WTF Are We Doing?

[JP60]

[QUOTE=Manahmanah;8171471]
So what exactly will that change? Are you saying LOWER LEVEL eventing is too dangerous? What exactly is the complaint now?[/QUOTE]
Complaint?

None really. J asked What are we doing and I answered with specific ideas. If I had a complaint it might be that ULRs, UL trainers are trying to co-op the lower levels as a way to train horses for upper level Eventing and they should either stop trying, or accept what is there today. Overall the safety factor for Training and below is pretty good and I’d love to keep it that way.

J’s original point was that keeping the status quo at the top of this sport should not be acceptable if we truly care for the horse. Safety, what little ha been provided has been oriented towards the rider…period. Not one change has been applied to help the horse and the fact the steeple chase jockeys can get on the back of a horse with practically no protection while the modern Eventer Pro can’t get on a horse without two layers of bubble wrap kind of tells the story of what’s been done to Eventing.

How about we consider one change that may be good for the horse and not our egos. How about we focus on endurance and not survival. Answer this, does the horse care if the jump is less trappy, less technical, a little bit lower allowing for non catastrophic mistakes? What if we asked them to run 1 or 2 minutes more without so much stop and go, think they’d complain? If you find a horse that says yes, get him or her on record otherwise this is all about the human ego and not the welfare of the horse.

[BaroquePony]

:yes:

[Jealoushe]

I love you guys

Windingdown - no one is bashing TPTB. No one is screaming “conspiracy!” The data is lacking. It is not comprehensive enough and like it was said above - even with the data what on earth has changed?

The point about the water jumps is all to real and I have seriously been wondering WHY they put fences like huge corners 3 strides after massive drops in the water. This is even more disturbing after reading the post above. Sure many horses make it over, but it isn’t pretty, and each time a horse has a “bad” jump, it’s confidence is being pecked away. It may not show at that jump, but later on the course.

Another horse dead at a CCI. Keeping up with the pace of at least one horse/rider death a month this year. Unacceptable.

[Winding_Down]

[QUOTE=BaroquePony;8171400]
Winding Down, you seem to be missing the entire process that has lead up to TPTB finally getting partially off their collective asses to begin collecting SOME, but not enough data.

Insulting many of the people that were involved in pushing for this probably is not the best way to show your enthusiasm for their work.[/QUOTE]

BP, your post has me totally confused and it has occurred to me that I may be missing the entire process as you see it. Can you describe your view of that process? I am curious. From my perspective, I have been aware of or attended quite a few discussions/meetings, etc addressing safety and research over the past 15 years and I guess that is what I see of as “the process.”

For the life of me, I cannot recall seeing collective asses. That is quite disappointing, as I am now curious as to what collective asses actually look like… :eek:

One does not have to be a TPTB to collect data. Read back over the past few posts on this thread to see what I mean.

And I certainly have not insulted anyone who was involved in pushing for the research. In fact, I know several people who have been actively involved in advocating for and promoting research on safety. I surely would never intentionally insult those responsible for promoting frangible pins, for example.

:

[Winding_Down]

[QUOTE=Jealoushe;8171821]
I love you guys

Windingdown - no one is bashing TPTB. No one is screaming “conspiracy!” The data is lacking. It is not comprehensive enough and like it was said above - even with the data what on earth has changed?

The point about the water jumps is all to real and I have seriously been wondering WHY they put fences like huge corners 3 strides after massive drops in the water. This is even more disturbing after reading the post above. Sure many horses make it over, but it isn’t pretty, and each time a horse has a “bad” jump, it’s confidence is being pecked away. It may not show at that jump, but later on the course.

Another horse dead at a CCI. Keeping up with the pace of at least one horse/rider death a month this year. Unacceptable.[/QUOTE]

How distressing - another horse dead. What horse? Where?

I agree totally with you and Viney about the water jump issue.

One issue with the increasing difficulty of our fences is that we are getting better and better. If we make our courses less difficult, then scores on xc will not matter as much. I do not want to give dressage and sj any more weight than they already have (to me, eventing is all about xc).

The conundrum is that in making xc more difficult, we also make it higher risk.

The best course designers are those who set up difficult questions in which errors are more likely to be a run out instead of a fall. That way, xc can be challenging but not as dangerous. Of course, those questions tend to include skinnies and tight turns etc… and many take issue with these questions noting that they are trappy.

