Rotational falls and modern cross country tracks - question

[fishax]

I was expalining to a friend today that I had been reading the safety articles that have featured recently and that it has been suggested that the rotational falls seem to occur when horses are negotiating more slowly the more technical fences. This is rather than galloping at speed where rotational falls seem to be less common.I made the comparison to national hunt where riders are thrown clear usually.
She asked me why the style of courses had changed and

I was at a loss for an accurate answer - can anyone tell me why XC courses include so many more technial questions these day?

 

[Gamebird]

I would guess because there is a limit to how big/wide you can make fences and, in general, riding, training and horses have improved over the last 40 years or so so the courses have had to get more difficult. So without the option to build bigger and bigger there has been an element of techniclity introduced instead.

Having said that the profiles of fences are more friendly - more solid tables and roll tops. Watching old vids of Badminton/Burghley from the 70s and 80s what struck me was that most fences were 'open' ie. upright rails or oxers which allow much less margin for error. I think now you can wing a horse at a roll top and if you're wrong the horse can bank it and be much less likely to fall, hence encouraging sloppier riding.

An example from Badminton in the 80s would be the huge 'Little' Badminton Drop, followed on a short related distance by a bounce of upright rails. Nowadays the bounce would be an arrowhead, or at the very least rolltops instead of rails.

 

[TableDancer]

FWIW though, rotationals have occurred at a wide variety of fences, quite frequently the straightforward "let-up" fences as well as the technical ones. NH jockeys are thrown clear partly because of the speed and also their different tack and riding position: trouble is, if eventers adopted these we'd always be falling off

 

[lucretia]

the other difference with NH race fences is that the tops of them have a little bit of give there fore slowing the 'braking effect' which means the jockeys are thrown clear still travelling at the original speed if you see what i mean. and also the stirrups can be shorter as they are travelling on a flat surface at much greater speed which also facilitates their being ejected from the saddle.

 

[Firewell]

I think as well that when horses are racing, they are brush fences so if a horse leaves a leg behind the falls although sometimes awful arent as rotational as the falls from a solid fence.

My opinion not that its worth anything is that on modern XC courses there are areas where you have to showjump technical fences and fences that require galloping at which in my opinion must disrupt the rythm and be a bit tiring or confusing for the horse.

I do think that people should look at the reasons why more eventers have fatal falls then those who do team chasing or hunting. XC was meant to replicate hunting initially and was about galloping across country jumping natural hedges, timber and ditches. Its not like that at all anymore, nothing on a XC course looks natural to me!