WFP Hospitalized after course held for hour

[bornfreenowexpensive]

Honestly…I’ve known riders killed going for a walking hack on a reliable horse. I’ve also known (not just know of) people with TBIs in a coma for days doing dressage. I’ve also known 3 people killed by horses just handling them…got kicked in very normal situations with normal horses. My worst injury came during a dressage school. I don’t think you ever know what will cause you to question the danger…but most people I do not really think understand the danger until they do. Our minds do not let us think about otherwise we would all never get into a car on a daily basis.

Im hoping and praying for WFPs recovery. I find it just as tragic when a good person gets in a car accident. I guess my mind doesn’t just jump to questioning my participation in the sport because I’m already aware of the danger and do evaluate it and understand but also understand why I ride, jump and event. That evaluation is something that changes for most riders many times through the course of your life.

But whenever something like this, be it a riding accident or car accident or whatever…it make you pause and appreciate life.

[redalter]

Tb or no TB

[QUOTE=TB or not TB?;8368937]
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and helping us better understand the inconsistencies and procedures, blackwly.

It’s odd that after all of the deaths, injuries, accidents, and harrowing adventure that is modern eventing, I never really felt shaken in my conviction to the sport. I questioned the ethics and continually make choices about the best interest of my horses and my wellbeing, but I never wanted to stop eventing.

This fall, with this lovely person who I have always respected but never even met, has given me pause in a way I never would have imagined. It’s not because he’s (arguably) #1 in the world and so if it could happen to him then it could happen to me, because I’ve been under no illusion about that. It’s not because of the severity of the injury, because we take that risk every time we get on a horse. I guess it’s because WFP has never struck me, in any way shape or form, as “reckless.” He’s not the one I think of when I grumble to myself about holes in training or rushing horses or scrambling for qualifications or crappy riding (though I certainly don’t mean to imply he’s perfect). He has always presented himself and his horses as a class act, and these stories only reiterate that. And today I woke up and realized I just don’t want to ride in a sport that punishes correctness.

It’s not that I don’t love XC, and I’m sure I’ll ride at P and below for cross training, but what is there to “say” in this sport about equine accomplishment and expression? What does our training and commitment show anymore? It just doesn’t seem like it matters, when even the good ones fall victim to the dangers. I didn’t lose my nerve or get scared away because of this; I just no longer feel like there’s anything to prove in eventing except foolhardiness. Odd how the most unexpected things are the ones that make you re-evaluate everything.[/QUOTE]

I cannot thank you enough for this lovely post.
I have followed and loved this sport since Bruce was young, and Tad Coffin and Princess Anne riding Doublet were the names you heard. I have evented for more than 25 years, though P and below.

Your post gave me shivers, so very accurate.

At what point do we say we’ve gone beyond what a horse and rider can safely achieve?
It is not as if in the last 15 years or so riders’ and horses have developed better reflexes or physical capabilities.
Yes, we’ve evolved in training and care, to be sure, but this all seems to be just… madness.

Praying for WFP and his family.

[JER]

[QUOTE=redalter;8369275]

At what point do we say we’ve gone beyond what a horse and rider can safely achieve?[/QUOTE]

I don’t understand this POV or specifically, how it relates to this accident.

The obstacle at which the accident occurred was, to my eyes, a perfectly acceptable XC jump. It wasn’t – as we’ve seen in other situations – an accident waiting to happen.

The fall, as it has been described, is a bad-luck fall that can happen in eventing, or out hunting, or even in show jumping or hunters or in the schooling ring at home. The horse hangs a leg, the rider is sent head-first into the ground. It’s a question of timing to some extent – it happens so fast that the rider can’t get an arm out in front.

Yes, it’s very, very scary that this could happen to William Fox-Pitt. But it could happen to anyone on a horse, and that’s not very comforting at all.

It’s bad timing, bad luck, an unfortunate combination of forces – but I can’t and won’t blame the modern culture or course design or demands of eventing for this one.

[Jealoushe]

[QUOTE=JER;8369292]

It’s bad timing, bad luck, an unfortunate combination of forces – but I can’t and won’t blame the modern culture or course design or demands of eventing for this one.[/QUOTE]

I agree…the only other question I have is how many horses did he ride that day…does anyone know?

