Yes I saw that too. Somehow broke its pelvis on landing? Must have slipped or fallen?
Article describes they fell since Rosie was taken to hospital to be checked out.
Just sounds awful.
Em
That is just soā¦ random. Is it in the category of ācould happen to anyone/anyhorseā? What a tragedy.
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Or he had had some kind of paddock accident the week before and had a hairline fracture that came apart. Or heād gotten cast in the stall the night before and had the same.
This is one of the problems with speculating. There are about a million ways horses can hurt themselves and sometimes you just never know exactly what happened.
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There is no problem with speculation on this thread. We are all trying to have open discussions about the safety and repercussions of these things in our sport and how people deal with it moving forward.
The details to know what happened is exactly what we are missing in our sport. Everything is kept hush hush behind closed doors and if you ask questions you get chastised. How can we gather data and make educated decisions when information is withheld and conversations squashed?
If you donāt want discussion on fatalities youāre in the wrong thread. What do you gain by your comment?
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Youāre being overly sensitive.
I made a statement that was every bit as speculative as yours and has about an equal chance of being accurate. My only purpose was to point out that maybe it had nothing, really, to do with the jump or the footing, or slipping.
As I said, this is one of the cases where no one may ever know exactly what happened.
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I replied to your comment, hardly being sensitive.
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Very good questions, all of them. My eventer went south in the gallop on flat land, nothing to do with fences. He wasnāt the āstandardā horse for the sport, either.
Iām no longer in the game, so I donāt know how much actual data we have from when eventing was first created. I mean, those were working horses, cavalry horses. I would expect the āfalloutā in most horseflesh happened well before they showed up at a competition. So it could be very hard to watch the statitics āover timeā when the record could be very incomplete.
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I am completely out of my element here as I do not event, and have no desire to (super chicken).
But I heard part of an interesting conversation the other day about the anticipated impact insurance will have on the sport and wondered what others thought. Someone was commenting that insurance is difficult/impossible to get on upper level event horses because of the risk, and even lower level horses are getting harder to insure. I would imagine that would have a chilling effect on entries except for those who can make the risk-based decision that they can afford to lose their horse.
Iām curious what others think.
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Not a lot of people insure their horses already because the cost is so high. Many UL eventers do not.
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I spoke to the agent who helped insure my horse about this and she mentioned one company was refusing to insure only thoroughbred eventers, not other breeds. Very odd.
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I insure my horse, mostly so I get major medical coverage. I usually buy fairly cheap then put lots of training in - it would be hard for me to replace that horse if it suddenly died without chunk to start with.
I currently pay about $600/yr (canāt recall the exact number) for mortality and major medical at $10k. Iāve never insured for higher than $15k, but if you were an ULR and tried to insure for $100k, then Iād guess insurance might be $6k if itās a straight-line increase. $6k/year for multiple horses might not be feasible depending on your business planning (or lack thereof).
Self-insuring means you take the risk of having to buy a new horse with cash and waiting the several years of training until it āreplacesā the one you lost.
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Insurance companies know more about risk than anyone.
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I donāt understand this comment. Are you suggesting TBs are less sound than other breeds?
I did not single out unsoundness as there area many reasons for a claim. But yes, If insurance companies wonāt insure TBs then actuaries have calculated that they are more likely to be claimed on and you can be assured the math has been done by The Math People.
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As a Math Person myself, who worked with the insurance industry for years, I would love to see the data. If that is their impression, it certainly isnāt backed by years of studies and general horsemanship knowledge.
I wouldnāt assume the people deciding and writing coverage/policy are experts on horse physiology or the horse industry.
What likely is happening is they are excluding race horses from specific policies. If it is even happening at all; this is all second hand at this point. Iād be curious to learn more.
The people who say TBs are unsound/crazy/have issues/whatever often base their impression of the breed on their experience with ex-racers who retired from racing. Think about that a moment: they are basing their impression of the breedās soundness on horses who have already finished (and sometimes failed!) their first career. No other sport breed goes through that before being started for eventing, dressage, or jumping. It isnāt the breed that makes them unsound, itās racing.
Luckily Iāve owned and ridden many TBs that did not come from racing connections or did not race. So I know that impression is just an Ill-informed stereotype.
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Beowulf, having been in insurance, what is your perspective on whether insurance companies will change the game by changing who gets insured against what risk? I also heard that courses, course designers, etc. might find themselves uninsurable against claims of loss. I donāt know enough to know whether that is possible or likely.
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I think we also have to consider that horse welfare has got so much better that long careers are possible. When I was in pony club, kids on 15 year old ponies were excluded from team events because they were ātoo oldā. We had an international show jumper called Ryanās Son, who died, in competition, aged 19. His death is outlined in this article https://www.horseandhound.co.uk/features/ryans-son-horse-of-a-lifetime-180554 but doesnāt refer to the outrage at the time about how irresponsible people felt JW had been competing such an old horse. Nowadays, no one blinks an eye at a 19 year old horse and often horses donāt get to Advanced level (not even 5*) until they are 10. In the 1980s/90s it wasnāt uncommon for 7/8 year olds. And Bramham a 3* (now 4*) was often 6 year olds.
Likewise rehab from injuries, understanding of prevention, better surfaces, all have contributed to greater longevity.
Thereās no data to refer to - especially as for most of long-format horses could compete on bute and there was plenty of use of herbal remedies that would not be allowed now but while of course we should be studying how to make things safer, I think itās really dangerous to try and compare to the old eventing days. Here is the 1988 eventing wrap up for the year looking at Burghley Horse Trials.
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