Cross Country Blips? Should remounting be allowed again?

[kalidascope]

[QUOTE=Anne FS;6468694]
Remember a few years ago a video came out with a rider flogging an obviously tired horse over the end of a course? I can’t remember where or when, but it was a female rider and the outcry, including here on COH, was tremendous.[/QUOTE]
I remember that. I want to say Amy Tyron.

@Anne FS;6468694

There were also incidents in previous Olympic competitions of horses crashing and burning - I remember specifically water jump videos of exhausted horses from (where? eastern Europe?) struggling mightily.

They struggled/crashed-and-burnt after continuing after a first fall? Or are you speaking generally?

@mayhew;6468509

Agreed. It was their choice to compete, and should be their choice to continue or not after a fall.

But a rider with concussion is not able to make a rational, safe decision.

Isn’t that the reasoning behind the ‘adults should choose’ argument? That adults can make rational choices and weigh the risks for themselves? A rider with a head injury no longer falls into that category.

And head injuries can be easy to miss. While a fall does not = concussion, neither the rider nor fence steward is in a position to assess the rider’s fitness to continue, even if they are pretty sure the rider had a ‘clean’ fall.

It’s not uncommon for an eventer to be able to tell you about the time they fell off and can’t remember the rest of their XC - even though they adamantly declared themselves fine and insisted they continued.

It seems blindingly obvious to me that someone with even a mild concussion should not be on a cross country course. And for the record, this is one of the first times I fall into the ‘better safe than sorry’ camps.

[Anne_FS]

My old brain has started working now. It was the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 that caused the huge outcry.

http://review.sportscience.ro/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Donna-de-HAAN.pdf

http://olympics.time.com/2012/07/28/equestrian-eventing-the-olympics-most-dangerous-sport/

Remember? It was after that we saw the huge cooling fans in Atlanta, and Atlanta did a wonderful job of stressing horse welfare which, after Barcelona, had a black eye (real or imagined).

[Anne_FS]

[QUOTE=kalidascope;6468751]
They struggled/crashed-and-burnt after continuing after a first fall? Or are you speaking generally?[/QUOTE]

I can’t remember, sorry to say. Perhaps someone else who can remember those videos will chime in. But they were used to illustrate that riders will not always make the best decision for the welfare of the horse and therefore other rules had to be figured out.

IOW, those horses were obviously too tired /weary/sore/untalented to continue, yet they were not pulled, and instituting the one fall = elimination rule was at least a step towards more horse welfare. I think some of the water jumps were falls in the water, though. I’ll have to see if I can find videos.

[Dramapony_misty]

Landing on feet (and staying on feet like the Japanese rider did)…I say remount with penalties and continue.

Landing anywhere else or fall down after landing on feet…you’re done.

That should be easy enough to enforce as white breeches hide NOTHING! haha.

[Anne_FS]

NY Times overview article from 2008:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/sports/othersports/09equestrian.html?pagewanted=all

http://olympics.time.com/2012/07/28/equestrian-eventing-the-olympics-most-dangerous-sport/

Tracking here: http://horsetalk.co.nz/2012/04/02/eventing-safety/#.UBfjuWFjUsc

http://www.eventing.zzn.com/

[PoohLP]

[QUOTE=klmck63;6467701]
I felt particularly bad for the girl who fell off in the water! That seemed like a total fluke, and she almost managed to climb back on, but her horse wasn’t impressed with her efforts.[/QUOTE]

But for her air jacket deploying, it looked like she could have saved it and stayed on. Wish I could hear if she agreed with that assessment.

[Jumpthemoon16]

I think a “rider pop off” fall where they are clearly landing on their feet, horse is not down whatsoever, should be allowed to remount. No other type of fall.

[fordtraktor]

[QUOTE=Jazzy Lady;6468719]
I don’t know… I have mixed feelings, because I have re-mounted with a pretty severe concussion before, because the adrenaline was running high. It was prelim too, and I had 5 more fences left and I finished. I missed the last fence, and went back and jumped it apparently, but I’ve been told that. I don’t remember jumping the remaining five fences. I could have had a serious accident.

My fall didn’t look too bad, (horse tried to bank a pheasant feeder and got his front hooves caught up on the back lip and pecked on landing) and I just shot off like a bullet, but I rolled. I was on my feet right away. The medics met me at the finish and wouldn’t let me walk.

I think for some people, it really sucks to fall off, but for others, it probably saves an accident waiting to happen, or an injury that the adrenaline didn’t let you know you have.[/QUOTE]

Yep. I got back on a baby after a TBI, had no idea I had a serious injury as I felt OK, a little tumbled but fine. I was happily walking and trotting the youngster around when I rode up to a boarder and said, “What horse am I riding? I don’t remember this horse.” They had to drag me off him to go to the hospital. I kept saying, “I need to ride this horse!” over and over. I had no short-term memory and lost a couple months of long-term memory for a few days. I still don’t remember the week before and day after the accident. To look at me you’d never think I was hurt. When I opened my mouth later it was a different story, but for the first couple minutes after the accident I had been coherent. Apparently it takes a few minutes for your brain to swell and start making you act odd.

Horse had stepped on my head and under the plastic cover, my helmet was in 3 pieces.