[BWP]

[QUOTE=Jealoushe;8369387]
I agree…the only other question I have is how many horses did he ride that day…does anyone know?[/QUOTE]

He had navigated the course successfully with one previous horse, I believe

[findeight]

I’m in the this could have happened to anybody jumping anything on any horse camp. Not directly related to fence technicality or course complexity. Just an inexplicable accident.

Sobering for all those who jump or even ride, not just the Eventing community.

[BAC]

[QUOTE=BWP;8369394]
He had navigated the course successfully with one previous horse, I believe[/QUOTE]

That’s what I read too, one other horse.

I realize accidents can happen at any time, whether horse related or not, and I have been a devoted fan and defender of eventing, but not after this. I just don’t have the heart for it anymore and can only hope and pray for a complete recovery for WFP.

[redalter]

I don’t disagree

[QUOTE=findeight;8369414]
I’m in the this could have happened to anybody jumping anything on any horse camp. Not directly related to fence technicality or course complexity. Just an inexplicable accident.

Sobering for all those who jump or even ride, not just the Eventing community.[/QUOTE]

I meant this as a general statement. Should have been more clear that I was not specifically relating to this situation.

[JP60]

[QUOTE=JER;8369292]
I don’t understand this POV or specifically, how it relates to this accident.

The obstacle at which the accident occurred was, to my eyes, a perfectly acceptable XC jump. It wasn’t – as we’ve seen in other situations – an accident waiting to happen.

The fall, as it has been described, is a bad-luck fall that can happen in eventing, or out hunting, or even in show jumping or hunters or in the schooling ring at home. The horse hangs a leg, the rider is sent head-first into the ground. It’s a question of timing to some extent – it happens so fast that the rider can’t get an arm out in front.

Yes, it’s very, very scary that this could happen to William Fox-Pitt. But it could happen to anyone on a horse, and that’s not very comforting at all.

It’s bad timing, bad luck, an unfortunate combination of forces – but I can’t and won’t blame the modern culture or course design or demands of eventing for this one.[/QUOTE]
Sure, let us call it bad luck, trip and a fall, wrong place wrong time, but while this one moment can be attributed to such thought, I feel the post you refer to was being more reflective of the overall aspects of the sport. You, in past times even commented or questioned thus when talk was about how many horse deaths or riders deaths will start to change this sport. This type of question should be asked, even if the answer is tragic accident.

Riding is dangerous, that is accepted, and even jumping bumps in the ground or riding dressage and cause serious injury, but as the difficulty increases, we begin to step out of the realm of random acts and start to introduce risk above and beyond the normal. It is that risk that should always be questioned, always be examined to say “Is this too much?”. Eventing wont change at the top. There will always be risk takers willing to put their lives on the line, but as more good people like WFP get severely injured, more good people die, the overall support for the sport will fade. Just like TB or not TB has done.

Anyway, I wish the best for WFP and his family, and that he can recover fully from this moment. This event won’t stop me from my path of riding/eventing, but it sure reminds me to never take what I do for granted.

[vineyridge]

Maybe I’m reading the jump wrong from the one video, but it looked to me as if it were placed at the top of a rise, so the horse was landing on a downhill slope. If the horse stumbled on landing, the downward momentum would well create a lawn dart rider fall, and the fall velocity would be increased by the downward slope.

If that’s the case, this sort of accident could happen anytime a horse was jumping onto a downhill landing area. That certainly occurs often in hunting as well as eventing.

[akor]

I feel a bit awkward posting this as I feel it’s out of place, but I’m for some reason uneasy with the thought of “reckless” and this type of fall in the same thought. Or that this gives pause about the sport, given the 100s of other fall/incidents that could give pause.

While I have not seen video, nor am I asking to, I have seen nothing regarding analysis of what happened. Thus, I have only life to go by and nothing to assume other than this was a fall. That could happen. To anyone. I was a physics person in a past life, so I get that speed and trajectory and a bunch of other factors come into play. However, in real life, x inputs doesn’t always = exactly y outcome.

