The last time I jumped judged at an unrecognized horse trial I was told by walky talky to pull up a rider who had been eliminated during her xc ride. I did this as she was approaching my jump, the bank. I was on the edge of the gallop path walking towards her holding up my hand as she approached yelling that she was eliminated. She slowed a bit (still galloping), swerved around me, and yelled “what?” as she excellerated and jumped the bank. After that she pulled up and walked off. She knew full well I told her to stop. I reported her but nobody batted an eye about it. I was pretty appalled.
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Well…
Kay Morel was originally from Ontario.
Jordan McDonald was from Ontario.
These incidents are never far from home.
Awful. :no: Condolences to all of Kat and Kerry’s connections.
Are there any eyewitness accounts on what happened …? What type of table on what terrain, what did the fence look like, where it was situated? I watched a GoPro replay of another rider’s fences in Intermediate and the quality was not great enough to assess contributing factors like terrain, ground line, approximation to stabling/housing, etc… I do not understand why governing officials are so tight-lipped about details coming to light. Especially when it seems like the onus of promoting change and improving safety is on people outside of the governing organization…
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I, too, am sorry for the loss of this young woman and her lovely mare. It is a tragedy that needs never to happen again. But, it will, unless we can get more safeguards in place, and soon!
Many years ago, I was an Instructor. I felt responsible if one of my students came off, so I would not let them move up, until they had mastered certain basic skills. I lost a lot of students, because of this. They went with the people, who would let them jump, before they had developed a seat at the canter. One girl had a lovely young TB. Her “coach/instructor” let her go Novice in the first year of going BN. Then, the next year she was going Training. Eventually, her lovely horse shut down and began stopping. I did confront the Instructor who told me, “What am I supposed to do? She wanted to move up, so I let her.” This is the attitude that will get someone killed. Good Instructors insist that their students move up when they are ready to move up. No questions asked.
Everyone has goals. Some riders want to make “The Team.” (Personally, now that I am in my upper 60’s, mine is to make it back to BN. 
) Moving up the levels quickly allows for there to be holes in the training. There is nothing wrong with requiring that riders have 4 or 5 competitions at a level, where you end with a number and with no cross country jumping penalties, before you are allowed to move up. There needs to be some standardization for the levels. If you meet those standards, then you can move up.
CD’s need to be held accountable, if someone dies on one of their courses. I don’t mean getting sued. I mean that they are not allowed to be a CD for a year and they must complete continuing education. I believe that Derek di Grazia should be in charge of helping new CD’s become better. No more CMP teaching CD’s here in the USA. He ruined a really good up and coming CD from our area. She was awesome, before he got hold of her.
Stop level creep! Someone had a corner at BN last year. Granted, it was not very wide, or skinny, but it still was built as such. Shouldn’t the BN and Novice levels be to teach a horse how to gallop in control, jump out of stride and introduce new things like water, ditches and banks?
I began running ''Combined Training" back in the 60’s, so have been at this for over 50 years. “Eventing” now makes me sad. Technicality at the lower levels is not fun for the horse or the rider. Riders should be coming off of cross country shouting, “WhooHoo”, with bugs in their teeth. What I see are riders who are thankful for having made it around without being hurt.
We need TD’s to listen to rider’s concerns. Robert Stevenson was one of the best TD’s that I have ever had at an event, because he not only listened to my concerns, but he gave me a ride on his golf cart to see the issues. He agreed with me and fixed them. I had a CD who argued with the rule in the official USEA Rulebook (back when they sent you copies just for joining.) He said, “That rule is obsolete and we are going to get it changed.” It was not changed yet, but he chose to ignore the rule. Stuff like that should not happen. Having Rider Reps is good, except when they are riding 4 horses and have 10 students. You cannot find them anywhere and they send you directly to the TD anyway. Officials ask for riders to be accountable, but they need to be also.
Off of my soapbox. I probably need to don the “Flame suit”, but this is how I feel. Take the words of this old lady, who has loved this sport for a very long time, with a grain of salt. I probably will stick to unrecognized, more low key, events, until this sport gets straightened out.
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I am no longer able to event, but I understand love of the sport and how much heart and soul riders put into eventing. I am gutted by the tragic loss of Katherine Morel and her horse and send my deepest condolences to her family and connections.
I appreciate the thoughtful responses on this thread. I don’t know if Maggie Deatrick posts or lurks here but she just posted a column on Eventing Nation that reflects many of the views in this thread and throughout the eventing community. I think there needs to be a grass roots movement supporting investigation and transparency in the names of all the riders who have died. And then, with the help of people like Reed, remedies must be undertaken to identify and minimize risk.
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We had a rotational, bad one, at PT. Couple of years ago, it could’ve been deadly, luckily wasn’t. I think we’ve been very lucky to not have any and I hope it continues that way. Maybe Ontario just isn’t as derby-like as the states are.
