Ehh… if one sport has a DRASTICALLY higher injury rate “per capita” then we, as horseman, owe it to the horses to have a frank discussion about it.
I think NOT comparing and contrasting is a disservice.
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Look up the safety stats for FEI and for British Eventing. The evidence is there, changes have been made, Eventing is becoming safer by several metrics. The question to ask, perhaps, is why USEA doesn’t produce similar reports with annual stats.
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Here is information about the last FEI safety meeting that was help in France in January. I find it interesting that one of the things that was discussed/ trained for was social license. The FEI cares enough about how eventing is presented that they have offered training for it .
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Are you suggesting Eventing has a higher injury rate of horses? I would argue that one. Impossible to know without data, but I see many many injured hunters, dressage and possibly the most is WP and barrel racing just anecdotal evidence.
No I’m not, because like you said you can’t know without data (which you then followed by calling out other disciplines you deem to be worse than your own - cute).
But if they do, they should answer for it. Right?
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@Rallycairn replying to you both.
This information is from sources at the governing bodies.
H/J deaths are not publicly reported like Eventing deaths. Majority of the time when a horse dies at a show no one even hears about it. Still happens at events too however thanks to this thread I’ve had many people reach out over the years to tell me about fatalities that weren’t reported publicly.
You would have to reach out to your governing body to ask if they would share the numbers.
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I agree and I don’t want to make this sport Vs sport, but it’s relative to the discussion when people want to stop Eventing but not other sports.
Yes but I clarified it was anecdotal evidence.
I absolutely agree depending on the causation of such injuries.
Who cares what exactly caused it, if it’s due to the sport the human has chosen for the horse?
And anecdotal evidence is entirely useless. How many barrel racers do you REALLY know? (rhetorical question)
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I apologize is this sounds snarky; however, you did seem to state an apparent fact. Therefore, I assumed you already had the data. I was hoping that the answer was “here are the numbers, here are the sources” - not go do your own digging. So, then it’s not a substantiated fact?
Also, IMHO there is a difference between catastrophic injuries due to a sport versus old dobbin getting some arthritis or tendon strain and needing to be retired at 18 from having to do something in his life other than stand in a pasture and eat grass.
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So I took some time to poke around the interment and find some information about the dangers of horse back riding and a couple of things stand out to me:
- the over all idea that horse back riding is more dangerous then football and motorcycle racing
- How little information there is when it comes to individual sports . I agree that we cannot say with certain certainty that hunter/ jumpers are more dangerous then eventing but neither can we say that eventing is more dangerous than hunter/ jumpers . The data is not there to support either argument. Honestly I find the lack of data from the hunter / jumpers area a little distressing, especially after going on TikTok and finding some examples of Grand Prix horses falling due to the jump .
Equestrian injuries: a five year review of hospital admissions in British Columbia, Canada
Side Effects May Include: Sudden Death - The Chronicle of the Horse
Horseback riding is the most dangerous sport, study warns
How Dangerous Is Horse Riding Really?
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Oh I think it matters a lot what caused it.
I know more barrel racers than I do eventers lol
Majority of this thread is anecdotal evidence.
Yes it is a fact known to me. You’re free to gather your own data as you wish. You don’t have to believe me, but I have no reason to make that up. Feel free to accept or reject it.
Thing is, though, I suspect there are a lot more h/j participants than eventers, especially in N. America, so I’d be most interested in rates of injury per number of horses.
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The problem with this statement is we don’t have enough information to if it is true or not, because the hunter/jumpers industry doesn’t report accidents like the eventing does .
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I’ve been looking around the websites of other equestrian bodies and can find no published data on injuries to horses and riders except in horseracing. Does that mean only Eventing has safety problems, does it mean safety isn’t a concern of other disciplines, does it mean the governing bodies of the various disciplines simply don’t collect data? One common thread was in medical studies, e.g. head injuries to riders, that frequently commented on the problems of gathering equestrian data.
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I looked also and the only thing I can come up is that the other disciplines don’t keep records/ report accidents like eventing does.
I will add that this is an interesting link from horse and hound. It is a list of articles that talk about fatalities and while it’s not scientific data it does do a good job of showing just how dangerous all types of riding can be.
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That’s not how facts work. Facts are supported by data, not your personal opinion. As someone on this board once had in their signature (and I’m desperately sorry I can’t remember who it is), “the plural of anecdote is not data.”
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Eventing and racing have horses (and riders) die and get severely injured in active competition on live TV/streaming. Regularly enough to be a concern to the general public. It’s not common to see this happen in H/J, and I don’t think many other disciplines have such publicity like show jumping and eventing (due partially to the Olympics).
I would love if H/J kept records of injuries sustained in active competition, both to horse and rider. I like data.
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USEF requires horse falls in H/J competition to be recorded by the Steward (with details)
and the report submitted to USEF. HU118 8.
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