NO such thing as "freak" or "fluke" accidents

[Stall_Rest]

[QUOTE=RAyers;8665957]
Well, the 10 billion is based on the mass, molecular mass and total moles with the aspect of Brownian motion due to random collisions in a suspended particulate.[/QUOTE]
Fascinating to know. Very low probabilities are hard to calculate accurately. Regardless, RAyers made the right decision to stand outside because the implication of the (low probability) event would be catastrophic. Same as with the VV at Badminton. What’s the implication of not being “perfect”? Particularly when, as we’ve noted, in the physical world there is no perfect.

Several posts on this thread have noted that incidents (i.e., what some call accidents) can often be seen, in retrospect, to have developed over the last few obstacles. One thing leads to another to another. It takes mental discipline to continuously and objectively self evaluate while in competition, and decide to pull up. Other sports, as I mentioned in sports car racing, train competitors how to practice and exercise this mental aspect of competition.

[Xctrygirl]

[QUOTE=LookmaNohands;8666182]

The problem is, if it comes down to just the rider’s ability to get the horse to the correct take-off spot, then human error will intervene. I remember many years ago when Bruce Davidson had a terrible rotational fall and his horse died and Bruce was badly smashed up. I thought to myself, if the best rider in the world can make that mistake, what chance do the rest of us have for always getting the right (or, let’s face it, nearly right) take off spot?[/QUOTE]

But that’s an excellent, though unfortunate, proof of the bottom line; EVERYONE can f*** up and have a horrible fall. Doesn’t have to be rotational. No one is perfect, no spot is perfect for everyone.

I had a crashing fall in 96 on a very badly designed fence at the ky horse park, at the head of the lake. I rode badly (didn’t make up my mind and tell the horse which of the 2 distance options to take) the horse made a terrible choice (jump from a standstill into a waiting graduated ditch that he couldn’t see, and to my mind the course designer and TD hold some blame as the fence punished a horse that made a mistake. In a 15 (I think) horse division only 2 jumped clear and missed the ditch entirely. It was just a bad fence. My horse recovered from the knee injury he sustained, I healed from my broken collarbone. I know for sure I don’t like jumps with hidden ditches anymore, but I also learned you have to commit to a distance BEFORE you get there. It seems obvious but flickering doubt messes with your mind. And I would say it can mess with anyone’s mind. Clearly Boyd thought he had the horse to make the approach he made at Badminton to the Vee. Hindsight showed him that while he may have had it on the turn he didn’t have it right at the fence.

There have been many changes in eventing but the constant remains, everyone can screw up.

~Emily

[fordtraktor]

I don’t think I am at a point yet where I can believe we have taken away the horse’s initiative by not helping them get a distance. That makes no sense to me. Show jumpers help their horses get to a decent takeoff spot, but they also teach their horses to be clever and think for themselves the way I hope eventers do too…with tons and tons of gymnastics set on short and long distances, so the horses learn when to reach and when to collect off their own eyes. You ride in and let the horse figure it out for themselves. Classic show jump training, we do it basically every jump school. Rarely do courses. That teaches the horses initiative and to think for themselves about the fences, but you still have to get them somewhere they have a good chance, with a canter it is possible to jump clean from.

The issue with a lot of the rotationals is that a horse coming in real heavy on its face/forehand and then buried to the jump on a half stride…it isn’t a matter of the horse losing its will to want to get over the fence because it wasn’t thinking. I mean, it might have been thinking real hard but a horse can only do so much, a jump is a split second.

I also wonder about the technicality argument because most gymnastics are far more technical than even the most technical XC. And we leave our horses to figure them out. We don’t argue that gymnastics take away initiative. The total opposite.

I guess I don’t have a position on this really, some fairly random thoughts…I am just struggling to make all the pieces fit together. They aren’t, for me, conceptually. I don’t understand why it seems to be a “see distances OR horses think independently” in eventing. In SJing, both horse and rider think together. You guys can too.

