What happened in Tryon?
The horse got a foot caught in the martingale and couldn’t land properly. She broke her ankle and a rib.
Horses… 
Oh, no! That stinks.
Was the horse ok?
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Yikes! That’s one of my biggest fears!
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And this is why I hate standing martingales. I’ve had to cut a few horses out of them when they caught a foot.
I am really sorry this happened.
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Doesn’t have to be a standing martingale-- have seen more than one get caught on the bottom end of a martingale, the part that runs from the chest to the girth. Usually the shoe gets stuck, somehow.
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I’ve seen a couple of different videos of that one, and it is super, super, super scary to see.
Add that to the long list of things around horses that you would never imagine until you’ve seen it happen. And then after you’ve seen it once, you never want to see it happen again.
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zips flamesuit
It’s almost like, maybe, we shouldn’t tie horses heads to their chests. 🤷
Definitely not trying to victim blame and I feel terrible for the rider because certainly anything can happen at any time. This is just a statement on martingales in general.
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To be fair, I just watched a video today of a horse that fell in the step after the jump because its hind foot somehow got caught in the shoe of the front foot. Not like it stepped on itself, the hind foot was stuck to the front. We can try to make this sport as safe as possible and horses will still find a way to make the sport dangerous.
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For sure
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There are things that run there that are not tying a horse’s head to its chest, but sure…assume the worst.
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I have seen it twice with running martingales. It is terrifying.
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I genuinely can’t think of anything that connects a bit/noseband to somewhere else on the horse’s body other than something designed to restrict the horse’s head/neck movement.
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Breast plate, belly girth, yada, yada.
I think the ones I’ve seen involved the horse getting a bar shoe caught on the snap on the bottom of a belly girth. So the horse could not put that foot back down when he was landing after the jump. Extremely scary.
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Yes, I’ve seen a horse get caught in the breastplate strap, the part that runs from the girth to the connection at mid-chest. No martingale attachment to the bridle at all. That horse somersalted but luckily nobody was hurt.
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Saw one hung up with the belly guard. Sort of got one of those yes,no,yes,no spots ending up sliding into the base, ended up on its knees and belly then got a hind foot between guard and belly trying to get up. Fortunately horse froze until a couple of gate guys got the saddle ungirthed and helped him back up. Rider was thrown clear by the stop, think she got a collar bone.
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Alright fair enough I stand corrected.
I still hate martingales 
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Sorry for the basic question - but why doesn’t martingale leather break if a horse gets a foot caught? I would have guessed it would be like a leather halter or reins. It didn’t occur to me this was yet another way horses could injure themselves and humans. 
As a guess, because the horse’s body and their foot are both traveling toward the ground, instead of the body being stationary and the foot yanking away from it, there’s not enough actual force to snap the leather.
I’ve also seen horses get their foot caught just on the girth, on the D-ring or carabiner clip on a belly guard. I’m glad more girths are coming with a significant guard on the clip now, we used to tape over them if we felt there might be a problem
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