Rider Fatality at Morven Park

[JER]

@Rnichols

I don’t know you, but I generally see your posts and nod 100% in agreement. This one, however … this is a terrible analogy.

Cancer is more than bad luck. And when it IS “bad luck” (I.e your genetics) it has a reason behind it … for example both of your parents were carriers for some random recessive gene that led to the cancer of their offspring. Other times it’s more than bad luck (I.e: smokers, alcoholics, exposed to a carcinogen etc).

Rnichols, you’re speaking conventional wisdom about cancer. However, if you took the time to read the paper and article I linked to, you might be revising that statement. You can read more here, if you have genuine interest in the topic. (Bad luck, BTW, translates to random replicative errors in cell divisions.)

As I’ve said on the forum before, every time a human gets on top of a horse, there is a chance that their positions could end up reversed. There are only so many foolproof precautions available to us. Jumping increases the risk. Jumping over fixed obstacles at speed increases it even more. Jumping over fixed obstacles on inexperienced horses increases it more. And so on.

Eventing is never going to be 100% safe and fatality free, at least not if it’s still on terrain, at speed and over fixed obstacles. We can try to make it as safe as possible but there are times when riders will end up on the wrong side of luck despite having done everything right.

[JER]

@Manahmanah

Agree with this also but discussing it in the COTH horse forums is not going to help. No scientific data is going to be gleaned from anecdotal forum posts “asking the hard questions”.

Please stop with this trope. It’s so insulting.

Discussing serious issues in eventing is very much going to help eventers understand and articulate the questions that need to be asked.

There are few places better suited to discussing those issues than this forum. You won’t get this many eventers together anywhere else.

[MyssMyst]

@JER

Please stop with this trope. It’s so insulting.

Discussing serious issues in eventing is very much going to help eventers understand and articulate the questions that need to be asked.

There are few places better suited to discussing those issues than this forum. You won’t get this many eventers together anywhere else.

I’m going to have to agree here.

I’m not an eventer, PRECISELY because of the deaths in the sport. I mostly lurk on this forum, but I honestly find the “they died doing what they love/thoughts/prayers/now business as usual” that happens over these deaths frankly disturbing. How many deaths does it take for things to change? We go online, sit and blast disciplines we’re not familiar with for being “abusive” despite having no first-hand knowledge of the discipline, and yet blatantly ignore a sport where horse and rider deaths are just accepted as part of the sport. No, you can’t make a horse do this unless they want to. But horses can’t mentally compute how a missed distance can be fatal. That’s OUR job. Hundreds of xc and schooling runs happen all year without incident. But that doesn’t absolve USEA, USEF, and the FEI from the responsibility of taking a hard look at how to reduce the number of fatalities, nor the participants from realizing there may be a problem and voicing concerns.

We know when the RARA’s come knocking, we all need to stick together to fight them. But can you expect other disciplines to defend a sport where the discussion on these deaths isn’t happening and moving to action? I can come to these forums, get some perspective, educate myself on the issues, and make some decisions. But unless eventers as a whole stand up and say just how unacceptable this is, I can’t see it changing. And COTH is a pretty darn good place for eventers to start talking and grouping up.

[Manahmanah]

@JER

Please stop with this trope. It’s so insulting.

Discussing serious issues in eventing is very much going to help eventers understand and articulate the questions that need to be asked.

There are few places better suited to discussing those issues than this forum. You won’t get this many eventers together anywhere else.

So who is taking the ‘questions that need to be asked’ and delivering them to the ‘ears that need to listen’? You? Anybody? From where I am sitting all i have seen for years here is a lot of hand wringing by the usual COTH forum dementors who pounce on any bad news as soon as it is announced, without forming any sort of plan to exact real change.

Real change is stepping up to usea and usef and demanding the voices be heard. You are one of the loudest voices here anytime anything bad happens. Have you done anything at all to deliver the message where it needs to go? If not, why? There is so much passion around discussing negative events but the passion to CHANGE IT is pale in comparison.

