This report is very interesting!! It shows that course designers and venues have significant correlation to rider accidents. It also shows that frangible devices INCREASE risks.
The report is actually authored by statisticians and epidemiologists.
Makes you wonder how the data is being utilized internally?
USEA has access to Equiratings just as FEI, and GB, IRE, AUS federations do. https://www.equiratings.com/#focus
A given roadway has portions lined with a guardrail. Its probably safe to say that there is increased risk of crashing on the portions of road protected by guardrail when compared to portions of road without any protection. It’s probably not the guardrail that is the risk increaser.
The course designer/venue influence is a bit of an elephant in the room. They list that finding but refrain from fleshing it out. We are looking at a pretty small data set that we could probably complete using web search and info already shared in other “safety” threads. Original Poster could then analyze the data for us in short order.
Given the OP is actually asking for ideas as to how to analyze the data, I suspect she doesn’t actually know how to do multivariant analyses.
As you should know, one can not prove the negative (would an accident happen without the guardrail), you are making an assumption that two different parts of a road are equivalent. They aren’t thus the need for Chi squared methods. Therefore the guardrail could increase the risk of injury by its presence even though it prevents the car from going off the cliff.
unintended consequences.
The data is flawed in the FIE report.
It does not include the idea of why the jump was there. Up or down does not cut it.
It misrepresent course design. Every course builder should fill out a small from, why this combi, why this jump., why use this terrain feature, why this sequence.
In order to understand, we have to have a complete picture. We can not analyze one jump, we need the whole sequences, what was before the jump and what followed. We need the ride information, what happened during the ride, before the crash.
Why the before and the follow up, it influences the rider. If a MF was before the jump and it was a let up for the next MF the riders concentration might be of. We have to find that out, how we built.
I have built jumps, been a apprentice builder and have watched how the course designers work, upper level stuff, too.
Combine that with my riding experience, I think there is very, very few people around who have that experience.
I was shocked, that top National and International designers could not see it, read the terrain and the sequence of the jumps in it.
I told a International Designer and 4 Star rider, when he had me place the jump, This is a nice jump to kill somebody. Who are you to say something like that. I am not shy to explain myself, as you know.
We moved the jump 100 feet. It screwed the course design up for a km, because you have to have a jump every so many feet.
My favored was a builder my age, a been there done it guy, like me. Liked to built for him, he could read the terrain, just like that, never disagreed with him.
If anybody wants to collect data about accidents they truly have to understand course design and building, because it is such a complex matter and how riders are able to see it.
Compare the details of the designer and the riders…
How difficult would it be to have every rider from P upwards to have a GPS attached to the penny not at all.
I know we have been there.
So what you are saying is that we can’t see the Forest for the Trees?
I had a buddy in pony club and when we walked the courses, we would try to jump all the jumps ourselves. Since it was probably training level, we could jump most of them. Maybe we got better info on our course walks since we actually had to negotiate the terrain and elevation characteristics that our horses had to deal with in front of the jump.
No.
The game changer is Prelim and up. The courses become rather complex and become a rat race.
The study has focused on 2 problems, they are very basic, down hill or up hill. They are a very important problem, because of the way a horse jumps, the collection and terrain can help with that, up hill.
But riding those very complex courses is influenced by every jump, every combination and the sequence of them.
If a rider just mastered a rather difficult combination, or a collection of combinations ( exhilaration, hippieness, yeeeeeeeehhhhaaa ) and than gets offered those rather easy let down jumps, big spreads, before the next wild test comes. Is the course design, the philosophy behind it, part of it. The up and down in demand on the rider, loss of focus.
I am not putting you down, ok. I am know to bash everything below training. But if you have ridden only to training level, you need to sit down with a dead honest, pragmatic person and do some course walks, not the for show walks and explain to you how complex the upper level courses are. Most jumps, have a jumping window of less than 2 feet, combinations less than a feet, if you miss that window it gets rather messy. You have to be spot on, 12 inches, get the ruler out, or 24 inches.
Every single one of us who have ridden upper level know how important rhythm is and than push it and push it. If there is a hick up, that so important rhythm goes, how fast can we regain it. Go from the moment when your skin burns, that’s how it feels, to were we are again totally relaxed and laser sharp focused, confidant push the limits.
We are not riding a truck. The animal between our legs takes in all our feeling emotions. It might save our ars, but if we do not get over that skin burning rather fast, it is lost. Or if we lost focus for a moment because it is let up jump time.
It is a very complex subject.
Me thinks the problem aint the jumps, but how we use them.
Me thinks, with out any data, the let up jumps are the problem, not their design
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