Now, if the underlying point is that if someone of WFP’s caliber can fall, what are us mere mortals doing riding or even being around a horse, I guess that makes more sense to me.

Not being snarky, just don’t get that post at all.

I have a weird take on life with horses though. I’d rather have something horrible happen actually in the act of some high risk activity that I loved and knew was really risky than some stupid maybe human error but just as likely “bad luck” horse handling related kick to the head, being smashed into a gate, you name it. May not matter to my friends and relatives, of course.

[bornfreenowexpensive]

[QUOTE=Jealoushe;8369387]
I agree…the only other question I have is how many horses did he ride that day…does anyone know?[/QUOTE]

At most…one in the 1*. There are VERY limited entries at this competition and he and his horse would have had to qualify well before to get a spot coming from the UK.

[Ambitious_Kate]

[QUOTE=redalter;8369275]
I
At what point do we say we’ve gone beyond what a horse and rider can safely achieve?
It is not as if in the last 15 years or so riders’ and horses have developed better .[/QUOTE]

What does this question have to do with the event and the accident? This is pearl clutching. Its like a boy being hit by a car crossing the street, and asking just how safe is it to walk on city sidewalks and how far have we gone that motorized cars go so fast that people die like this? The question is needlessly generalized.

[redalter]

It was a general observation

[QUOTE=Ambitious Kate;8369542]
What does this question have to do with the event and the accident? This is pearl clutching. Its like a boy being hit by a car crossing the street, and asking just how safe is it to walk on city sidewalks and how far have we gone that motorized cars go so fast that people die like this? The question is needlessly generalized.[/QUOTE]

Not “pearcl clutching”. Not sure where you see that by reading my entire post, not just extracting a sentence of a post that was responding to a similar post.

Not at all needlessly generalized. Other posters have stated similar opinions. After watching/participating in the sport over the last 45 years or so, I’ve seen some changes.

[fordtraktor]

I think TB or not TB’s questions are very fair.

I posted before that I have had two TBIs in horse accidents. One was mounting, the other a horse tried to buck me off and threw itself down on top of me. We had been trotting. But in both instances, I can easily trace those accidents back to if I’d made some better horsemanship decisions, I could have avoided them. I do some things differently around horses as a result. I have also known several people killed or badly injured around horses; I also generally know what they did “wrong” too. And I don’t do those things. Sometimes pure accidents just happen but it’s not that common to have a risk factor you can do absolutely nothing to avoid. The shrug of your shoulders, “horses are dangerous” ones.

The sobering thing about WFP’s accident is that if the best in the world can have this kind of accident jumping around your average XC jump in a **? Good grief, it seems like people like me have no business out there with something like that as a goal because it’s not fair to my family and it’s not fair to the horses. There is nothing at all wrong with feeling shaken by something like this.

[JP60]

[QUOTE=Ambitious Kate;8369542]
What does this question have to do with the event and the accident? This is pearl clutching. Its like a boy being hit by a car crossing the street, and asking just how safe is it to walk on city sidewalks and how far have we gone that motorized cars go so fast that people die like this? The question is needlessly generalized.[/QUOTE]
That’s not the best analogy, because when you look at crossing the road today, we have things like traffic lights, cross walk lines, signs to indicate when it is okay to start walking and laws to stop from crossing at the wrong spot and perhaps surprising a driver.

All of these created, because at one point a young boy crossing a road getting hit by a car was look at as something we just didn’t want to keep happening, at least not as the norm.

By your stance, let us rescind the laws, remove the lights, the cross walks and allow the individual to take ownership of their own success or failure. Let us not question whether that death could have been prevented, but just continue the status quo. Not what’d I’d be thinking is a good approach to life, but some like risk more than others.

I always characterized pearl clutching to be more “Oh my word, did you see that? I might just have a case of the Vapors. I need a sip of Brandy to feel better”. I characterize redalter’s question to be more akin to an analyst looking at the overall situation and looking to see if there is a way to not have something happen again. It does not say “Stop it!”. It says “should we stop it?”

Asking questions should be encouraged, not put down. The answer may still be “bad luck”, but it might be “why put a keyhole on rising terrain when the landing is immediately downhill. How about we give a flat step on landing instead, then start the downslope.” See, jump still there, but maybe a better ride. Maybe just a hair back inside the extreme.