Let’s stop this. Take that passion and tell usea and usef that we demand riders stop dying, that we demand transparency into the safety program. Take that passion and demand manufacturers of expensive equipment that gives riders a false sense of security be held accountable. Let’s do anything BUT sit around and poo poo at each other about how horrible and dangerous eventing is without doing anything at all to change it.

[Manahmanah]

@MyssMyst

I’m going to have to agree here.

I’m not an eventer, PRECISELY because of the deaths in the sport. I mostly lurk on this forum, but I honestly find the “they died doing what they love/thoughts/prayers/now business as usual” that happens over these deaths frankly disturbing. How many deaths does it take for things to change? We go online, sit and blast disciplines we’re not familiar with for being “abusive” despite having no first-hand knowledge of the discipline, and yet blatantly ignore a sport where horse and rider deaths are just accepted as part of the sport. No, you can’t make a horse do this unless they want to. But horses can’t mentally compute how a missed distance can be fatal. That’s OUR job. Hundreds of xc and schooling runs happen all year without incident. But that doesn’t absolve USEA, USEF, and the FEI from the responsibility of taking a hard look at how to reduce the number of fatalities, nor the participants from realizing there may be a problem and voicing concerns.

We know when the RARA’s come knocking, we all need to stick together to fight them. But can you expect other disciplines to defend a sport where the discussion on these deaths isn’t happening and moving to action? I can come to these forums, get some perspective, educate myself on the issues, and make some decisions. But unless eventers as a whole stand up and say just how unacceptable this is, I can’t see it changing. And COTH is a pretty darn good place for eventers to start talking and grouping up.

You misunderstand. I’m not saying not to discuss it. I am saying that gathering pseudo scientific data on the internet is useless to any sort of study and we should stop just whining about it here and do something for a change. Like hold our governing body responsible for gathering the fall data and demanding they let us know what they will do with it.

[erinmeri]

@Manahmanah

You misunderstand. I’m not saying not to discuss it. I am saying that gathering pseudo scientific data on the internet is useless to any sort of study and we should stop just whining about it here and do something for a change. Like hold our governing body responsible for gathering the fall data and demanding they let us know what they will do with it.

Just because the gathering of said data is taking place outside a research lab does not make it, by default, pseudo-scientific. Data gathering has to start somewhere and if recognizing trends happens anecdotally, so be it.

Regardless… There is tremendous value to eventers coming together here to start the conversation. You said in a separate post:

“From where I am sitting all i have seen for years here is a lot of hand wringing by the usual COTH forum dementors who pounce on any bad news as soon as it is announced, without forming any sort of plan to exact real change.”

That is a very strong (and negative) statement. How is starting the conversation here not exacting change? Who are you to say others aren’t bringing these worries to governing bodies, and who are you to say GBs aren’t reading along?

I sure as hell am reading along, and I am not an eventer. Rotational falls can and do happen in stadium and in Hunter-Jumpers, but they are exceedingly rare. It doesn’t mean we can’t learn from them. I actually came across the story of a rotational fall over cavaletti incidentally on Bernie Traurig’s website. It happens.

I may not be an eventer (although my childhood best friend is one, and they have competed at upper levels internationally), but I follow the conversation because it is super important. And because we can all learn from this. When I quit riding, there were many people who didn’t wear helmets, even when jumping. When I came back, nobody would dream of not wearing one. How did that happen? Dialogue.

ETA: I’m not that old, but we called them hard hats, not helmets. If that dates me.

[IFG]

@JER

Rnichols, you’re speaking conventional wisdom about cancer. However, if you took the time to read the paper and article I linked to, you might be revising that statement. You can read more here, if you have genuine interest in the topic. (Bad luck, BTW, translates to random replicative errors in cell divisions.)

