WTF Are We Doing?

[goodmorning]

[QUOTE=Jealoushe;8166947]
I think the endurance portion has really been lost.[/QUOTE]

I agree; and think that it played a factor in weeding out the horses that just weren’t meant to event at the ULs. Would the horses that are breaking down so easily, having cardiac problems, and struggling to get around have made it as far as they have w/increased endurance demands? Some of them would absolutely not. Then the FEI & riders embrace CICs & a greenhorn would scratch their head… Would it weed out some riders who shouldn’t be at that level? Who don’t have the level of fitness that should be required? Probably. Would they wise up a little sooner on course when they have one stop & a long ways to go? Probably.

There is a reason why Jung chooses horses that he thinks could win in LF days. You stack the odds in your favor. No, there is no going back, but eventing would be wise to embrace the endurance factor in a modern way. The current version of the short format, people need to move on from it…and not by embracing the CIC…

The funny thing is, if implemented, once again the Americans would be left in the dust - because many winning horses - Jungs, WFP’s, yup, they could win in the LF era…but that’s not the point of this thread…

[Vic_007]

Cross country jumps the knock down seem scary to me. They are too heavy.

I saw a stadium jumper jumping GP have a rotational fall over a badly rode fence and all the poles knocked down. The horse landed and broke its shoulder and has to be euthanized.

The rider was fine as he flew off in the other direction out of harms way.

I don’t think we had anymore rotational falls over the old format fences so maybe the courses need to take a history lesson and go back a bit?

[Vic_007]

Steeplechasing is amazing. The reason they do well is because the horses know how to take care of themselves and they are fit in an endurance way most UL horses never will be.

[kdow]

[QUOTE=Janet;8166999]
Not the point.

Once the horses FIGURE OUT that the jumps fall down (and they WILL figure it out) some will probably jump them less carefully.

And that might make them MORE dangerous.
(the rule of unintended consequences.)

You can’t tell that from show jumping statistics.[/QUOTE]

Which is why we can suggest things to be investigated, but actually implementing major changes WITHOUT investigation or study is probably a silly thing. (Alas, the FEI seems quite happy to ignore the investigation or study part. Make everyone a guinea pig!)

(I say probably because I’m sure someone can think of some example of a rule change that didn’t have any weird complications that you wouldn’t have expected, but when we’re talking about things like changing if the jumps fall down, then that’s going to influence all kinds of things that may not be predictable or obvious right away.)

[JP60]

[QUOTE=Janet;8167022]
Three Day Eventing has been in the Olympics since 1912[/QUOTE]
The salient point was the term “civilian”. yes I am aware that Eventing was in the Olympics since 1902 and that only military people were involved up to 1924. In 1949 a group of people got together and perform a “civilian” oriented show in Byrn Mar that they labeled a “three day”. Unless you or someone on this list was there we can’t really know what the rules were what the heights were so how can we say it was related to the olympics other than they used the same term.

Even in 1953 they only created a “three day event” starting at training which was fairly below what the Olympics were offering.

And Janet, that was quote from a website so feel free to let them know they wrote a bad sentence.

[bornfreenowexpensive]

[QUOTE=Vic_007;8167170]
Steeplechasing is amazing. The reason they do well is because the horses know how to take care of themselves and they are fit in an endurance way most UL horses never will be.[/QUOTE]

I disagree with that. I’m around both…and MANY UL event horses are as fit (sometimes more fit) and do very similar amounts of conditioning work as most Steeplechase horses. Similar amounts of long slow conditioning work that MOST good UL event riders do and very similar amounts of gallops. There is not a huge difference at all…which is why doing dressage on an UL event horse at a big CCI can be very tricky.

[Jealoushe]

Oh, steeple-chasers fall…a lot! I have never seen so many broken collar bones as I did when I lived in Ireland. I swear every jockey there was broken lol

[omare]

So why cant you tell from the show statistics? Horse are not stupid-they already know staduim fences fall down. I objected to teh presumption that fences falling do not equal safety-- that is a presumption w/o facts.

But unfortuiantely from your descrption i can imagine a rash of horses bascailly running through xc fences without picking up their feet. Maybe the issue is horses are already trained to jump flat and basicailly jump by braille going by xc as the speeds and terrain require that–already leaving little margin for error?

[Winding_Down]

[QUOTE=omare;8167384]
So why cant you tell from the show statistics? Horse are not stupid-they already know staduim fences fall down. I objected to teh presumption that fences falling do not equal safety-- that is a presumption w/o facts.

