Note sure I can expand on it but there are now frangibles in use in XC Warm Up at some US HTs. These naturally get more punishment than those on the course proper and can collapse to a pile of logs with clips that need replacing. I would not like be the CD or rider having to deal with such out on XC.
Exactly, riders even admit they take chances where they are presented to options that may be a bit more forgiving.
I would also agree with the rider, that the thought process is quite the opposite of riding more recklessly, and actually trying to be more careful. In one of our local events there are a set of open oxers with Mim clips. The horses never read them right, and I’ve watched horse after horse bang a back leg on it and rider spin around on landing to see if it came down. The horses tend to jump up and around with a show-jumping bascule, and often catch the back rail with their hind legs. I hate riding it too. I feel like riders tend to get a bit picky and cause mistakes at it because they don’t want to activate it. I do wander if this particular fence, it’s base isn’t the ground but like a raised platform that the horses look down on. Just conjecture. Either way, usually more careful to a fault than reckless.
My only input as I’m riding at the preliminary/intermediate level which sees some of these fences, I’ve never walked a course with any UL who said that I could ride the fence with frangible technology “more aggressively” because it would fall. The last thing we want is to incur an extra set of penalty points for activating something. On the contrary, they’re often the types of fences we’re trying to be a bit more careful, maybe even a coffin type canter. (Not because of the technology necessarily but the type of fences they’re installed on)
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Watched this movie for complete other reasons - in all I am against posting fails online - and stumbled across Bob the Builder being trapped on an mim-oxer at the Euros in 2017. It is 2.47 into this clip but please be warned it is kind of graphic how he broke his leg stepping of to the side https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaTW-WFbTC4
Until these things are talked about in connection to frangible pints I believe all safety discussions are kind of meaningless. I.e. should that fence even been placed on a 90° angle on the main arena with a very short approach. Should we really force horses to go from standard grassland into main arenas onto all weather footing and back again etc.
That was horrific to watch.
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Very much true 
Obviously I have seen it before but did not see it coming in this video even though I had noticed there were clips from the Euros in the video before this
Anyone can see what happened to his front leg when he stepped to the side of that oxer and still the press was fed the same old BS-story that seems to be standard when a horse looses its life in xc or there been a bad fall.
If we (as in the eventing community) don’t talk about these deaths and make them part of the discussion of eventing safety we will never move forward.
I didn’t realize this was the fall where the horse broke its leg in the jump. My first reaction to seeing it was why did this jump look like a show jump, in a show jump arena? I agree also with your assessment that the placement also contributed to the crash. Just awful.
There have been quite a few horses suffering fatal injuries in and around the all weather footed main arenas over the years. And this fatality on a MIM fence on all weather footing main. Also I would (probably not) really want to know what would have happened to the horse’s leg IF the MIMs had decided to release themselves after all. Guiljotine anyone?!
FEI released its new standard for frangible technology today.
Kind of a joke that CMP is on the committee. DOC is the chair. At least some scientists were involved 
I do wonder how people who not have English as their first language are gonna be able to read through that document and also understand it. Also interesting which stake holders being involved in the development and you’ve got to love the final disclaimer “we don’t take any responsibility”.
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I, with a flipped stomach, watched this over and over again, and have to ask a stupid question - we don’t think the sideways step actually broke the leg, right? I bet that same step is taken by horses by the hundreds in the pasture everyday. The damage had to come from the impact or something immediately before, no?
Maybe that’s what you all are implying and I just flat out missed it.
The stepping off side ways clipped the leg, no doubt about it. The official version was he broke his leg long before this…
Still it was a MIM fence and there are a lot of questions me and many other believe should be answered about this. Same thing when Axel Z died at a MIM construction at Luhmühlen two years ago