As I’ve said on the forum before, every time a human gets on top of a horse, there is a chance that their positions could end up reversed. There are only so many foolproof precautions available to us. Jumping increases the risk. Jumping over fixed obstacles at speed increases it even more. Jumping over fixed obstacles on inexperienced horses increases it more. And so on.

Eventing is never going to be 100% safe and fatality free, at least not if it’s still on terrain, at speed and over fixed obstacles. We can try to make it as safe as possible but there are times when riders will end up on the wrong side of luck despite having done everything right.

I did look at the papers. Yes, some cancer is due to random genetic mutations, but much of it is not. I am firmly in the camp that feels much is preventable. As for riding, I feel similarly. We will never be able to prevent all deaths, but many related to horses are preventable. I have personally known three people who died in horse-related accidents. One was not wearing a helmet, fell and died of a head injury, one probably did not have the skills to ride the horse that they were on, and the third was an accident during grooming. No one really knows what happened in the third case as the person was alone, but I would say that better practices could have prevented the first two deaths.

[JER]

The statistic you learn in a course on accidents/safety is that 80% of accidents involving children are preventable.

You might be able to extend that number to accidents involving animals.

But even if you take every precaution, the risks are there. With the Morven incident, it sounds like the rider was a competent rider, staying within her skill level and wearing standard safety equipment. Maybe an EXO would have helped but she didn’t wear one.

We can assume the fence had been jumped safely before, was built by experienced people and was positioned on the course by a licensed course designer. I haven’t seen anything decrying the jump itself - anyone know what it was?

I’d like to think all accidents are preventable too but they’re not. That’s why they’re called accidents.

[Impractical_Horsewoman]

I mentioned this in the other thread, but in an anecdotal, subjective, and possibly coincidental fashion, it does seem as if there has been a recent spike in riders who have had fatal accidents in schooling, non-competitive situations. Most (if not all) seemed to be experienced, appropriately mounted combinations, jumping jumps at their skill level or below. As well as more rigorous data-gathering about competitions, I wish there was some way to better understand how and why these types of incidents occurred.

As someone who follows the sport, I too often have conflicted feelings about discussing real tragedies like this in public and worry about the pain it might cause friends and loved ones. On the other hand, silence doesn’t seem to be a respectful or viable alternative, even though I agree that some degree of risk will always be there.

[trubandloki]

@JER

So… if the EXO came back, who here would buy it?

Since no one else has answered this question you tossed out, I will answer it.

I will not be buying an EXO if they come back because my body shape is not one that they will fit and the chances of them making something that will fit this shape body is pretty darn slim to none. (Crazy long torso, wide shoulders and over weight.)

[WildLittleWren]

What a tragic accident. My prayers are with her husband, child, and friends and family.

[Black_Points]

@JER

The cause of death hasn’t been mentioned AFAIK - was it crush/blunt force trauma or was it head injury?

No body protector can help with the latter.

So… if the EXO came back, who here would buy it?

Not only would I buy one but I did buy one! Unfortunately I couldn’t adjust it to fit me correctly even with Rayers help. I still have it and I do believe that wearing one will prevent the deaths that occur when horses land on the rider and crush their chests. A friend in England witnessed one of her students have a rotational fall and the horse landed on the student’s chest but she was wearing an EXO and she was not seriously injured. That was what convinced me to buy one.

Have no idea how much of a help an EXO would be for those “lawn dart” falls where all the energy goes into the head, neck and spine but don’t know of any vest that helps with that.

I so wish someone would redesign the EXO and make it more adjustable so it would fit more body types. I would then buy another!

Mary in western NY

[MsRidiculous]

I would buy an EXO if it fit me.

[Jealoushe]

@Manahmanah

So who is taking the ‘questions that need to be asked’ and delivering them to the ‘ears that need to listen’? You? Anybody? From where I am sitting all i have seen for years here is a lot of hand wringing by the usual COTH forum dementors who pounce on any bad news as soon as it is announced, without forming any sort of plan to exact real change.

