What is a horse fall?

[sheltona01]

Admittedly, I haven’t evented in a few years but I have a question about the rules.

I just watched Oliver’s mare coming off of the bank at the 5*. How is that not a horse fall? I vaguely remember that the hips and the shoulders have to touch the ground? Could someone please clarify the rule for me?

[Janet]

Here is the FEI definition of a horse fall

549.5.2 Horse
A Horse is considered to have fallen when, at the same time, both its shoulder and quarters have touched either the ground or the obstacle and the ground or when it is trapped in a fence in such a way that it is unable to proceed without assistance or is liable to injure itself.

[sheltona01]

Thank you! My memory was mostly correct then.

[Foxglove]

Your question brought back a memory of the one and only time we challenged a jump judge on calling a fall —it was raining and the cc was sloppy. Just as our young horse took the first fence, the jump judge opened her (yellow) umbrella. Either the horse slipped with his hind feet or he simply didn’t have the umph to go over the fence, but he belly flopped on to it, paused for dramatic effect, then launched over it with his hind feet and went off to finish the course with a double clear. However the jump judge called a fall at the first fence —we protested the decision and won —horse never touched a shoulder or hip to the fence or ground, and clearly was not trapped in the fence. Kid never came off. Horse and kid were both fine.

[Willesdon]

In the days before compulsory elimination, I had a horse rocking gently back and forth, back and forth, on my fence before it managed to scramble off, by some magic means imperceptible to me as Fence Judge, and continued on its merry way. I gave penalties for a “fall” because it most certainly had lost all forward momentum! The TD later strolled up and gently asked me for my reasoning for giving penalties. I explained that the horse had come to a complete halt on the fence - but then added the clincher, quoting one of the favorite sayings of this particular TD, “It is always better to give the penalties and take them off later than add on extra penalties afterwards”.

These days the rules are much clearer so falls are easier to score and, importantly, code into the safety database.