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Eventing
#201

[QUOTE=bornfreenowexpensive;8161524]
They are not really deleted. I thought it was two eliminations within a certain time period. If you re-qualify but then get eliminated again, if the other Es are still with in the period of time you lose your qualification again. So re-qualifying doesnt wipe the slate clean. At least this is what I remember off the top of my head but it has been a while since I read the rules.[/QUOTE]

This is correct.

Re-qualifying does not erase the previous Es. Only when 12 months has expired is an E no longer counted against you. So if you have to re-qualify, then fall off at the next show, you have to re-qualify again.

If you are forced to re-qualify multiple times within a year, you lose your ability to use the categorized qualification pathway. That is the only consequence.

#202

Does it make a difference of your opinion when it’s someone career. When that’s all they have day in and day out to pay for bills. To pay for their horses and care, to pay to feed their family. The longer they are out of the game the sooner they are forgotten. It’s easy to be the next up and coming these days and it’s really easy to be forgotten. You can’t ride the rails of success from years ago like you used to be. I love JP and I understand people’s concerns but at the end of the day this is what make the merry-go-round in her household. If she can’t do her job then the money stops flowing.

I understand the concern of coming in too fast but I also understand the importance of the Pan Ams. The two falls, coincidence or not. Lauren Kieffer fell at that fence last year actually, so it had caused problems before.

There are many what ifs but we need facts. We can play the question game all day and never have an answer. Singling one rider out won’t do it, you need to consider all. Lots to think about with the future of eventing.

I also believe that social media is the devil. The reason we are so aware is because of social media. Before we didn’t know because it was put out there. Eventing is soooo hush hush with horses and soundness at the UL’s it’s disgusting. So again I do believe it was just as bad or worse before the times of social media but we just really aren’t Aware of how bad it was. Maybe it is better, maybe it is not. But I do think they are trying.

#203

Would folks be saying the same thing if it was a guy who became a father --are you saying it is the physical issue of pregnancy and birth or being a new parent (which obviously crosses genders) which might adversely impact an UL competitor ?
Just curious
(and how does having a baby differ from coming back from a broken 
fill in the blank 
)

#204

[QUOTE=omare;8161726]
Would folks be saying the same thing if it was a guy who became a father --are you saying it is the physical issue of pregnancy and birth or being a new parent (which obviously crosses genders)?
Just curious
[/QUOTE]

I believe its more the issue that she just recently gave birth and her body is not quite 100%. From what I have heard from other riders and women in general (I am not a mother so I hear second hand) that it takes some time to get your body and muscles back to normal. Especially your core strength which is what we need for riding. I think its more a recovery issue than a gender issue.

I have no issue with her riding after pregnancy. I do think that she punched herself more than she would normally because it is a PanAm year and she needed to show good results but honestly I think she was pretty much gold for the team as I think they are lacking in horses for this 2* event.

#205

[QUOTE=omare;8161726]
Would folks be saying the same thing if it was a guy who became a father --are you saying it is the physical issue of pregnancy and birth or being a new parent (which obviously crosses genders) which might adversely impact an UL competitor ?
Just curious
(and how does having a baby differ from coming back from a broken 
fill in the blank 
)[/QUOTE]

From the Mayo clinic - to put it in terms that most can relate with, and this doesn’t even touch on half of it:
"Whether you give birth vaginally or by C-section, your body will need time to heal. Many health care providers recommend waiting four to six weeks before having sex. This allows time for the cervix to close, postpartum bleeding to stop, and any tears or repaired lacerations to heal. "

Child birth = severe trauma to the body. Your internal organs move, swell, shift again, get bruised, torn, and battered for 9 months. Maybe you were afflicted with one of the many diseases that one only gets while pregnant.

Motherhood is something to embrace & not be ashamed of. It’s a gift
does it suck that you can’t heal overnight - absolutely. You can be tough, as most mothers are, but you physically can not undo 9+ months of havoc on your body inside & out in a couple months.

Zara Phillips take on fitness & motherhood:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3006255/Zara-Phillips-admits-s-tough-getting-body-having-baby-reveals-won-t-child-2016-Olympics.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/31/sport/zara-phillips-olympics-equestrian/

#206

It drastically alters your balance too. I have taught pregnant riders (eventers) up through their 6th or 7th month. They had been riding their whole lives and they were using their regular horse. Dr. said it was ok. Stuck to flat work once things began to get sort of in the way.