[redalter]

ford and jp60 - thank you for doing a much better job than I in trying to voice my thoughts!
JP - your keyhole analogy absolutely illustrates what I was trying to articulate.

Has anyone heard any news?

[Gestalt]

Redalter and tb or not tb, great posts.

I always gnash my teeth when someone does the proverbial shoulder shrug and says all life is risky. But big, fat No it doesn’t have to be. Every “accident” has a root cause. As fordtraktor said, you can learn to reduce most risks. Not all, but if you can see a problem before it’s a problem, you can minimize the danger.

I just don’t get why some have the attitude of “hey it’s eventing, it’s supposed to be dangerous.”

[Highflyer]

Unless I’m missing something we know little to nothing about what caused this fall. We don’t know if it was terrain or fence design or greenness on the horse’s part or bad footing or any of a dozen other things or (most likely) some combination of some of those things.

So I guess I don’t get the panic either. I’m all for removing unnecessary risk, but there is an inherent risk to riding a horse, to jumping, to jumping solid fences that can’t be removed-- and unless you know something about the details of this fall that hasn’t been published, I guess I don’t understand this reaction.

[kerlin]

[QUOTE=bornfreenowexpensive;8369191]
Honestly…I’ve known riders killed going for a walking hack on a reliable horse. I’ve also known (not just know of) people with TBIs in a coma for days doing dressage. I’ve also known 3 people killed by horses just handling them…got kicked in very normal situations with normal horses. My worst injury came during a dressage school. I don’t think you ever know what will cause you to question the danger…but most people I do not really think understand the danger until they do. Our minds do not let us think about otherwise we would all never get into a car on a daily basis.[/QUOTE]

While I wholeheartedly agree with the second half of this post (that we must all make our own personal decisions based on our own risk assessment), I keep hearing this argument over and over and I’m starting to get frustrated with it.

For me, it’s a false equivalency. It’s the same argument used to justify not wearing a helmet - “I can get killed at any time around horses, so why bother wearing a helmet while riding?” Yes, you can, and yes, you should. The two situations are not mutually exclusive.

Horses are dangerous. No one sensible would say otherwise; we can all reel off the names of riders seriously injured or killed in freak accidents. My worst riding fall came while walking on a loose rein in a field; after my horse hand spent a solid 90 minutes behaving abominably, he calmed down, was quiet and well-behaved…and tripped. I went off. My helmet split. I got a concussion and screwed up my back permanently. So believe me, I get the “horses are dangerous at all times” argument.

But. Here’s the thing. Saying that extrapolates from the anecdotes and the statistically practically inconsequential freak accidents and tries to create a big risk umbrella that belies the significantly higher risk that any rider takes on when raising the activity and difficulty level of an equestrian sport.

What I’m trying to say is: yes, you can be injured while just standing next to a horse. But your odds for being injured go up as you go along the continuum: longeing, riding, dressage, jumping, and cross-country. Riding a horse cross-country is without question one of the more dangerous things you can do on horseback. It just is. There are more variables, there is more speed, there is more adrenaline, and there are infinitely more things that can go wrong. Ratchet that up as you go up the levels, with more athletic horses, bigger jumps, faster courses, and trickier questions. It becomes a sheer numbers game.

Possibly the best event rider in the world was very seriously injured riding what seems to many to be a straightforward fence, at a level he had done hundreds of times before. The fact that troubles me is that we’ve cornered the numbers game so that even the very, very best that have ever participated in this sport cannot do so safely. Not with any consistency. It’s not a question of whether they will be seriously injured. It’s a question of when. If not the riders, then the horses. I find that deeply troubling and unbelievably sad.

The problem is not “oh well you could get killed doing anything with horses.” The problem is that eventing seems to have become an unacceptably high risk endeavour, and we can’t catch up fast enough with safety measures. The former does not justify the latter.

Look: I love eventing, but when you add up the numbers of horses and riders seriously injured or killed, you can’t ignore the pattern. So far, the answer seems to be, well, that’s the price we pay for having eventing as a sport. And that frustrates me.