Does the USEA maintain a watch list of riders who haven’t actually breached any rules but have nonetheless caused officials - such as fence judges or stewards- to express concerns about their riding? Someone who is reckless in their speed, unbalanced in their approach, lacks confidence to the detriment of their run etc etc i.e. issues before they become problems?
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I think there should be. I’d also like to see some sort of mandatory elimination for x amount of issues. If your horse jumps into and out of a damn corn field, that’s not safe, you’re not in control, and that shouldn’t be allowed to continue. If you’ve had near falls at 3 consecutive jumps, maybe that needs to be looked at. I know there’s danger in stadium too, but xc jumps are less forgiving. I think there should be some clear guidelines for signs of an unsafe ride and riders should be pulled up for it. I’m not even going to get into a bloody mouth on a horse. That’s a whole other issue.
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The last time the eventing community got up in arms over safety, there were meetings and summits. We were promised watch lists then. So they are suppose to have them, but I’ve never heard mcsh about them. It would be highly appropriate for membership it ask for an accounting of those lists and find out whether they were ever implemented in good faith. I have my doubts.
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Well, there is an Eventing watch list. I just looked at it. Not sure if it’s accessible to everyone, or how up to date it is. I can access it through my USEF dashboard.
It’s not obvious to me…can you note what tiles or drop down menu you used to get there? Screen shot perhaps?
There is definitely a watch list but I thought only officials could access it. There are certain people designated as reporting agents I believe and if a rider is put on the list, I thought that they are supposed to be notified. I’m not sure if anyone can report…but if you witness dangerous riding…you can always report it to the TD or other steward…hopefully with enough time that that they can watch the rider as well. But IME…every time that I saw a scary ride…the officials were already watching them too.
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You may need to be a licensed official to view it.
If you get rid of tables, what are those “big, wide, imposing solid fences?” Open oxers? Not much less dangerous than tables. Really big logs? Rolltops? Trakehner? (Plenty of falls there, too.) Hedges are nice but less practical.
Tables have a bad reputation partly because there are MANY of them, at all levels, in combinations and alone. If they were replaced with all rolltops, you would see the number of accidents at rolltops increase. Horses can fall, riders can be injured at any fence that is significantly “big and imposing” if it is not ridden correctly.
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I believe that is the case.
In my conversations with the people involved at USEA and USEF following the article I wrote, they admitted that the Watch List has not been utilized much over the last few years.
I do think there should be a way that a certain set of circumstances would trigger your name automatically being populated to the watch list.
Again, for the record and so everyone can hear it loudly, I absolutely believe everyone involved trying to fix this has their heart in the right place. I just also think that there is a true lack of understanding of what entails a true safety investigation and why that is important to execute under all conditions.
For example, the TDs are assigned to detail the accident report forms. Do they receive any training on how to properly conduct an accident investigation during their training to be certified as a TD? OSHA has online courses that specifically train people on how to properly interview witnesses, what questions to ask, and how to make sure all evidence is included with the form. Is something like that part of the TD training? From my discussions with some licensed TDs, it is not.
@pegasusmom, perhaps you can provide additional insight into this, as I believe you are a TD.
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Here we go!
https://useventing.com/news-media/ne…-minimize-risk
I guess I have a different outlook requiring qualifying. In Ontario I see it all the time, where riders do the bare minimum so they can to the next level. No matter how crappy the scores or rides are to get there.
Obviously, we have a serious issue in Canada with our coaching and prepardness of eventers in the sport due to lack of resources and the sheer size of our country.
This interesting, would love to see this data. I think this will be wildly unpopular but I support this.
2. Minimum Performance Standard for Show Jumping Phase
The Subcommittee has recently proposed a rule change to have show jumping rounds at the Training level and above which incur five rails or more result in compulsory retirement when show jumping precedes cross-country. A similar rule is already in place in the UK, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. The Subcommittee worked with EquiRatings and the statistical analysis showed that there is a significant correlation for those who had four rails down in show jumping with horse falls on cross-country. “We felt like it was strong enough evidence and putting our horsemen hat on and it felt like it made sense to propose the rule,” said Holling.
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What also is being done and not mentioned is TDs have access to a list generated by Equiratings at every event listing entries that are “red” at the level they are competing. You can be qualified but your horses overall record is statistically analyzed and rated. You have access to your horse’s rating on your personal USEA dashboard.
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They should really mention that. I think it is one of the best things they can do and it should be publicly shouted from the rooftops.
Might give people a second thought about entering a level where they are red, as well.
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https://useventing.com/news-media/ev…ials-explained
If you’re currently Eventing and haven’t talked to your coach about your horse’s erqi you might want to. I don’t think it’s been completely rolled out how they want to handle it. I think they’re still learning how erqi works.
Years ago, most of us in the hunters jumped “outside courses” with large brush boxes, stone walls with a log “rider” on top, and post-and-rail type fences with true ground lines. No tables. Occasionally you’d see a large half-round, like a big oil tank or pipe buried so only half of it showed. The difference with these things is that they encourage a horse to sit back and jump big, and none of them are trappy, technical, optical illusions. Also, since there were few related distances except for an obvious in-and-out, you rode off your eye and rarely counted strides.
Here’s an EXCELLENT article from a U.K. source which, while written in the context of the virus, is very telling about the world we live in now and how we think so very differently about risk tolerance:
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/04/dont-sacrifice-freedom-at-the-altar-of-safety/
I see this “zero tolerance for ANY risk” mentality severely impacting the horse industry, and many other active sports as well, within 5 years unfortunately. This “don’t run, you’ll fall and it isn’t worth it” mentality, particularly applied to juniors, is soon going to relegate us all to rote use of an elliptical machine with monitored Fitbit as the only “safe” activity unless the pushback to this scaredy-cat social norm starts NOW.
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To clarify, even Michael Jung has thrown a saddle on a horse that had two horse falls on its record within the previous 15 months. It fell again that day. He then handed the reins to his student…and the horse fell a fourth time the next run back. That horse is still competing out of his yard.
Is it unrelated that the horse has put up dressage scores as low as 15.2? (New money - when he put the score up in 2017 it was 22.8). That’s not for me to say. But no one is perfect, and anyone can be tempted by young horses that move beautifully. Ideally, the rules would provide a little sober second thought to those who are dazzled by the next big thing - that also sometimes falls down. There are always a few out there.
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Not a TD, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once. (I’m an FEI Steward) . I would guess, based on conversations with friends that are TDs, that there is not much in the way of formal accident investigation training. I don’t know first hand so I might very well be wrong (and as I’m in the endgame of helping pegasus-son through the almost last semester of his degree which switched to online at spring break and has NOT been a good match, I’m pretty brain dead)
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That horse needs to be removed from the sport. If the rules are to have any purpose at all, they should be keeping repeat fallers out. Generally speaking, horses don’t go down easily so if they do, you shouldn’t ride them. Period.
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I’m quite surprised that Jung would keep a horse like that. Or that he’d allow a student to risk their life on such a horse. This really changes my opinion of him and I’ll go so far as to say if the truth is as Marigold presented it, we need to get people like him out of the sport.
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Dressage scores are seductive because dressage comes first. If you want to see the dark side of dressage score seduction, recall Jonty Evans’s accident. The horse was a dangerous jumper and Evans paid a high price for that (as well as for the horse).
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That dressage score rings a bell and makes me think you are talking about a horse named Choclat that was sold to Joseph Murphy, who has him listed as an Intermediate horse. Apologies if I’m wrong.
