Ridiculous and overreaching requirement. I hope it’s permanently tabled.
“proposed extraordinary rule change titled GR 840.1 that would require all individuals who have fallen from a cart or horse to be examined by qualified medical personnel before returning to competition or re-mounting.”
This is standard in eventing already. What’s your issue with the rule exactly? It takes about 5 minutes to have a medic come assess the situation and give the all-clear, and it’s a pretty easy way to make sure no one is concussed or ignoring a serious injury.
The article you linked is completely ridiculous IMO. I’m not sure how a basic safety check contributes to “the demise of horsemanship” or suggests that people “aren’t allowing themselves to fall off.” Seems like an attempt to stir up drama more than anything.
I’ll second that.
There’s much silliness and hyperbole in the article. My favorite is “not allowing yourself to fall off…” I didn’t realize it was a choice. 
Another good one is “the all around panic so prevalent at horse shows around the country.” I guess I’m not going to the right shows. Or maybe it’s that I am going to the right shows.
A quick check by the medic on site makes sense. Why would someone argue against being sure a rider who has fallen off isn’t concussed?
As it is possible to have “Traumatic Brain Injury” - and I’ll repeat that for the people at the back “BRAIN INJURY” - aka concussion, even when just landing on one’s feet after coming off a horse, why the push back against a sensible, easy to implement rule?
ETA punctuation
As mentioned we do this in eventing and it’s not an issue. Even when you’re 3 kms deep in the forest it takes 20 mins max to get you and asses.
It depends- how much are they going to charge you to be evaluated?
Is this a thing? I’ve never been or known anyone who’s been charged to talk to the on site medical staff at a show. They’re paid by the organizers for the duration of the event, not per consult.
It’s a good idea. concussions happen and riders have a “put me back in the game, coach” mentality. I have had six from riding falls, and each time kept riding immediately. In hindsight for two of them I definitely should have been forced off of the field.
IDK but it totally wouldn’t shock me
At events the fallen rider is not charged for the medics’ evaluation. Medics are paid by the organizers.
I’ll third it. Ridiculous.
People with TBIs and concussions can appear very normal to the untrained eye - later you’ll find out they can’t recall the accident, the day, the week. Getting back on and doing more brain-jostling activity is a bad idea, and you really can’t count on the injured party to know they’re in a bad spot. It’s a BRAIN injury. And they’re cumulative.
A quick check by medical personnel that know how to look for these things is just a good practice. The shows pay them, the injured party isn’t charged for a consult.
We do this in eventing. It might take 5 minutes for a medical to get to you out on xc but it’s no big deal and costs you nothing.
This article is ridiculous.
I’m one of those folks who lost a week after a fall. I evidently got back on and continued riding. I only discovered the missing week when my patients started coming back for postoperative visits and I didn’t recall doing their surgeries.
1-This is NOT a new proposal. It has been reviewed by ALL the relevant USEF committees, and been open to comments from all USEF members. (If Plaid Horse wanted to rile people up about it they should have tarted MONTHS ago.)
2- As with most rule changes, the devil is in the details. I was AT the USEF meeting, both the open rule change session, and the open BoD meeting, and the questions/discussion were about some of the details in the “fine print” of the rule change proposal, and how they would fit with some specific discipline. I am sorry, I do not remember which particular piece of “fine print” led to deferring a final vote to a later meeting. If you look at the committee comments (link at the end of the Plaid Horse article) most are about “landing on their feet” (see 9, and comment by @Willesdon ), falls that happen overnight, when the medical personnel are not on the grounds, Endurance (where the fall may happen miles away from the medical personnel), and Eventing (the Eventing rules explicitly allow a rider who falls in the dressage test to remount and complete the test).
3 - Eventing already has a simiar rule, EV-138, which requires any rider who may be injured or concussed, or has a fall, to be examined by the on-site medical personnel before continuing to another phase or horse.
4- On site medical personnel are paid by the competition mamagement. They never charge the competitors directly for anything that is related to the rules. (And I don’t think they charge the competitors directly for ANYTHING except dispensing medication.)
Some of the comments in that article are ridiculous.
5 - “Allowing yourself to fall”. It is true that, in the far off days of Eventing penalty zones, some riders may have aggravated their chance of injury by desperately hanging on until they were outside the penalty zone. In those days there was a significant penalty (maybe 60 points) if you fell off INSIDE the penalty zone, but no penalty of you fell off outside the penalty zone. In either case you could remount at continue on course. But I know of no other instance in which “allowing yourself to fall” is a good idea.
6 - From a “training point of view.” Yes, from a TRAINING perspective, it is better not to end with a fall, or a third refusal, or gong off course, or any other thig that causes elimination. But a COMPETITION is not where you do your training.
7- Delay in “Swapping riders”. What discpline allows you to “swap riders” in the middle of a class? Even if they did, you could swap in the second rider while the first is being examined.
8- The suggestion that riders know whether they are injured or not, just isn’t true. Adreneline can mask all sorts of injuries (I have personal experience with that). As for “all horse show personnel and trainers (and parents) should be required to have knowledge of and look for warning signs for larger issues,” that would be great. But look at the pusback from Safe Sport Training. Can you imagine the pushback if all of those people were required to take injury assessment training?
9- Similarly “improving footing” is a good idea, but it s not going to eliminate injuries. As stated above, you can get a concussion landing on your feet. Helmets, vests, etc., are good, but they are not going to eliminate injuries
10- “Raise the cost of horse showing even more, slow down the already over-scheduled rings” - how will it do that? The medical personnel are already there, and paid for. The medical examintion takes place while the rider is already out of competition (at least in the disciplines covered by COTH), so it shouldn’t show anything down.
Amen. Has the OP never seen an NFL game? You bet those players that get slammed to the ground have to undergo a medical check and concussion protocols. As someone who has had at least 4 concussions from horse-related incidents (2 of those while wearing a helmet), I am 100% for this rule change.
I keep trying…and I keep failing! I still fall off when I try not to. 
But in all seriousness, I actually think this is a good idea. Safety is important to me. I will think of it like the NFL and the blue tent. Heck, different iterations of the helmet were complained about, too. But here we are.
Right?? I came off a horse and thought I’d just bruised myself badly - turns out I’d actually FRACTURED my back. I’m still paying the price for that years later.
One other thing that I think is important (and I may have missed someone else saying it) by the definition of a TBI, head injury etc… the injured person may not have the capacity to know they are injured. I had a concussion from a dog sport and finished secretarying the trial and “woke up” eating dinner at a friends house and didn’t remember anything from my mid afternoon run till 8 pm. But my friends said that I acted like nothing was wrong. My APRN partner knew by looking at me I had a moderate to severe concussion.
Often, when accidents or unplanned dismounts happen, the goal is to get back on the horse and give them a positive experience to end on as soon as possible if the situation allows. Requiring all riders to undergo complete examination before re-mounting means that won’t be a possibility.
I mean it’s not like they’re taking you to get a CT scan before you can get back on, the examination is usually just a few questions and taking a quick look at anything that hurts. It doesn’t take that long and these are things you should be doing at home too before you get back on after a fall. Taking a few minutes to make sure you’re actually not hurt is not going to have catastrophic consequences for you or your horse, but not doing so absolutely could.
Y’all are pretty convincing that my first reaction to this rule was not well thought through. I certainly believe in getting medical clearance any time someone hits their head and hadn’t thought of the fact that concussions can occur without a blow to the head. But the vast majority of falls nothing is hurt and you get back on and get on with it. Whether landing on your feet or bum there is often no need for a medical recheck. But in a litigious society I guess this is what we’ve come to.
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