[Marigold]

[QUOTE=Stall Rest;8666200]

Several posts on this thread have noted that incidents (i.e., what some call accidents) can often be seen, in retrospect, to have developed over the last few obstacles. One thing leads to another to another. It takes mental discipline to continuously and objectively self evaluate while in competition, and decide to pull up. [/QUOTE]

For all the heat Buck took for his performance at Badminton, I think this is where he should be lauded and held up as an incredible example. A lot of money went into that trip overseas - running Badminton as a North American is not cheap! He had a stop on course, but chose not to retire the horse immediately (foregoing any possibility of saving him for another run soon, as Boyd is now aiming for with Crackers after his fall). He continued to work his way around the track, and the moment he felt the horse get tired, he pulled up, patted the horse, and stopped.

He left Badminton with nothing to show for his efforts, and no possibility of turning the horse around for another quick run. He did leave with a safe, healthy rider and a safe, healthy horse, and even more impressive to me in today’s “pull-up-after-a-stop” culture, he left with a horse who didn’t end on a refusal. Nor was the horse run into the ground and demoralized or endangered. I don’t think Buck gets enough credit for that wonderful piece of horsemanship.

[SendenHorse]

[QUOTE=Desert Topaz;8666026]
When I was a working student for a GP dressage rider/trainer she told me that a properly trained dressage horse doesn’t do anything that the rider doesn’t tell them to do. The horse is entirely focused on the rider and basically isn’t allowed to have thoughts of its own while being ridden. Is it possible that the increased focus on dressage is making the horse depend on the rider’s brain too much? Are they possibly losing their ability to think for themselves on course?[/QUOTE]

I agree. My horse is a dressage horse and has a really hard time thinking for himself jumping, you can’t dictate every stride. They have to have space and time to sort it out. Part of the reason I’m doing this is to get him more confident making his own choices.

However I would assume as primarily a jumper the horses in eventing have been “groomed” to be independent the whole time?

Perhaps it’s not about dressage though… maybe its simply over-riding?

It’s NOT the collection, that is important for jumping. it’s the mental side of the sport. Horses don’t need to be collected the whole course anyways, just before the jump. So to say they are adopting a dressage position is just silly

I do strive to “let my dressage horse think” on his own, but I’d be delusional thinking that it’s to the degree of a horse that is jumping 4*- its just not possible.

[JP60]

@gnep

I found that the accidents are a built up of mistakes, previous to the accident,

Ernst K Gann wrote a book called ‘Fate is the Hunter’. Though a memoir based in aviation he explores this notion of luck and fate. I’ve read it many times and what I take away from reading is two fold, training, training, and more training is the first step in avoiding an accident. The other, that there is no such thing as a freak accident, just one that is not fully understood.

Are we training well enough in this modern age of Eventing? We talk about the God-like status of Micheal Jung, but from what I’ve read, his skills come not from a Deity, but from training his horses, himself to a level and standard that supports his judgement and decisions on course. He makes mistakes, but because of his training, and his horses, he has a better ability to extract from the end result before it occurs.

Anecdotal for sure, but from what I’ve seen in the last few years, ULRs are getting stretch thin on time. Between clinics, teaching, running a business, and dealing with managing strings of horses, is the deep level of training there to deal with the unknown that occurs on course. This is a sport of trust and as an announcer (Mark Todd?) said (I think it was Rolex), ‘any other rider could not have completed a 3* with that horse’, referring to MJ horse. I did not see it as put down, but as a honest comment on the trust and commitment both had to each other. Folks get down on Arthur for his runout at Rolex, yet never seem to want to say that maybe Arthur was smarter then his rider in that moment.

This is a demanding sport. Riding on course requires full focus, full commitment, full trust, not only in ourselves, but in our partner. These days it seems we want the quick fix, because we now add the demands of making a living and meeting the demands of others. Don’t have time to train the horse to rate down with traditional aids, throw hardware in the mouth, don’;t have time to bring a horse up slow through the levels, buy it made and get ready to enter in six months or less than a year. Ever watch Colleen on Shiraz? Maybe they didn’t win at the 4* (because of dressage), but their xc and stadium rounds were lovely to watch, because they didn’t argue or fight much, because she took the time to really know her horse.

