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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Are the data or statistics summarized and/or published anywhere public or does it just go into a data “black hole”?
ETA: I found that the USEF requires both horse collapses and horse fatalities to be reported; I did not find any report or place with statistics on the webpage. I actually can understand why things aren’t published but then I think it’s very hard to argue one sport/discipline is more or less dangerous than another without the statistics… and knowing horses are horses…
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I think when it comes to social license and horse sports all disciplines need to be careful about what they put out. Right now racing is in the cross fires, but it could be anyone else next. I pulled these articles to show that it’s not just eventing that has to be careful.
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Yes. The USEF requires horse injuries/fatalities, as well as rider injuries/fatalities to be reported to the USEF, in ALL disciplines.
BUT the horse injury form for Eventing is different from the horse injury form for other disciplines,
AND horse and rider injury forms for Eventing have been required for many more years than they have been required for the rest of the disciplines.
I don’t know why they (USEF) are concealing the data.
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As a complete outsider, is this conversation not devolving into whataboutism? For practical purposes, in the world of eventing, it matters who lives and dies, right? Using other domains to inform and support our own biases isn’t really moving the needle.
Of course, I will now put on flame suit.
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If the claim is that eventing is more dangerous (to the horse) than other “english” disciplines, I think actual data (of catastrophic injuries and Did Not Complete) might be illuminating. At the top levels, I’m willing to believe that there are more retirements on the day from cross-country participants, but you’re (generally) not seeing the horses that never compete again from injuries over the much shorter courses in the h/j world.
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I do think there are more people eventing than there were 20 or 30 years ago. I also think the courses are safer than they were 20 or 30 years ago. But if there are more horses competing, what is the percentage being injured/killed versus 20 or 30 years ago.
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I agree with you 100% that many ( if not most people ) on this thread are bias and many are pro - eventing . I will also add that there is some very high emotion coming from both sides right now that is probably clouding people’s judgment and perception when it comes to this issue . Having said that if people are going to use phrases like -it more dangerous then any other horse sport and needs to go ( I am paraphrasing here) then supporters are within their rights to ask that it be supported by facts and figures .
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