I do wonder, are these horses who are coming from Ontario ready? I know they’ve schooled all winter (in a flat arena) to then ship to Florida in Jan/Feb to show the few months. Are they really fit and ready? I’ve seen some ship and show within a week or two of settling in. Maybe the legs aren’t ready, the riders not fit? So many maybe’s, but its time to start nitpicking.
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I’m glad you guys love your sport, but I will never get on a horse. Too many people have died or been seriously injured and I don’t feel like dying today.
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I thought on paper her results would indicate she could move up -what do you do about that?
NASCAR has done (much much more money behind it of course) which allowed a driver to survive a horrific accident caused by “normal” race strategies just a few weeks ago. Even in the [professional world of NASCAR all responsibility for safety is not left up to the divers’ skills-it has evolved to allow for human error even among elite drivers.
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right, the horse that died at Glen Arden that NO ONE including Equestrian Canada, Equestrian Ontario and Ontario Eventing Association said not one thing about, and three years ago the girl before me had a rotational over the Training table at Glen Oro and I was held on course over an hour. In hindsight should have just retired and went home. It was almost 6pm adn Im sure the horse didnt see the fence because of the suns glare. Blatent safety issue.
@JER I feel sick reading that.
Now I am spending my time replying to comments of those are now suggesting we all buy air vests and that air vests should be mandatory. Check the reply on this article; https://eventingnation.com/a-plea-for-transparency/
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That’s your prerogative, Brad.
Passion like ours can’t be contained into “well don’t do it.” It’s hard to explain. There really isn’t a moment of any day that I’m not thinking about horses. Watching rides. Trying to learn something. It absolutely consumes me.
Something even I won’t do? Ride a motorcycle on the open road. No way, no thanks.
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Um, what?
It has saved me once already when my horse and I had a rotation fall in the warm up for cross country. It was so good I got back on completed my cross country and qualifed for the AEC’s.
Since when can you have a rotational fall in XC warm-up and then go out on course?
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She’s posted on this thread a couple times. Silly me, I forgot to remind myself of her screen name before hitting reply.
Emily
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I know! I was thinking the same thing!! Like, I think it is allowed if you see the medic, but I’m sorry if you have a ROTATIONAL at any point, you should be done for the day. DONE.
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@Divine Comedy I believe
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That’s the part I can’t wrap my brain around either. WHAT???
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Has any riders family ever tried to sue for a ‘wrongful death’? Who all could be listed as responsible? The venue, course designer, property owner, ??? Honestly in this day and age of lawsuits for all I’m surprised it hasn’t happened.
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Condolences to the family and friends of both rider and horse. Losing a loved one in this manner causes unimaginable pain.
I am not a current event rider or trainer but I have been a professional in the business for a lot longer than probably many of you have been alive. While I specialize in the H/J industry, I have done combined training in the past and have had many students who compete in that discipline.
One of the biggest issues of combined training is the lack of a consistent set of eyes on each rider all the way around a course. Yes a jump judge is at each fence, but many are volunteers without a knowledgeable eye. Yes the TD should be around to watch, but often they have other duties to attend to and can’t watch every rider. So riders are out on course without a specific person watching the entire ride - often because no one can see the entire ride even if they move around. So who sees the problems and discusses this with the rider?
Many bemoan the H/J trainers whose clients can’t go in the ring if they aren’t there. But the trainer is there to improve the horse and rider and make comments on the riding. Combined training does not have this person. So riders don’t know if their cross country riding is below par until something happens.
Someone above suggested a rider ability score for each round - that’s a damned good idea! Someone else mentioned that a cross country round should ride like a hunter round - smooth and even just faster - YUP! There is NO reason for running and then jerking on your horse’s mouth 1-3 strides before a jump at any level in any discipline. That’s just bad riding no matter if it’s in a ring or a field. If your horse is unbalanced before a jump, it means the horse hasn’t learned to carry itself correctly and you are putting the both of you at risk. While I certainly don’t think hunter riding is the be all to end all, there is a lot to be learned from putting in a smooth round with all the jumps matching and out of stride with no discernible change in pace.
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Yes.
There was a lawsuit in California concerning the death of a YR on XC at Galway. A YR who really shouldn’t had been out there and already maxed out her stops but continued on despite efforts to pull her up.
IIRC, the lawsuit was unsuccessful.
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I haven’t said “it’s too soon” or “it’s too difficult”. Please re-read my responses. I agree we need to talk about it and have even a more systematic approach to analyzing these things. It was a few people’s comments that were upsetting. I also chose my words carefully and said that it was implied- I know no one came out and said that. The posts I was referring to were not analyzing mistakes in a productive way, they seemed purely judgmental and blaming to me. Well, everyone is free to interpret things differently. When a friend has just died perhaps it’s harder to see past tone to some friendly, helpful intent that may or may not be there.
But please don’t say I’m trying to shut down discussion. If you look back, I’m trying to contribute to meaningful discussion as well.
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