Question: Vineyridge, you may have access to an answer. The falls at water complexes - how serious are they? Typically, the speed while jumping through water is greatly reduced and my experience (speaking with little confidence as i have no data) is that falls through water complexes tend to be pop offs, glance offs, etc. I cannot recall seeing a very serious accident occur through water. At all.

Those big galloping fences that may have been more prevalent in the past are appealing but typically do not result in errors. So they do not do a lot of good in influencing scores

Endurance is not part of the equation without the long format, unless we want to make longer xc courses. But then we introduce fatigue in concert with increasingly difficult courses which may very well result in more accidents or death of horses… possibility.

[CatchMeIfUCan]

I believe Jealoushe was talking about this tragedy that happened today:

http://eventingnation.com/home/favorit-z-euthanized-after-breaking-leg-on-cross-country-at-tattersalls/

[BaroquePony]

Winding Down,

http://www.black-forest-design.net/EventingGoingForward/index.html

The rider in the silhouette is Mike Winter and I believe the horse is / was King Pin who died on course in 2009.

http://www.wdrb.com/story/10251546/veteran-horse-falls-and-dies-at-rolex-kentucky-three-day-event

Here’s the deal, I have a lot of the threads that I was working on for Eventing Going Forward on another computer … and I’m pretty sure I made hard copies of many of the threads involved. I didn’t know how to save some of the discussions because I hadn’t even thought about it before. All of them needed to be turned into text.

The graphics aren’t great because it was done on the fly using software that wasn’t really designed for what I was doing. It happens.

COTH no longer has any of theses threads due to a change over of computer updates.

I also had to use my computers for a different issue entirely and that was my first priority, unfortunately. I had to take a break from doing this at the time.

However, I have a lot more computer power than I had back then. I haven’t forgotten about this, but I have definitely given the whole idea a lot of thought.

Gnep, Ray Ayers, frugalannie, Denny Emerson and a bunch of other people were doing some pretty damned good brainstorming and they got out there and began to do some REAL studies … grooms came onto some of the threads and gave a few descriptions of what they were seeing behind the scenes in some barns …

I was on the board of a USCTA chapter at one time … what a effing nightmare that was.

I got fed up with bratty nasty behavior couched in Emily Post diplomacy by certain parties.

The least time I took my horse to a lower level (training) event some asshole kept leading their ill-trained plug by my horse tailer and their stupid nag would back up and double barrel my horse a few times. They did this THREE times.

I went to the Steward the first time and they announced OVER THE LOUD SPEAKER for that moron to STOP taking their horse over near my tailer and horse and they completely ignored the Steward on the loud speaker.

That isn’t the only garbage that went on with the USCTA.

When they can’t even have a CLINIC without someone getting killed that borders on the level of beyond stupid.

[Winding_Down]

[QUOTE=BaroquePony;8171852]
Winding Down,

http://www.black-forest-design.net/EventingGoingForward/index.html

The rider in the silhouette is Mike Winter and I believe the horse is / was King Pin who died on course in 2009.

http://www.wdrb.com/story/10251546/veteran-horse-falls-and-dies-at-rolex-kentucky-three-day-event

Here’s the deal, I have a lot of the threads that I was working on for Eventing Going Forward on another computer … and I’m pretty sure I made hard copies of many of the threads involved. I didn’t know how to save some of the discussions because I hadn’t even thought about it before. All of them needed to be turned into text.

The graphics aren’t great because it was done on the fly using software that wasn’t really designed for what I was doing. It happens.

COTH no longer has any of theses threads due to a change over of computer updates.

I also had to use my computers for a different issue entirely and that was my first priority, unfortunately. I had to take a break from doing this at the time.

However, I have a lot more computer power than I had back then. I haven’t forgotten about this, but I have definitely given the whole idea a lot of thought.

Gnep, Ray Ayers, frugalannie, Denny Emerson and a bunch of other people were doing some pretty damned good brainstorming and they got out there and began to do some REAL studies … grooms came onto some of the threads and gave a few descriptions of what they were seeing behind the scenes in some barns …

I was on the board of a USCTA chapter at one time … what a effing nightmare that was.

I got fed up with bratty nasty behavior couched in Emily Post diplomacy by certain parties.

