Opposition Buzz/Nicola Wilson rotational fall

SpottedCat said:
You'd think people would be a bit wiser to these things after that horrible fall in the pony 2* a few years back at the old Chepstow where the pony got his foot caught in a life ring decorating a boat fence and had a horrible fall. People forget things very fast!
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Hmm, I don't know, hopefully at BE and the FEI all this stuff gets disseminated, but I do think amongst riders etc there is a bit of a culture of 'don't talk about the bad stuff.' And sometimes it takes something terrible happening before people even realise there is a danger... I mean, we all jumped "sharks' teeth" fences for years, where the diagonal parts went down to a V, before 1 unlucky horse managed to get a foot in the V and pulled back. Now they are built differently, with a big gap at the bottom of the V. Ditto having big stones fixed as groundlines, close together... 1 poor horse got its foot caught between them and pulled back. But I only heard about that because a friend was a friend of the rider...
The 'still/moving water' thing isn't a new one, I know that they had a fence judge chucking a pebble in to make ripples somewhere before, and it solved the problem.
 
MagicMelon said:
I dont see how that would work for eventing. On a motorbike, the rider generally moves pretty smoothly (so when they move violently it's easy for the motion sensors to go off). But on a horse as we all know, you can get thrown about quite violently but still stay in the saddle. Wouldnt then fancy an air jacket going off while still on!
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Well, they go off with the rider still in the saddle now!
I don't know how they set the sensors, I didn't realise bike riders' were set off by a violent movement. I was thinking of something more like a tiny mercury tilt switch (small, cheap, safely encased in something) which triggers only when the rider starts tipping up (head below heels) beyond a certain point, say, because I think we'll all agree that that happens in 99% of falls.
 
Holy :eek:

So glad they are both ok, although I bet a little sore!

Even the best aren't immune to making a mistake :( Hopefully they will both bounce back.
 
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