Real change is stepping up to usea and usef and demanding the voices be heard. You are one of the loudest voices here anytime anything bad happens. Have you done anything at all to deliver the message where it needs to go? If not, why? There is so much passion around discussing negative events but the passion to CHANGE IT is pale in comparison.

Let’s stop this. Take that passion and tell usea and usef that we demand riders stop dying, that we demand transparency into the safety program. Take that passion and demand manufacturers of expensive equipment that gives riders a false sense of security be held accountable. Let’s do anything BUT sit around and poo poo at each other about how horrible and dangerous eventing is without doing anything at all to change it.

How in the world can you pretend to know what anyone who posts here is doing outside of the forum? I’m sure this is directed at me so let me tell you.

Many people have found the WTF are we doing thread and messaged me, thanking me for keeping it public and keeping it updated. Many people come here to discuss these things, they are NEWS. They are RELEVANT to the future of our sport. Of course there will be a thread every time someone dies, it is WORTH discussing. I guess we should just say oh well, another great person dead in our sport…move along??

As for myself, I am compiling data. As have others, I have a lot of information sent to me, kept in email and on my computer. I also take the liberty to contact Equestrian Canada or the Ontario Eventing Association whenever information is needed to be shared. Like the inquest from Australia. I reached out to the Provincial Association to ensure they read it in their board meetings, and passed it onto organizers so they all could be better informed in making our sport safer.

Considering I work full time, run my farm, compete 4 horses, I think I dedicate what I can to making the sport safer. Part of that is spreading the information we have.

[Blugal]

Nobody asked me but I’ll share what I do. I keep abreast of these threads, and I follow up by reading links posted and also have an “eventing safety” google search which notifies me of world-wide discussions on the topic. I am a member of our provincial horse trials safety committee, and I summarize my research into discussion points. If I have concerns then I share them.

I don’t know if anything I’ve done so far has made any measurable difference. I do know that I have engaged with TDs, course designers, organizers, riders and coaches and brought safety issues to their attention. I think that has an effect, and I will continue to do this so long as I’m passionate about it.

[Denali6298]

@Manahmanah has clearly missed the numerous threads where @RAyers and others have stated that they have approached TPTB in eventing about their concerns as scientists and have gotten shut down.

I don’t think at this point it’s useful for people to defend themselves as we know these threads create a larger discussion and keep people up to date on what’s being discussed.

I also would buy an EXO if it came on the market again.

[kt]

@JER

We can assume the fence had been jumped safely before, was built by experienced people and was positioned on the course by a licensed course designer. I haven’t seen anything decrying the jump itself - anyone know what it was?

I believe the press release simply said it was a log.

[Gardenhorse]

@kt

I believe the press release simply said it was a log.

Yes, the press release said it was a log fence at the Preliminary level, but there were several fences on the Morven Preliminary course that fit that description. I think it would be useful to know which one it was.

[CSU92]

https://en.mycoursewalk.com/coursewalks/18270/fences

[JER]

Thanks for the pics, mdp9.

The two hanging longs look pretty straightforward. The second has another jump in the sight line but don’t know how that plays out on a horse IRL - just going by the pic.

The ‘webbed’ fence jump reminds me of a notorious obstacle that used to be on a course out west. It was called the five-fingered something, I forget the specific name. It wasn’t huge, I’d seen it on both Prelim and Training courses. Horses hated it. My own packer who would jump anything would not go near it. He was about the safest jumper ever so when he decided it looked funny, he was not going - and this happened very rarely.

Over a few seasons, the jump got less safe. The trees on either side got bigger and grew branches, making the jump able part of the fence very narrow. Even a small mistake could have a serious outcome. People complained; it stayed on the courses.

I decided I’d had enough. The next time I went to that facility, I packed my saw in the trailer. If that fence was on course again, I was going to wait till dark and hack it to bits. It seemed like the only solution.

Fortunately, the fence wasn’t flagged or numbered. I didn’t have break out my saw.