The least time I took my horse to a lower level (training) event some asshole kept leading their ill-trained plug by my horse tailer and their stupid nag would back up and double barrel my horse a few times. They did this THREE times.

I went to the Steward the first time and they announced OVER THE LOUD SPEAKER for that moron to STOP taking their horse over near my tailer and horse and they completely ignored the Steward on the loud speaker.

That isn’t the only garbage that went on with the USCTA.

When they can’t even have a CLINIC without someone getting killed that borders on the level of beyond stupid.[/QUOTE]

Thank you for answering my questions.

[BaroquePony]

Well, I just saw the latest casualty. Sorry for their loss.

Whatever you do, don’t name your horse Frodo.

[Winding_Down]

Sad loss. Tripped, broke leg, geeze, that is freaky. Sounds like it could’ve happened at BN as easily as it did at the CCI*** Thoughts and prayers for all involved as it sounds as though he was a very special horse to many…

[frugalannie]

BaroquePony, thanks for crediting me with having had ideas! Unfortunately, I had a bad fall and TBI a couple of years ago and can’t recall the details of the discussions to which you’re referring.

However, I can recall how impressive and exciting the discussions were. Reed was developing the radar gun/speed study, Deltawave was working on the study of cardiac issues, IFG identified key data that needed to be collected for every fall, JER (through her posts) introduced me to the methods other high risk sports were using to address accidents, and Gnep was redesigning jumps to be safer.

One of the things that was recommended was that necropsies be mandatory for any horse that dies in competition. I believe that has happened, but I wonder what has happened with the results. And with the other ideas from that thread…

On a related note, I understand that incident reports contain material that is not always appropriate for public dissemination. There are HIPA and legal issues among others. But there is such an incredible opportunity to crowdsource analysis that I keep thinking there must be a way to abstract and access the salient information.

Condolences to Sam Griffiths and his team on the loss of a lovely horse.

[Lady_Eboshi]

[QUOTE=Jealoushe;8171821]
I love you guys

Windingdown - no one is bashing TPTB. No one is screaming “conspiracy!” The data is lacking. It is not comprehensive enough and like it was said above - even with the data what on earth has changed?

The point about the water jumps is all to real and I have seriously been wondering WHY they put fences like huge corners 3 strides after massive drops in the water. This is even more disturbing after reading the post above. Sure many horses make it over, but it isn’t pretty, and each time a horse has a “bad” jump, it’s confidence is being pecked away. It may not show at that jump, but later on the course.

Another horse dead at a CCI. Keeping up with the pace of at least one horse/rider death a month this year. Unacceptable.[/QUOTE]

However, keep that in perspective compared to the racing industry, where I guarantee you multiple horses die each DAY on tracks across the USA alone.

When you say we need to make it safer, “safer” compared to WHAT?

Like I’ve said, this sport is now split into two–a recreational sport and an extreme sport. The larger question is whether the recreational majority can survive the negative publicity the “extreme” version generates. At what point will property owners not want to run an Event? At what point will people quit volunteering to run them in disgust? At what point will riders cease to want to personally identify with what they see on the TV, and in The Chronicle?

Several threads ran this spring on here about people who used to enjoy going to Rolex but no longer attend, as they no longer have the stomach to watch because of so many horses getting killed; THAT for me is very telling. Unfortunately, this sport is getting “a bad reputation,” and social media has amplified that immensely of late.

[BaroquePony]

You’re welcome frugalannie

Deltawave and JER were very instrumental. I also have had a TBI, but maybe not as bad as frugalannie’s … so I don’t remember IGF’s input. There were several others that knew what they were talking about. So, please don’t be insulted if I forgot who is who.

My TBI was caused when the BO of a barn I was hired to work at went against my recommendation to get rid of one specific horse before it hurt one of the kids. I also stated flat out that I refused to work with that horse anymore.

She pulled a fast one on me one afternoon and stuck me unexpectedly with the six horse rig and that horse was loose in the area … it snuck up behind me at a walk and spun and double barreled me in the head. I didn’t even know it was out.

Catty women are far more dangerous than horses will ever be.

[BaroquePony]

Several people came on that had been in Europe for awhile and discussed some of the “structures” that they have in place over there in various countries that strongly channel and encourage good horsemanship early on.

