The hardest thing right now is not knowing the outcome. If it will be a full recovery, or partial but healthy, or something else. It is emotionally hard to be patient and give it time.
As for what an accident like this, with a rider the caliber and status of WFP, means to eventing …
Yes. Regardless of the outcome but especially if the long-term is not favorable, there will be a negative reaction from many sources, inside and outside eventing. It’s simply inevitable. It would be in the best interests of the sport of eventing, long-term, not to belittle or dismiss those expressions of concern, but to acknowledge those feelings respectfully. That doesn’t mean agreement. It means communicating with understanding rather than defensiveness. IMO
And many of us are understandably feeling more emotional than realistic - of course. If we could prevent all future accidents by quitting ourselves, we’d do it. But we don’t have that power.
In the end, no rider in any discipline, of any caliber or status, is immune from an accident. To feel that “if it can happen to WFP” then the overall risk is too great is a natural reaction - but it’s emotional, rather than statistically valid.
Courtney King-Dye. Ron Turcotte. Ella Pallister (show jumping, 2013). The 6-year-old riding bareback across a parking lot who fell to a fatal brain injury.
It is riding and horses that are dangerous. And there are similar discussions in other sports, from skiing to gymnastics. We aren’t alone in a bubble in this.
Because when people make sports achievement a goal, unfortunately their risk is increased. That is the world we live in.
Eventing doesn’t own the danger. In fact, because eventers generally do seem to be more aware, IMO they are probably safer than the show-hunter kid who pays little attention in the warm-up ring while on a trainer-schooled, made show horse. Just an observation from my time in that warm-up ring with them.
IMO, even after WFP’s accident, there is still more risk to an untaught, unsupervised child messing with a poorly-trained and irritable backyard horse than there is to any UL eventer who is riding well and practicing good horsemanship.
That’s the way I look at it.
It certainly causes me deep concern that such a brilliant rider, one who has also been an ambassador for the sport, has suffered this injury. But even as we wait with trepidation for updates, eventing as a sport has to look ahead and work through the fallout - and more is coming, no doubt about that.
Let’s do it kindly and reasonably, with understanding, and not respond in ways that are emotionally defensive. That’s what’s best for the sport of eventing, long-term. IMO 