#207

[QUOTE=BaroquePony;8161793]
It drastically alters your balance too. I have taught pregnant riders (eventers) up through their 6th or 7th month. They had been riding their whole lives and they were using their regular horse. Dr. said it was ok. Stuck to flat work once things began to get sort of in the way.[/QUOTE]

Also, my understanding is that as part of preparing for birth, some of the ligaments and so on in the pelvis get more relaxed (I’ve never had a child myself, but one of my friends ended up on bed rest because when she was pregnant her body kind of went overboard on the whole ‘relax things in the pelvic area!’ business, so I might have details wrong) and I can’t imagine that doesn’t have some effect on how things all work together when riding, and which muscles are doing what. (Particularly, when your joints aren’t held together properly, your muscles have to either pick up the slack or the joints start fitting together wrong - which I can easily see leading to imbalanced musculature, particularly once you’ve given birth and your body starts recovering and you have muscles you no longer need.)

It’s not really a ‘hey, she’s a mom!’ thing - if she’d adopted apart from the new parent sleep issues (which would also apply to a father, yes) then there’d be no particular reason to wonder about her physical condition. But being pregnant and giving birth is HARD on your body. All that moving things around and the changes to prepare for giving birth (which generally happen to some extent even if you end up having a c-section, unless the c-section is done WAY early) take a lot out of you.

Plus, if she’s breastfeeding, that’s another factor to consider in terms of nutrition and so on because that alone takes extra calories, plus your body needs calories to put itself back together properly
 It’s not that it can’t be done, just that it’s difficult and some parts of it really only go so fast because your body doesn’t heal up overnight.

So I don’t think anyone is saying ‘omg, she just had a baby, she shouldn’t ride!’ so much as wondering if that might have been a factor in her fitness level, the same as you might wonder about a rider who seemed to be trying to come back from a major incapacitating injury very quickly (there’s only so much you can do with PT if you’re on bed rest) or a major illness. And riding at the upper levels does require you to be very fit.

#208

I also agree that it is inappropriate to single out and focus on one rider and discuss her fitness and decision to ride or not ride.
My impression was that the subject of this thread was the very important issue of safety in eventing, and that is much broader and wider than speculating on one rider.

Also as FLE said, while JP may have been pushing herself, I don’t think she had to worry about a place on the PanAm team, she was qualified with a couple of her horses.

#209

I guess I am a little surprised as we are talking about 1) elite competitors and 2) I did not think you had to heal from a pregnancy. In addition, I have never heard concerns of being a new parent or even just a parent raised in the context of any male riders. Regardless i agree with Fred as to the purpose of the thread so I will leave it.

#210

In general, I have been wondering about the balance thing, not just core changes from pregnancy. Riding is almost exclusively a matter of balance, not strength, and requires very fine differences in body position to maintain balance. For several months in pregnancy, the brain is adapting to major changes in how the body must balance to function. Then birth occurs, and the brain has to re-adjust to a huge difference in the body. Going from balance with a nine month baby bump to flat has to be difficult in gross balance, much less in the fine balance discriminations needed in riding. On the other hand, the body ought to have muscle memory available from before pregnancy, so how long would it take to recover them, once the birth recovery period is over?

The amount of physical effort must be much greater at the Advanced levels, and really fine balance must definitely be greater as well.

This is where rider responsibility must come into play. Only the rider knows his or her own body.

#211

Posted by kdow:

Also, my understanding is that as part of preparing for birth, some of the ligaments and so on in the pelvis get more relaxed

It’s my understanding also. I have a friend who was a midwife and an elder cousin who was a Doctor. There are specific hormones that do this. Makes things much more flexible which, of course, is going to vary with each individual.

#212

[QUOTE=pwynnnorman;8161359]
But I wonder, Goodmorning, if maybe eventing IS the exception. Not even in the horse world is there a competition like eventing–and all those technological advances you mentioned still don’t do much to connect horse brain to rider brain more effectively. And how many other sports have the variables eventing has, like the terrain, the weather, the footing, the crowd placement (at the upper levels)
and, of course, a four-legged partner.

You just can’t technie eventing into being a safer sport, IMO. Sure, you can do things to protect horses and riders better, policy-wise and equipment-wise, but I don’t think anything will ever stop horses from falling. Not ever.[/QUOTE]

I agree we can never stop horses from falling. They have “falls” in every horse sport of some kind. A jumper on course, a competition trail rider, a barrel racer. It’s the type of fall in eventing that makes it so dangerous. That can be improved on, most definitely. Also horse welfare in general can be improved. Look at the difference between endurance organizations, in some races a lot of horses die and in others none (or at least very rarely).