But unfortuiantely from your descrption i can imagine a rash of horses bascailly running through xc fences without picking up their feet. Maybe the issue is horses are already trained to jump flat and basicailly jump by braille going by xc as the speeds and terrain require that–already leaving little margin for error?[/QUOTE]

It all depends on what we mean by jumps that fall down. Frangible pins are more like jumps that collapse (if I understand the design correctly) but if we were to start making all jumps fall down like stadium fences, then this could result in very negative consequences. Jumping such fences from a slow speed is very, VERY different from jumping those same fences at a high speed. I would be very nervous doing the latter as the impact of hitting the fence, in concert with the speed of the horse, could make for a very nasty accident. If moving slowly, on even terrain, a horse can hop out of the way of poles falling, but if moving fast, on terrain that could involve steep inclines or declines, a horse has no way to react that quickly to poles/jumps that would be tossed far more widely. And if you continued to use heavy jumps and made then unstable so that they would fall down similarly to stadium jumps? Wow, I would not be out there galloping those fences. No way, no how.

Reading through this thread, I see repeated statements about how there are more accidents now (and I presume that includes over the past few years) than in past years. I would love to see the empirical evidence for these statements. Rather than relying on heresay and salience/immediacy of news, I hope we can actually rely on the actual facts.

So please post the actual evidence. I would greatly like to see those data.

[omare]

Isnt that my point–there is no data-I am not saying I ahve data-- and you dont have data-- no one has data-- one way or the other-and yes-- speed will make horse run and jump flat-- taking things with them----ever watch the the hurdles races in england-- all the hurdles get flattened at the end.
Jump on me all you want --there is no data.

[Winding_Down]

[QUOTE=omare;8167497]
Isnt that my point–there is no data-I am not saying I ahve data-- and you dont have data-- no one has data-- one way or the other-and yes-- speed will make horse run and jump flat-- taking things with them----ever watch the the hurdles races in england-- all the hurdles get flattened at the end.
Jump on me all you want --there is no data.[/QUOTE]

omare, I was not jumping on you at all and I actually was not reading your posts in particular in posing the question.

http://eventingnation.com/home/eventing-safety-facts-figures-horse-falls/

[Lady_Eboshi]

[QUOTE=omare;8167497]
Isnt that my point–there is no data-I am not saying I ahve data-- and you dont have data-- no one has data-- one way or the other-and yes-- speed will make horse run and jump flat-- taking things with them----ever watch the the hurdles races in england-- all the hurdles get flattened at the end.
Jump on me all you want --there is no data.[/QUOTE]

“There is no data” because it costs time and money to produce, and frankly the UL adrenaline junkies don’t want or need it. Like Top Gun pilots, they’re willing to take the risk. And, for a lot of them, the rent or mortgage on their barn is riding on getting it done. Fallout? OH YEAH–I remember the whispered conversations around one event barn I trained at about how many horses thus-n-so sent weekly to a certain hunt kennel of reknown. These people generally do NOT have the “love-you-give-you-a forever-home-pet” mentality; horses are dollar signs and once they’re broken, completely expendable. Call Next! Platitudes blathered on EN for the benefit of the Pony Club hero-worshippers notwithstanding.

The people out-gassing on social media about the numbers of rotational falls are NOT the UL riders; it’s the adult-ammie recreational puddle-jumpers who are aghasted by imagining THEIR sweet Dobbin crashing through the air and maybe rendering themselves quadriplegics on the way to the compost heap.

My prediction is this is going to split to become two different sports; the lower levels will become slower, smaller, less technical, and ultimately safer as befits a recreational sport. The UL’s, for as long as they last in an animal-welfare conscious and litigious world, will be the exclusive province of professionals the way the Grand National or the Kentucky Derby are. High stakes, big money, life and death drama. But the day the Olympics cuts them, and it will soon because of the expense and perception of elitism, they’re history. There simply isn’t the money to sustain that small, elite tip of the spear without the Olympic cachet.

I cannot see that as a “bad thing” for the 98% of riders and horses who want to enjoy a challenge but still see the sun rise tomorrow morning.

[kdow]

I think getting hung up on if there are more now than there used to be is really pointless unless you’re doing it from the point of view of analyzing data that probably doesn’t actually reliably exist (so as to determine what changed - fitness routines, feed, vet care, fence style, rider fitness, rider health, etc. - lots of possible variables there) because it doesn’t matter if there used to be more, or fewer, or the same - the question is: Are we happy with the number of major incidents there are right now in this sport?

And the answer to that from a number of people is quite a resounding “no”. So getting into quibbles about if it was safer before or if we just didn’t find out about things as much is a side track and a distraction.

