Regarding the horse statistics:
In any statistical analysis, numbers can be skewed to form just about any point of view. It’s important to understand that eventing requires many more jumps of a horse in the course of competing. If you ride a Grand Prix jumper, your course of jumps is what, 15 to 20 efforts? And if you drop a rail you do not come back, your day is done. The very fact that event horses have nearly twice as many jumping efforts on cross country day alone skews the percentages. Event horses are jumping nearly four times as many fences in a competition weekend at the upper levels than comparative non-eventing competition horses, probably on average.
(Edited to add: do not forget if you are thinking that cross country requires jumping efforts over solid fences – remember that the majority of horses who start the courses in an average event finish, which means most horses in competition jump the solid fences cleanly, which is a very heavily weighted percentage.)
Even if the grand prix jumper has more chances to show over the course of a season, or a year, the event horse also schools jumping and cross country in addition to competing. How do you factor in fatalities vs. jumping exposure? You can’t. It’s impractical, not without a year of research on each and every horse. Could be done, however, not saying it can’t. The point is you cannot tie horse deaths at eventing to any particular reason with regard to the competition exposure, since many things factor in to exposing the horse to risk factors while on course, or while competing. For instance, the horses at Red Hills appeared to have heart problems, both of them, which compromised them in the end. The course therefore did not cause the fatalities, sorry, but those are the medical facts, despite all the rhetoric and opinion. The horse’s body did. And there is no way on God’s green earth veterinary science can tell anyone (yet) beyond a reasonable doubt, that the course, or a jump, or some combination of the above (including or excluding rider error) caused their demise. The science is just not there yet. Congenital defect, undetected, picked a rather public moment to surface? Underlying infection, compromising the heart? Physical condition or lack thereof? Or no reason? sometimes things just happen. You can’t blame that on a course.
How many horse deaths happen back in the barns at the huge hunter shows, or at the dressage shows? Pony club rallies? Death by colic induced by stress at shows, events, rallies? The numbers can string on and on and become an endless recitation of exceptions, qualifications, special circumstances. Did the competition cause the death or contribute to it?
If one is concerned about horse deaths, by far and away, steeplechasing holds the crown on that. Next would be organized racing. I kept statistics back in 2000-2001 for a website I was hosting, and worldwide I found over 100 horse deaths, the vast majority in England in steeplechasing, over 60 percent. The rest were mostly racing Thoroughbred first, Quarter Horse second, Harness third. (slower). There were a very tiny few reported in Quarter Horse Shows, Arab shows, Saddlebred and TW shows, reining, hunters and jumpers, etc. Surprising a lot of horses died in rodeos, a very dangerous place for a horse actually. Lots of broken necks, tangled in ropes. Oh and the new Extreme horse sport deal - whew, bad on horses too. They’ve had several horse deaths at those. And then eventing, dressage, youth shows (including Pony Club, 4-H, etc.) and other stuff like clinics and non competition events. An interesting statistic, the Quarter horse World show and Congress each have a horse death usually every other day of competition, it’s not reported for the most part, but I know from attending both, and talking to the driver of “the truck”. Congress is 10 days long. You do the math. And there’s no outrage and big long epistles posted on this board about THAT tragedy of a horse sport. No one calling for the demise of showing quarter horses, outlawing rodeos, etc.
Worldwide eventing is on par with other horse sports listed above, all reported about the same number of horses per sport per year. Some a few more, some a few less. You just can’t make the case based on statistics that eventing is any more dangerous to horses than any other horse sport with the exception of steeplechasing or racing. I just feel it’s important to point out statistical analysis needs to be exact, and that the difficulty of comparison on raw numbers alone usually will lead to an erroneous conclusion.