When people say safety cannot be the top priority in a sport, a sport for crikeys sake, then I believe they have their priorities wrong. jmho

#213

To respond to punwnn - have we exhausted all resources to see how safe we can make things? Nope. Do TPTB employ people to research & cast their findings or ideas aside? Yes.

The world was flat once. Drs didn’t believe washing their hands before surgery would save patients. We put a man on the moon. I will never believe you can’t improve something; it’s an archaic way of thinking that stifles industry, nations, and evolution.

Fred - the rider was singled out because of her accidents. This thread is a discussion about safety. To ignore the giant fact that she recently have birth & is competing at the upper levels which requires a high level of fitness - it’s not going to happen. As I said earlier, she may be a tough woman as many mothers are, but you can’t undo +9mo of trauma in a couple months. Then you go and add some additional internal injuries are surgery on the liver? I feel for the woman & her young family. Unfortunately, this again is the epitome of denial & complacency. Was she pushing herself & her horses too quickly, endangering her life & her horses? Can you honestly answer that was a resounding ‘no’? Im sure she thought she was capable - but this thread is about the inability & incapacity of TPTB & UL competitors to police themselves- unfortunately JP exemplifies this.

#214

[QUOTE=BaroquePony;8161914]
It’s my understanding also. I have a friend who was a midwife and an elder cousin who was a Doctor. There are specific hormones that do this. Makes things much more flexible which, of course, is going to vary with each individual.[/QUOTE]

I have to admit, while privately aghast that she would come back to compete at such a high level so quickly, I have stayed away from this. Admittedly, I had twins, so twice the dose of hormones, but I could barely walk for several days after giving birth because relaxin relaxes the pubic symphysis that joins the left and right pelvic bones. When she fell at Rolex, I privately thought that was her body sending her a message.

On the one hand, I feel that women should make whatever choices are right for them. On the other hand, there are very real changes that occur during pregnancy and childbirth. I know this from studying the perinatal period as well as from personal experience. You really cannot expect your body to behave the way that it did pre-pregnancy for a few months.

https://books.google.com/books?id=zFl7y5xqHj4C&pg=PA581&lpg=PA581&dq=pubic+symphysis+oxytocin&source=bl&ots=wxg9dy1mY6&sig=YD4trGF7JcGL3I44J6cyzKjRL7o&hl=en&sa=X&ei=z51gVZeuHI6oyATy4IHoBQ&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=pubic%20symphysis%20oxytocin&f=false

#215

I feel like I have just gone into a time warp back 50 years with this issue.

#216

[QUOTE=IFG;8162058]
I have to admit, while privately aghast that she would come back to compete at such a high level so quickly, I have stayed away from this. Admittedly, I had twins, so twice the dose of hormones, but I could barely walk for several days after giving birth because relaxin relaxes the pubic symphysis that joins the left and right pelvic bones. When she fell at Rolex, I privately thought that was her body sending her a message.

On the one hand, I feel that women should make whatever choices are right for them. On the other hand, there are very real changes that occur during pregnancy and childbirth. I know this from studying the perinatal period as well as from personal experience. You really cannot expect your body to behave the way that it did pre-pregnancy for a few months.

https://books.google.com/books?id=zFl7y5xqHj4C&pg=PA581&lpg=PA581&dq=pubic+symphysis+oxytocin&source=bl&ots=wxg9dy1mY6&sig=YD4trGF7JcGL3I44J6cyzKjRL7o&hl=en&sa=X&ei=z51gVZeuHI6oyATy4IHoBQ&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=pubic%20symphysis%20oxytocin&f=false[/QUOTE]

So the question is not really about having given birth specifically, but rather having gone through a major trauma that takes time to heal - in this case we just happen to have some more idea of what is going on than with an undisclosed injury because information about what happens to the body from pregnancy is easily available - and if the sport as it is now is properly supporting and encouraging riders (or discouraging them from riding as may be necessary) to be sensible.

Right now, with the current economic model, the answer seems to be “no” - they are afraid of losing horses they need to keep in training to keep the bills paid, so they ride sometimes when they shouldn’t, either due to rider health or horse preparedness, whatever. So is there anything that can be done to change that?

#217

Unfortunately, not getting adequate time to be a mom is not limited to eventing or riding in general.