Accidents happen many steps back, but just as happens in airline accidents, distracted, tired, slightly overwhelmed good pilots can already have started the steps even before they get into the cockpit. The same concept may be applicable in our sport as it transforms from more Amatuer to professional in nature (at the top).

[fordtraktor]

Yeah, a lot of eventers act like XC stops are a horrible thing for a horse to have on its record. In my mind, a horse that stops when appropriate is a good thing. My Junior Jumper would stop when. I got him there wrong and that included if he was too long or short or too heavy on the forehand. Get him there right and he’d jump 6’. A horse like that…he is hard on you but he teaches you what’s what. Good horse to learn to ride on if you can stick out the days you cry behind the barn because you sucked. Again. And go home and canter another 10,000 poles.

A horse that covers for you is great is you are still doing the work anyway, but not if he lets you think it is OK to keep missing, one day the mutual luck is going to run out. Of course I would rather have one that is more forgiving these days, but I still canter a lot of poles.

[Gnep]

If you want to prevent accidents, you first have to understand how they happen and what lead to them, they have a story and it is not just one page.
If an airplane accident happens, than the investigation does not stop at the accident site, the whole history of the airplane and its crew are part of the investigation, all the way down to the folks that built the thing. And it is done by trained professionals.
Untrained folks do eventing accident investigation and the investigation is done only on the site of the accident and the result is a tragic, freak, or the horse dropped a leg. It is a one liner.
Turn the page burn the jump, RIP.

Next show please.

Years ago I was in Trojan with a bunch of young girls. A rider got killed. I had to explain to the girls what happened and what they have to learn to prevent this to happen to themselves.
The horse’s hooves had a unusual shape and it was easy to follow the ride. 4 jumps before the accident things started to get wrong the horse became sticky. There were slide prints before take of and it got worse and worse. Very rough ride across the Waldens Wall, I confirm that with the jump judge. Next was the water complex and it happened.

So if accidents get investigated and completely investigated and the pattern develops and there are trained personel on the ground that understand the patterns, they can red flag.
Its done in motor sports, they call it avoidable accident

[JER]

This article, by an Australian researcher, was published on Saturday, prior to the death at Jersey Fresh: Just How Risky is Horse Riding?

So eventing might not be more dangerous than motorcycle or car racing after all, but are event rider deaths “freak occurrences”?

In Australia alone, there are an estimated 20 deaths from horse-related injury every year. Compare this with an average of 1.7 deaths from shark attack. Every time a rider mounts a horse, there is a possibility they may fall off.

Every time a beachgoer swims in shark-infested waters, there is a risk that they are exposed to sharks. How “freak” then are these events?

This is not semantic quibbling over terminology. Freak events are usually considered the ones that could not have been prevented. Perhaps they could not even have been predicted.

The concern is that describing a horse-related death as a freak accident will lead to apathetic attitudes towards safety among those most at risk.

While the freak factor has been applied to motorcycle riders, base jumpers and rockclimbers, it is even more relevant for anyone sitting astride – or even handling – a half-tonne animal capable of running 50km/h and which has its own mind, teeth and hooves, and isn’t afraid to use them.

[Auburn]

I really want to thank Reed and Gnep for speaking up on this issue. I remember how many tireless and thankless hours they spent trying to make this sport safer, after Frodo died at Rolex. All of their work was for naught, which is why I understand their frustration with our “Safety committee.”

We donated money then and their research was not implemented. Why? What can we do to make certain that our money is put to good use and change happens? What will it take to make them listen to us?

I am sick and tired of hearing of the loss of a rider and/or a horse almost every week! :mad:

[vineyridge]

USEA claims that the positive benefit of Reed’s work are better educated coaches, who are able to train their students better. They trumpet the completed study on their safety page.

[SnicklefritzG]

[QUOTE=vineyridge;8666652]
USEA claims that the positive benefit of Reed’s work are better educated coaches, who are able to train their students better. They trumpet the completed study on their safety page.[/QUOTE]

That’s the kind of thing USEA can easily say as a cop out. Make it look like they appreciate the work when in fact they can’t, or aren’t willing to take responsibility for doing anything.

[snowrider]

I can’t find a link to Reeds study on the USEA site, just a brief description. Is it paywalled somewhere?