(However, if someone can actually compile decent data on old competitions that could be compared to current ones, please do so. Regardless of the relative number of incidents between then and now, the data may well have some useful nuggets of information about what works or what doesn’t work, etc.)

[Winding_Down]

So how are the data noted in my above post deficient? To quote from Jenny’s summary of the data:

The real improvement in horse falls comes in the rotational category. Since 2004, rotational falls have decreased 57 percent, definitely an encouraging number. While frangible pins remain an imperfect technology, they have undoubtedly played a roll in lowering the number of rotational falls since their introduction to FEI cross-country courses in 2003.
It’s also worth noting that this decrease in rotational falls occurred during the transition away from the long format at the FEI levels. CCI4* events like Badminton, Burghley and Rolex Kentucky last used the long format in 2005.

http://eventingnation.com/home/eventing-safety-facts-figures-horse-falls/

^^^ click on the above for the results

[Winding_Down]

[QUOTE=kdow;8167546]
I think getting hung up on if there are more now than there used to be is really pointless unless you’re doing it from the point of view of analyzing data that probably doesn’t actually reliably exist (so as to determine what changed - fitness routines, feed, vet care, fence style, rider fitness, rider health, etc. - lots of possible variables there) because it doesn’t matter if there used to be more, or fewer, or the same - the question is: Are we happy with the number of major incidents there are right now in this sport?

And the answer to that from a number of people is quite a resounding “no”. So getting into quibbles about if it was safer before or if we just didn’t find out about things as much is a side track and a distraction.

(However, if someone can actually compile decent data on old competitions that could be compared to current ones, please do so. Regardless of the relative number of incidents between then and now, the data may well have some useful nuggets of information about what works or what doesn’t work, etc.)[/QUOTE]

I totally TOTALLY agree. Improving safety is an ongoing process. We have made progress for sure, but because there will always be falls, progress should be ongoing… and efforts should be re-doubled at every turn… I do get a bit frustrated, however, when people do not acknowledge that TPTB or the ULRs are concerned about safety… from what I gather, those assertions are not substantiated and are not warranted. This “us” versus “them” mentality seems ignorant at times…

Carry on…

[Lady_Eboshi]

One way at least SOME useful data on accidents might point to causes would be to compare number and type of accidents at the various levels; Novice through Advanced. At least that would show at which level the combination of excessive speed and/or excessive or inappropriate technicality might be upping the rate of casualties. If nothing else, this might tell you “where to get off” if you value your horse and your neck.

When I think back over stuff I jumped 25 years ago, I shudder and wonder if I wasn’t Stark. Raving. MAD. More likely, ignorant of the possible consequences and overconfident to a FAULT. Fortunately, I got away with it by sitting on a horse with the agility of a “Maltese Cat.” So many others are not as fortunate!

[kdow]

[QUOTE=Lady Eboshi;8167557]
One way at least SOME useful data on accidents might point to causes would be to compare number and type of accidents at the various levels; Novice through Advanced. At least that would show at which level the combination of excessive speed and/or excessive or inappropriate technicality might be upping the rate of casualties. If nothing else, this might tell you “where to get off” if you value your horse and your neck.[/QUOTE]

Right. My concern about data not existing is that we’re simply working with a limited pool of RELIABLE data in terms of older events - results and some information about the course and jump construction is probably available, but there are a lot of other factors that come into play also that we could START collecting now but that wasn’t considered important or won’t be remembered reliably if you asked someone about what they did in the past. (I mean, how well do you remember a specific horse’s exact feed/medication/exercise routine from 25+ years ago? If you remember it well, how many people remember that well? How accurate is your memory? There are studies that clearly establish that your confidence level in the accuracy of your memory does not map well with the actual accuracy, so that means even if we can collect some more data by interviewing people or doing surveys on historical practices, you have to treat that data as somewhat unreliable…)

Which doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to be learned, just that, as I said, there’s a good chance we just don’t have the historical data to properly identify any ‘smoking guns’ if they have to do with the factors involved that wouldn’t have been recorded. And every event that runs without any kind of sensible data collection survey is more information being missed, which makes me very sad.

(I’m also still quite sad about the experiences of those folks who are very smart about data and experiment design and so on, who tried to help and put great personal time and energy in and ended up just basically burning out and giving up. That does quite a lot to erode my faith in the organizing bodies and TPTB in terms of their ACTUAL commitment to safety improvements versus stuff that I consider more along the lines of “safety theater” - where they pick maybe one or two things that are, admittedly, improvements, like using pins on jumps where appropriate, and then make a big song and dance about how they’re doing that and doesn’t that mean they’re paying attention to safety? Eventing needs more than one or two changes.) (And pins aren’t exactly The Greatest Safety Device ever - they prevent a horse rolling on the rider, but the horse and rider still fall. The falling itself is still a problem, y’know?)