Riders are not good self-regulators. For one, we are tough and what seems a little shakeup in the moment can be really quite serious. Now if the horse is off, most of us will be all over ourselves to stop – but for ourselves? Nah.

[Lord_Helpus]

At an event, I was jump judging; an advanced rider who was taking a young horse around its first course fell off at my jump (a 2’9" brush jump. The horse sucked back, was encouraged to jump and, at the least minute thought better of it. RiderSLOWLY slid down the horse’s neck and landed on her butt.

Was she fine to continue? Of course. But how is a rider or a fenc judge to make the coeect decision every time?

Has it been a novice rider in the same situation, she might have actually somer saulted instead of sliding and fractured a vertebrae.

Is it OK for an Advaned rider to continue of she falls at Novice? But not OK for a Novice rider who might not fall as capably?

There is no good decision here.

At least, a fall no longer prevents that rider from coming back on other horses. (In a normal event.)

PLUS the difficulty of the air vest deployment.

[whbar158]

I have more than once hit my head fairly hard on the horses head and still landed on my feet. Freak events I know, but I just don’t like it being a judgement call. As I said earlier some of those “easy” rider falls the horse slipped, caught the jump funny etc I think it is just safer all the way around that once you come off you are done. It sucks but it happens. I am not even talking from a lawsuit point of view either, just from a total safety of horse and rider.

[Gnep]

Weatherford,
Yes and No, but where do you draw the line.
It is a black and white question.

I have been around the sport since I was 11, 1966, thats when I rode my first one, my big brothers I horse, got DQ to many refusals and not willing to stop till the finish line. My very first chew out by a judge and not the last one.

But after my very last crash my Doc show me the scans, I got back on and finished, it was still permitted than.

It gave me real pause, every concusion I have had in my live was traced on that scan, you can map them with scans, small or large. It was very impresive.

I do not remember finishing after my last crash, I do not remember my second ride, all I remember is sitting in my trailer nursing a broken wrist, a huge haeadache and everybody going home.

I think the rule is good, guts and glory are ok, but they are not nessesary.

Times change, I do not like it, I do not like any more todays eventing. But I am sure glad that I can still wipe my sorry a$$ without help.

[mg]

[QUOTE=ponysize;6468738]
This is a RIDING competition. If you come off, you should be done. Period. Why should you be allowed to continue? You came off the horse.[/QUOTE]

This is my feeling as well. Having grown up in the H/J world, the idea of still being part of the competition after having fallen off just baffles me. Staying on the horse is the most basic element of the competition; if you can’t manage to do that, you should be eliminated.

[Selene]

Count me in the camp for NO - fall means elimination. I’ve been the little kid who demanded to be let back on after a fall, and like fordtraktor, later discovered a huge concussion. It was a silly fall, but luckily when I was legged me back on I nearly fell off again so my mother got me off. Later I asked who I had been riding, where it was, and why I wasn’t at school.

A more minor incident happened when I fell off and landed on my feet. I heard a crack, but thought my finger had just dislocated so I whacked it back in, and got on for the rest of my lesson. The next week (after I still couldn’t move it) I went to the doc and found out it was completely broken through.

I think as riders it is SO ingrained that you get back up after a fall that we’re willing to completely ignore our own pain, or if we’re not in the right frame of mind we’ll default to getting back on. Combine that with the adrenaline of cross country, and it’s just not a good plan.

[Anne_FS]

[QUOTE=mg;6470629]
Having grown up in the H/J world, the idea of still being part of the competition after having fallen off just baffles me. Staying on the horse is the most basic element of the competition; if you can’t manage to do that, you should be eliminated.[/QUOTE]

It doesn’t baffle me. It makes sense to me considering the roots of Eventing. Up until 1952 only commissioned male military officers were allowed to compete. Quit after a fall? Not happening.

Yes, I can see coming from the Hunter world you’d be shocked at someone who “can’t manage” to stay on, but Eventing is different. It’s roots are in warfare, military, even foxhunting, where the riding is open, uneven country at speed, and therefore falls happen. This ain’t a hunter line in a show ring. I’m not knocking “hunters,” but for people who routinely sit on 1200 lbs. of snorting TB and point them across rough country, or GALLOP after hounds down a heavily-wooded mountain side hoping their knees and an oak tree don’t collide, I understand that “a little fall” is nothing to them and they want to go on.

Because of that attitude, the rules have had to change for the protection of horse & rider.

[2bayboys]

[QUOTE=mayhew;6468509]
Agreed. It was their choice to compete, and should be their choice to continue or not after a fall. Are there any other sports in which a fall constitutes elimination? Certainly not gymnastics, and those are minors![/QUOTE]

I watched the two bicycle road races and witnessed several crashes where the riders immediately got back on and continued, then had doctors in vehicles drive alongside them on their bikes and tend to them while they were BLEEDING. Some of them were obviously in pain and clearly injured, yet they were allowed to finish. Why is riding any different?

[Anne_FS]

Because of the horse - a living being in the fall, not a bicycle. And because of the fatalities.

There have been far more fatalities in Eventing competitions, fatalities of both horse and rider, than in cycling competitions. Far more.

When Eventing had that disastrous year awhile back, there were articles published that if any other sport had as many deaths occur during actual competition it would’ve been shut down. Imagine 12 on-the-field-during-a-game deaths in one year in the NFL, the NBA, in gymnastics or soccer.