[simc24]

I have debated posting this for a couple of days because I’m sure I’ll get lambasted for it, but I decided I don’t care - I’m a nobody in the sport of eventing anyway, just your average adult ammie who would be thrilled if I could just win a Novice someday. But it hurts my heart and soul every time I see a horse and/or rider die or become permanently maimed in pursuit of this sport.

I heard the following USEA podcast several months ago, and my immediate thought at that time was sadness for the sport- the USEA’s own VP of Safety starts and ends the podcast by claiming it’s an unsafe sport and accidents are going to happen and there’s nothing we can really do about it (paraphrasing, but that’s basically what I heard her say). It’s a sad state of affairs when the people in charge of safety accept the danger and claim there is nothing they can do but perhaps make it so the injuries are lessened.

http://www.useventing.com/news/safety-matters-sarah-broussard-and-carol-kozlowski

I work in an unsafe industry, and you can be damn sure we do not accept the risks or the possibilities of people being maimed or dying. No matter how unrealistic it might seem- we start out with the expectation of zero incidents. You drive to zero and lower the tolerance in each and every person for accidents to happen. Does that mean that no one is ever going to trip going down the stairs and break their leg, or that a horse is never going to slip in the mud and slam into a fence? No- of course those things can still happen. But if you set the expectation at zero, you ensure every person is hyper sensitive to safety concerns and is being vigilant - you just might stop someone from falling off a stand and dying, or a horse/rider going down at a fence.

Last week at work, a sheet of metal was dropped 15’ from a stand above. No one was injured, but it was such a serious near miss, that the entire executive leadership team, every safety person on site and several others descended in the area, investigated for hours, a solid root cause analysis was done within 24 hours and safety measures were put in place to ensure it never happens again.

Can somebody tell me whether or not every single serious horse/rider fall at an event is investigated and RCCA’d if the individuals are not dead or injured? (or even if they are)? I have seen horses/riders fall with no injury several times while jump judging, and never witnessed anything besides the TD getting a quick statement and perhaps (not even always)taking a quick look at the jump. Then it’s business as usual, carry on with the show. It’s just ridiculous how little attention is given to serious near misses. Every fall should be recorded, investigated and documented, at least down to T/N, if not all the way down. If they understand the common denominators on these falls, they can certainly target actions that will reduce those falls.

But, until someone that understands how to drive a safety team is in charge, it will not change. I believe they would do better to hire a team of real safety experts from outside the industry with the money they are spending on researching collapsible fences. Horse back riding is not the only dangerous sport/industry in the world, and rather than continually regurgitating the cop-out that it’s just inherently dangerous, it would be nice for some folks with some real safety background and training to assess the situation. I bet there are some of those safety folks with that training and education within the membership’s own ranks.

Of course, as the lowly adult ammie that I am, I admit I don’t understand much about the FEI’s safety focus. It doesn’t appear to be any better than our own governing body.

One more observation/question. It seems interesting that 4* Rolex went off basically without a hitch and certainly with very few falls of any type even in terrible weather. How then, does 2 & 3* JF come in with several falls of all types, including obviously very serious ones? I read on here that footing was good, weather was good, so what is the difference other course design/terrain? Presumably the horses/riders were just as prepared overall for this level as the Rolex horses are for that one. The cynic in me does not believe it’s chance or coincidence.

[redalter]

Another adult lower level ammie weighing in here.

I, from my lowly perspective still just don’t understand:

WE have all these safety studies - new vests, frangible pins, etc., etc.

Yet, at the end of the day, we are still asking horses to complete courses at the same speeds, while continually increasing technical difficulty.
And skinny after skinny, combination after combination, jump, land, turn, jump, turn, related distance to the carved frog or whatever.

Of course the horses have to run faster between fences when they have to slow up more often out there for more combinations and more technical questions.

If it is mentally and physically more demanding for us to do this, how ABOUT FOR THE HORSE?

I know it sounds simplistic, and God knows I am not a scientist, or statistician, just someone who has observed the sport for a long time, and competed at the lower - P and below - levels.