(And the whole business with air vests just does not count as a safety advancement at ALL until SOMEONE actually does proper studies and research WITH EQUESTRIAN MODELS instead of just pointing at motorcycle stuff. Not the same thing, not the same forces.) (ETA: Sorry, I got cranky. )

[Lady_Eboshi]

I would start simple:

What kind of fence caused a rotational fall at each event where one occurred?

What was the speed set for that course where it happened?

As I see it, all the other variables of horse and rider training, fitness, ability, weather, footing, etc. are subordinate to the two issues above. They are also pretty much the only two factors under the control of Event organizers–speed and course design. The other variables are up to the riders and trainers and are so subjective they could never be measured, mandated or enforced. No equestrian sport or any other depending on personal judgment can EVER be 100% safe.

Perhaps if this data was compiled they would find NO correlation between type of obstacle and incidence of falls, but I seriously doubt that would be the case. I’d also bet that the number increases greatly over a certain MPM pace. Nailing down just THOSE two variables for, say, 10 or 20 years’ worth and corrected for numbers of starters would lead to some possibly actionable information.

This of course presupposes that anyone has kept any kind of record of on-course accidents and their outcomes at the various levels over the years; if not, start TODAY and in 5-10 years we might begin to know something. I agree with you that “safety theater” of howitzer-stopping helmets, exo-skeletons and WiFi medical armbands does nothing to solve the problem of horses/riders falling. A rabbit’s foot and a chant to the Mother of the Dawn would make me feel just about as “safe” blasting out of the start box.

[Beam_Me_Up]

This data does have type of fence and level, though it doesn’t split out rotational (it does have “serious” vs “non-serious” injury).
http://useventing.com/sites/default/files/cross_country_safety_stats.pdf

From the data I’ve seen, I don’t get the sense that accidents are increasing. Just that our view of acceptable risk is changing. As people noted upthread, rides that were at the time considered heroic (in the era of catch that horse and remount) would be considered poor horsemanship today. The idea that a fall necessarily means a preparation deficiency is fairly new.

Because we are talking about the sport today, our goal should be for it to meet our safety/risk tolerance today, not 1912 or 1944 or 1993 standards.

[kdow]

[QUOTE=Lady Eboshi;8167676]
I would start simple:

What kind of fence caused a rotational fall at each event where one occurred?

What was the speed set for that course where it happened?

As I see it, all the other variables of horse and rider training, fitness, ability, weather, footing, etc. are subordinate to the two issues above. They are also pretty much the only two factors under the control of Event organizers–speed and course design. The other variables are up to the riders and trainers and are so subjective they could never be measured, mandated or enforced. No equestrian sport or any other depending on personal judgment can EVER be 100% safe.[/QUOTE]

No, the other data is stuff I think it’d be potentially wise to collect going forward, since like I said, it would be hard to get past data accurately. There are people who are experts on such things who could probably determine which things it’s worth taking the time to log, and how to design a survey to properly capture the desired information with an acceptable chance of accuracy, so TPTB should be talking to them about what information should be collected. There is likely a ‘sweet spot’ in terms of effort to collect versus usefulness of information collected, and probably there are people who figure that kind of thing out on a regular basis also.

Whatever, though, even if they’re just keeping much more basic information, they really do need to start tracking TODAY and do so PROPERLY with it all going into a central database that people know about and can gain access to, so people can, you know, ACTUALLY DO RESEARCH with it. If TPTB are gathering information but not making it accessible anywhere and have no plans to do so, then they might as well just not bother gathering it. (And when I say accessible I do not mean everyone needs to be able to find it with google. But someone who wants to do a statistical analysis with reasonable credentials for doing so should be able to apply and get access to the data they need. I’m moderately sure this is a thing that happens in other areas already - you have to have certain qualifications and/or jump through certain hoops to access collected data.)

I would like to see also a good internationally applied (HAH) incident report form so that when things do happen, we make sure we learn as much as possible. And some of what we learn may easily be things that are difficult to mandate or enforce, but if it is a big enough issue then you get the equestrian media talking about it, and add it to trainer education classes, and so on, so that at least SOME people will make use of it. (And depending on what it is, you may even see it changing the behavior of people like pros - if we found out risk of accident goes up significantly with each additional horse you ride on the day even once you account for simply being in the saddle more, then even if the pro doesn’t change behavior, horse owners might start pulling horses from pros that have larger strings, so it doesn’t end up that THEIR horse is the one who runs fifth on the day and ends up having to be euthanized due to a bad fall, etc.)