[QUOTE=Gumby80;7154730]
Having done both at a not-very-impressive level, I think they are both about as safe as you make them. I’ve seen nasty falls in both.
There seems to be a perception that XC is about galloping around the fences, and that’s about it. Not true. Watch the international level riders, the really good ones (William Fox Pitt, Andrew Nicholson etc), and you’ll see that they are extraordinarily precise and accurate riders. It’s not a hunter ride, but damn right you’d better be getting the perfect distance to a solid, square tabletop at ~4’. I think that 99% of the falls I’ve seen in both SJ and XC at my (very amateur) level were caused by either rider error (usually a horrible distance), or a horse who hangs his front legs.
Statistics-wise, SJ is probably slightly safer, due to slower pace and movable rails. But there’s plenty of ways to mess yourself up in both. I prefer SJ, as the way I ride is better suited to it, but riding a good, solid, dependable horse around a XC course is just so much fun.[/QUOTE]
I agree about the perception of XC not being a precision ride. I’m no eventing guru (I went Training twice, so my experience is very limited), but it seems the new format requires a much more technical, precise ride and the “gallop and pray” mentality is more of a stereotype (though I think everyone does it at some point). You can’t tell me that a combination with three steps to an arrowhead doesn’t require a lot of precision from the rider. But again, two different types of jumping competition there (which is why I asked the OP what she was intending for the discussion).
Piggy backing off the precision discussion and not making mistakes, I was watching HRTV last night, and they had a replay of one of the Nation’s Cup meets from the last year or two. One of the horse/rider combos landed long off the first element of a triple combination, horse took one step (in a two-stride), absolutely SWAM through the second jump (took the whole thing down), and took down the top rail of the third element. By that example, had that been an XC obstacle that didn’t collapse, it would have been bad. So if someone wants to argue SJ being safer because of rails, then there’s a perfect example. However, with rails and feet flying, that could have been equally bad in other ways (like if the horse got tripped up and went down on top of the rider). Freak accidents are freak accidents.
Sometimes questions are just questions, and not personal attacks.