One other poster asked the same thing. It’s not like we are continuing to try to make the dressage more and more difficult - canter backwards or whatever…

What is the benefit to the continual ratcheting up of the difficulty and technical questions?

And for many of the pros/semi- pros, up and coming riders, etc., no, MANY of them, at least the ones I know, though they hate the direction the course design has taken, will not speak up for concern for their business, or to be perceived as the only one.

I IN NO WAY am blaming the pros, quite the contrary, they are trying to make a living and do not want to be the only voice on this battlefield.

When people just go on and ignore that the courses are getting harder or more technical, or use the reasoning, “well most horses have no problem with it”, that is not a reason to continue down this road.

Who cares if “most of the horses can jump round the technical, theme park looking courses”, if this crap keeps happening?

So, why are big square tables at all levels back out there? And some places have table after table after table?

The presence of the Vicarage Vee at Badminton is very indicative, to me, at least, of this attitude.
It’s not like the jump doesn’t have a history. So, by all means let’s put it back on the course, with - what a 6 inch margin for error?

I just don’t get it.

And so what if the fall happens at a “simple” fence? How many skinnies and technical questions preceded that fence? How mentally exhausted is the horse at that point?

I’m no one in the sport, just a tiny grain of sand, but everyone I talk to feels a lot like this.

Whew, sorry, rant over. Flame suit on.

[vineyridge]

I think that it’s interesting that the USEA only had the money to fund one year continuation of the Kentucky Study, which shares much data with the much more active BE. Sounds as if it costs 80K a year at Kentucky.

I wonder if, since so many American TBs go on to after track careers as event horses (probably a far greater percentage in eventing than in any other discipline), the Grayson-Jockey Club Foundation could be persuaded to give the Kentucky Study a grant?

Two years of the study cost as much as one year of UL competition for 3 horses.

[lucegoose]

@simc24;8666836

Can somebody tell me whether or not every single serious horse/rider fall at an event is investigated and RCCA’d if the individuals are not dead or injured? (or even if they are)? I have seen horses/riders fall with no injury several times while jump judging, and never witnessed anything besides the TD getting a quick statement and perhaps (not even always)taking a quick look at the jump. Then it’s business as usual, carry on with the show. It’s just ridiculous how little attention is given to serious near misses. Every fall should be recorded, investigated and documented, at least down to T/N, if not all the way down. If they understand the common denominators on these falls, they can certainly target actions that will reduce those falls.

My horse and I fell at the preliminary level at a large-ish event in one of the “big” Areas. Both of us walked away from it with just bumps and scrapes, and no, other than getting a golf cart ride off the course and a cursory once-over, no one seemed to do much about it. There definitely wasn’t any follow-up after the event with me.

It wasn’t much of a mystery to me why we fell, and maybe it was just so obvious to the officials what went down, but it was still a bit stunning how little was done. There is so much pressure to keep an event running smoothly and on time, I don’t think anyone really considers the information and opportunities lost in the rush to get things back on track.

[vineyridge]

Hell, the pros could make all the difference in the world in course design if they stood together worldwide and refused to ride courses that they deem unsafe. However, the courses are not even open to inspection by the riders until they have already shipped in, paid their fees, and trained. The rider representative is supposed to listen to “last minute” complaints and work with the TD before the competition even starts. There is a system in place for them to use, and time for them to unite before dressage is over–at least in FEI Three Days.

But the pros are far more focused in prize money and Teams than course safety; and many of them don’t have the knowledge to even know when a course or part of a course is unsafe, much less evaluate the danger of a single galloping fence. They work from their gut, not their education.

I love it when the pros are willing to walk away. That very, very rarely happens, but it does happen.

[FitToBeTied]

I think it says a lot that the USEA can’t afford to fund a continuation of the safety study but has money to pay for riders to go overseas to compete. That says everything about the USEA’s priorities.

[vineyridge]

[QUOTE=FitToBeTied;8667138]
I think it says a lot that the USEA can’t afford to fund a continuation of the safety study but has money to pay for riders to go overseas to compete. That says everything about the USEA’s priorities.[/QUOTE]

Different sources of funding. USEF and restricted USEA funds dictate the use of the funds.