Rider Injured at Global Dressage Festival

[skydy]

https://www.chronofhorse.com/article/vaughan-injured-in-fall-at-adequan-global-dressage-festival Bad time for the sprinklers to come on.

[SillyHorse]

Terrible luck. It sounds like she’s going to be okay, though.

[BigMama1]

I hear the sprinklers have gone off with riders in the warmup ring several times this season. Thank goodness she wants more seriously hurt. And thank goodness CDI Grand Prix riders are wearing helmets everywhere on the show grounds!

[Calhoun]

Can’t imagine the time and money spent training, not to mention the travel expenses to have someone turn on the sprinklers. Now she has medical bills. That’s bad luck.

[AZ_TD]

Someone should be in trouble for this! No excuse for sprinklers to come on during warm ups!

[skydy]

It does seem a little unnecessary to have sprinklers go off during warm ups or competition. The injured rider thinks so.

I know nothing about the grounds keeping issues that the GDF are facing, but I do know that I have been startled myself when a sprinkler starts up, so it’s no surprise that a horse would find it unnerving.
Perhaps they will find a way around it now that a rider has been seriously injured.

[Feathered_Feet]

Maybe I missed it, but why not just water everything at night? Surely there is a 6 hour gap somewhere in the night when everything could get watered? I don’t understand why this has to be done during the day.

[trubandloki]

@Feathered_Feet

Maybe I missed it, but why not just water everything at night? Surely there is a 6 hour gap somewhere in the night when everything could get watered? I don’t understand why this has to be done during the day.

I wondered the same thing, because in my part of the world we do water at night to save water too (if you are the watering type, which I am not, I am all for the lawn not being mowed).

There is a response to this question in the comments to the article. This is a copy and paste of that response.

Watering at night promotes fungal and bacterial growth, particularly in warm and humid environments. Early in the morning is usually recommended as the best time to water. Plants can soak up water before the full heat later in the day and will be given time to “dry off” and minimize water bourne disease.

[SillyHorse]

@trubandloki

@Feathered_Feet

Maybe I missed it, but why not just water everything at night? Surely there is a 6 hour gap somewhere in the night when everything could get watered? I don’t understand why this has to be done during the day.

I wondered the same thing, because in my part of the world we do water at night to save water too (if you are the watering type, which I am not, I am all for the lawn not being mowed).

There is a response to this question in the comments to the article. This is a copy and paste of that response.

Watering at night promotes fungal and bacterial growth, particularly in warm and humid environments. Early in the morning is usually recommended as the best time to water. Plants can soak up water before the full heat later in the day and will be given time to “dry off” and minimize water bourne disease.

If they watered at 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. wouldn’t both problems be solved? The sun would be coming up shortly and few, if any, horses in the warm-up at that hour.

[trubandloki]

@SillyHorse

If they watered at 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. wouldn’t both problems be solved? The sun would be coming up shortly and few, if any, horses in the warm-up at that hour.

Are people no riding at that hour at a dressage show? (My background is hunters and the warm up would for sure have horses in it at that hour.)

I have no idea how this place works, what was being watered or why it was being watered. I was just passing along a comment some random person posted in response to the same question.

[Mondo]

What that response says is, “the health and safety of our plants supersedes the health and safety of our competitors.” Jeebus!

[trubandloki]

@Mondo

What that response says is, “the health and safety of our plants supersedes the health and safety of our competitors.” Jeebus!

What that says is simply someone who is not here answering a question about why in some climates water at night. It in no way says anything about what happened at the horse show. That was quite the leap!

We have no idea why that sprinkler went off. I would guess that it was not supposed to. I am pretty sure that no one at a horse facility is saying what you are angry that you decided they were saying.

[MHM]

I don’t know if they were accurate, but somebody posted comments on Facebook saying that the sprinklers went off as a result of a computer malfunction with the system that controls the sprinkler schedule.

Very unfortunate, however it happened. I hope she has a speedy recovery.

[joiedevie99]

Ugh. We had an issue years ago where a water truck driver with headphones in, and using his phone, drove right into a warm-up and turned the water on despite there still being a few horses left in the ring. Two horses were injured in the process.

[soloudinhere]

The rider said this took place at 9:30am - I’ve been at global dozens of times at that time of day and there would not normally be sprinklers. Would indeed be an aberration.

I didn’t see this but I did hear the buzz that a Korean rider had the same difficulty but did not come off. The CDI warmup is bordered by the Van Kempen on one side, the adequan arena on another, and the show office on a third so it’s not like these were to water some decorative foliage, whatever sprinklers they were.

[PaulaM]

Most synthetic footing does require watering throughout the day to maintain optimal conditions. At the show I organize the footing has to get watered at least twice a day to maintain consistency. We try to announce when the watering is going to happen and ensure it takes place during long breaks so that horse and rider safety is maintained.

[DewiPony]

This happened to me in the national warm up ring around late afternoon at the 5th show and and there were mostly older people in the arena on younger warmbloods…