs, which would look like the real thing but be easily supported by frangible pins. no more benches, tables, pheasant feeders, any of those big imposing fences we've all loved jumping for years.
it would cost a LOT of money to make every fence on every course frangible. and i personally wouldn't want to ride a horse over old, solid fences after it had jumped courses of frangible fences and perhaps learnt that these ones fall over too...
 
That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is keep all the benches, tables, pheasant feeders we've all loved jumping, but make the courses ones you can really ride at, not show jump round. THAT is where the accidents are, not the individual fences.
 
umm, no, these accidents are often at the big, old-fashioned fences. the latest one was at a table fence, some of the other fatalities have been at big spreads. the one last year was at a road crossing iirc, a fairly simple upright fence which the horse simply, and tragically, got too close to.
these big fences can't be show-jumped, they have to be ridden forwards to, but the bare fact is that if you get it very wrong to a big solid fence, or the horse makes a mistake, it is pure dumb luck whether you will get away with it or not.
 
The latest one was actually at a gate - the first claim that it was a table was not true.
I think instead of looking at the change of course we need to look at how easy it is to progress to higher levels because clearly there are people riding round bigger more challenging courses without the knowledge or fitness to do so safely.
 
sorry, the report in H&H said it was a table too.
the fact is, and will always be, that if you are jumping big solid fences at some speed, and you miss, or the horse slips, or doesn't jump high enough, or anything else goes wrong, then it simply is in the lap of the gods whether you get away with it. it is just not possible to get away from that fact.
 
I agree Kerilli. I had some falls doing Jnr OIT's at rider frightening fences. I was okay (although quite bruised!!) because I didn't show jump them (I had no chance!!). TBH my horse at the time was too strong for me and took some flyers. Well I came off but landed nowhere near him and on one occasion he fell as well, but the speed catapulted us away from each other. I think there could be some truth in the SJ fences theory - sometimes.
 
I mean bouncy bouncy hooky canter at big solid fences, when ideally you should be jumping them out of a forward canter/perhaps gallop on a longer stride.
 
oooo I'm not suggesting that XC fences should mainly be SJ'd! sorry just re-read your post!!!!
blush.gif
 
no, i understand. tbh i think the causes of the bad accidents are fairly random - some are from horses/riders going for a flyer and then trying to get another stride in, or hitting the top. others are from hooking and getting too deep. some are just from the horse not jumping high enough or leaving a leg. there is no definite culprit, i think.
 
that's the point. you can't prevent them. any more than you can prevent people from dying on the roads, even though cars are so much safer than years ago, etc etc. sometimes people's luck just runs out, absolutely awful as it is.
frown.gif
frown.gif
 
there was a rule originally that if you broke a pin, you were eliminated, because it was taken as read that you would have suffered a horse fall if the fence hadn't been frangible. this seems to have been dropped now, because there were pics of a rider breaking a frangible pin at one of the autumn 3-days yet still going clear, i think.
i've jumped fences (e.g. at Weston 2*) which i was told later were frangible, but i wouldn't have ridden them any differently if i'd known they were frangible.
 
Frangible pins won't always be the answer.

I just feel that the courses are too technical now and this has two major effects. The horses are travelling slower, so if there's a rotational fall the rider is far more likely to end up under the horse... At greater speed there's more chance of being thrown clear.

And the other effect - as mentioned before on here - is that the horses have to be better schooled to cope with the technical elements and, therefore, become more reliant on their riders.

Could we see a return to the big, galloping courses of the 1980s?

There must be answers somewhere... If the event directors will only look for them
 
I'm passionate about safety Here are some suggestions which I hope you find helpful. I work in the safety industry and I've been on BETA training for hat and body protector fitting.

1. Get a smart horse that is good enough for the job - ie one that does not leave his legs behind or knock too many jumps (preferably irish / TB)

2. Make sure your body protector and hat fit properly. Just because the body protector carries BETA Level 3 does not make it safe unless it fits you properly - you should have good movement in it to help you roll away away in the event of a fall (look at the www.KANTEQ.com website - I tried this on and although it felt heavy when I first picked it up once on it fits really well, gives excellent coverage and you can move very freely)

3. Make sure your hat fits - its important that goes down far enough to cover the two bones at the back of your skull (the testing houses do not test this! although the plonk the top and the sides) The expensive hats are not always the safest although they look good.

4. Make sure your horse and you are fit
 
I agree with your husband.
Years ago around the time princess Anne/Mark Phillips were competing I groomed at many events for a friend, and the courses were very different to nowadays.
Big yes, but a bold horse had nothing to fear. Now they seem to penalise any horse that doesn't jump exactly as it's rider commands, and that's not always a good thing. How many times out hunting has a "good" horse found a fifth leg after a rider error and got someone out of a sticky situation?
I think the fences should be much more horse friendly and less technical, when you get things like that "target" fence that has lots of horses refusing, it's bad course design, not bad horses..
I don't recall anyone being killed either, or is that just my memory fading?
 
My tuppence worth..... How many people are actually taught how to jump XC? When I taught in the UK I was fortunate enough to have a decent enough XC course to teach over, and you taught people how to jump at proper paces, and get them out of their 'SJing' ideas! I've seen some nasty falls (none fatal, but all avoidable) by people who come into big solid fences at a collected canter and don't have the basic ooomph to get over! You could break down water jumps / steps / banks / ditches / etc etc building up the skills needed to tackle the larger more complex elements. Recently I was told that half the instructors there don't teach XC and the others only teach over the 'safer' fences, a product of increased insurance no doubt, but even when I was there, there were only 2 schools in a large radius that taught XC, the rest learnt XC out hunting. Whilst I think hunting is a great idea, you certainly don't have time to break down the fences, more a 'hope and pray' time! PC rallies etc still do XC (she says... I assume they do?) but how often are those? Half the time, these folks hunting / PCing are learning themselves, and trying to teach a green horse as well - at least learning at a riding school would give you the horses who know the course/fences etc, so you take one novice element out. I think more education, better use of controlled environment (skilled horses with novices, not novice and novice etc) over the smaller fences, build the basic skills (can you imagine anyone SJing over a 4'6'' course first time out - but that is exactly what some folks do when they hunt for the first time, head over big fences/ditches etc without the basics) etc. It is scary the number of people who 'event' when the only real fences they see are at competitions - no wonder accidents happen.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top