But, as to your greater point of coming back to quickly, I completely agree. When I damage myself, I am lucky that I can sit in my room and write grants and papers. I really feel for those who do physical labor and feel the need to return to work sooner than they should.

In this paradigm, riders are like independent contractors. There is no company to keep paying them and no workman’s comp to make sure that they keep their paycheck while they recover.

[QUOTE=kdow;8162088]
So the question is not really about having given birth specifically, but rather having gone through a major trauma that takes time to heal - in this case we just happen to have some more idea of what is going on than with an undisclosed injury because information about what happens to the body from pregnancy is easily available - and if the sport as it is now is properly supporting and encouraging riders (or discouraging them from riding as may be necessary) to be sensible.

Right now, with the current economic model, the answer seems to be “no” - they are afraid of losing horses they need to keep in training to keep the bills paid, so they ride sometimes when they shouldn’t, either due to rider health or horse preparedness, whatever. So is there anything that can be done to change that?[/QUOTE]

#218

I find it ironic that some of the same people who came after me, as though I were Satan himself, for asking questions about a rider’s decision to run a horse at the CCI**** on rain soaked footing, with previous suspensory issues, which resulted in life ending injuries and a dead horse, are questioning a rider’s decision to get in the saddle after giving birth (which, by the way, had no set recovery period, contrary to what some of you “experts” like to think).

Same issue: rider judgement. Why is it ok to ask questions of some but not others? At least in this case, even if there was some correlation (which I’m not agreeing there was), at least the person making the decision was the only one hurt. The horse was reportedly fine. If we “aren’t supposed to question someone when they are down”, how is this conversation appropriate when the other was so god awful?

Safety will ALWAYS come be a combination of course design, preparedness of horse and rider, and most importantly, rider judgement. It needs all three to work.

#219

[QUOTE=SevenDogs;8162117]
I find it ironic that some of the same people who came after me, as though I were Satan himself, for asking questions about a rider’s decision to run a horse at the CCI**** on rain soaked footing, with previous suspensory issues, which resulted in life ending injuries and a dead horse, are questioning a rider’s decision to get in the saddle after giving birth (which, by the way, had no set recovery period, contrary to what some of you “experts” like to think).

Same issue: rider judgement. Why is it ok to ask questions of some but not others? At least in this case, even if there was some correlation (which I’m not agreeing there was), at least the person making the decision was the only one hurt. The horse was reportedly fine. If we “aren’t supposed to question someone when they are down”, how is this conversation appropriate when the other was so god awful?

Safety will ALWAYS come be a combination of course design, preparedness of horse and rider, and most importantly, rider judgement. It needs all three to work.[/QUOTE]

Seven, people “came after you” not for questioning the decision about running dambala but for the repeated and quite nasty accusations that putting the horse down was a financial decison including the phrase “junking it like a wrecked car”. Go re-read that thread before we start with the revisionist history please.

There were plenty of people in that thread who questioned the decision to run a horse on an old suspensory. Youre the one who got your ass handed to you because you were behaving (quite frankly) like a jerk. There was no reason for the horrible accusations made by you in the first few pages of that thread.

#220

You might want to get your facts straight. Your post was 100% wrong including a quote that I never said (edited to add that you now changed your post). I did question putting a horse down for financial reasons when the rider initially stated the horse was being put down for “career ending” injuries" with the caveat that I hoped there was more to the story. Once it was corrected to be “life ending injuries”, I took the rider at her word.

What I continued to question (and still do) was her JUDGEMENT in running a horse at the four star level over rain soaked footing, with a previously injured suspensory, which healed or not, blew out so badly, the horse lost his life. I further questioned the business plan of needing to sell the horse on US soil, which MAY have influenced the rider’s judgement to run, instead of scratching when footing was less than ideal. Those are legitimate questions relating to how rider judgement may affect horse and rider safety in eventing, like it or not.

In contrast, one might look at the story of Leah Lang-Gluscic, who made a decision not to run at the very same event. Circumstances are different of course, but it does demonstrate the very difficult circumstances under which rider’s operate at the top of our sport.

I know EXACTLY what I questioned and stand by it as well as my question about why we can question some rider decisions to compete in certain circumstances, but not others.we have some of the same people, who were my harshest critics, literally weighing in on an injured rider’s decision to ride after childbirth.

The decision to run or not run is very difficult and why rider judgement will always factor in heavily to any conversation about safety.

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