Different countries have different programs and regulations that help keep things somewhat in line.

[kdow]

[QUOTE=Winding Down;8171832]

Endurance is not part of the equation without the long format, unless we want to make longer xc courses. But then we introduce fatigue in concert with increasingly difficult courses which may very well result in more accidents or death of horses… possibility.[/QUOTE]

I believe the idea is that adding endurance components replaces the need to keep increasing difficulty on the jumping efforts to keep XC important to the score. So courses might get easier in terms of jumping, to be more fair to the horses and less like show jumping with terrain, if endurance aspects are added that increase the difficulty. The balance would be different.

[Lady_Eboshi]

kdow, that would restore a lot of the original focus of the sport, but:

In modern (post-military) times, what do we really want to be testing? The ability of the rider, or the physical conditioning of the horses? While both are germane, I think putting more emphasis on the horse tends to make it more a “contest between horses,” rather than a “contest between riders.” One could see this switch take place when competitive dressage became all about huge-moving WB’s more than riding a perfect test. You HAD to have “that” look and movement to be competitive, and the sport started to be won in the breeding shed and with the checkbook.

More endurance emphasis would shift the sport decisively back in favor of the TB, which I feel would be no bad thing. But looking at eventing in the context of other Olympic sports, a “contest to see who has the best animal” rather than necessarily the highest level of skill seems a little anachronistic and strange.
Unfortunately, today equestrian sports are marginalizing pretty fast.

[vineyridge]

Funny about the horse who died at Tattersalls. One of the factors that the Bristol University study determined had a detrimental effect on safety was being in the lead. I remember this because AT was in the lead with Le Samurai when he broke, and that factor stuck in my memory. Sam Griffiths was in the lead going into XC with his Frodo when his horse broke. One surmises that being in the lead makes the rider take more chances (hear his horse less) than when not. Griffith’s horse already had one XC refusal on that course, but (speaking snarkily) he had the potential to be a very good one, so rider used the rest of the course for training. Maybe he didn’t listen to the horse telling him that “I don’t want to do this today” or “I can’t do this today” because they had had the lead.

[BaroquePony]

I’m not so sure that equestrian sports are necessarily marginalizing that fast … millions of people ride … or at least try to.

Hasn’t Reining been a RECENT addition to FEI sports? What’s the story on Endurance … had that always been there? I didn’t think it had been, but the recent horse deaths with FEI Endurance haven’t looked too good.

What about all the people interested in horses that have thrown A LOT of $$ at Parelli?

Why did that happen? Because we have no real system for people to go to that can get them started properly.

The safest way to learn to ride and handle horses is to learn the balance seat and the independent seat … no mater what you’re going to do, or at least some variation of that. Even if it’s Buck Brannaman … he still teaches people to stay out of the horse’s mouth. And to do things in a methodical manner that doesn’t tick off the horse.

There is a reason that approach works.

[vineyridge]

Adding endurance back as a factor seems to me would lessen the dressage effect to some extent because people in long format days bought XC horses and then put dressage on them. Now it seems many people buy dressage horses and try and put XC on them. Until the type of horse changed again, the risk factors from tired horses would probably increase at the upper levels.

Removing the dressage coefficient would reduce the dressage focus, IMO, leading to slightly different horse choices.

Unless I’m wrong, XC jumping style from speed and impulsion (TB type scope) is very different from the usual sj WB type power and scope. ERA is begging the FEI for more eventing specific dressage and sj. The FEI is not listening.

The more complicated the complex, the more WB ability is needed; but the distance and speed factors of the rest of the course seem work against WB ability. The speed studies seem to me to lead to this conclusion. To my thinking, this is a huge issue in XC.

[Winding_Down]

[QUOTE=kdow;8172120]
I believe the idea is that adding endurance components replaces the need to keep increasing difficulty on the jumping efforts to keep XC important to the score. So courses might get easier in terms of jumping, to be more fair to the horses and less like show jumping with terrain, if endurance aspects are added that increase the difficulty. The balance would be different.[/QUOTE]

And my point, which was not clear (apologies) is that increasing the endurance demands is a safety concern. If anyone is arguing that the LF was safer, due to the greater endurance element and lesser technical elements, I would like to see real data that support that argument.

I stopped going to Rolex (for various reasons, one being the injuries) before it became a 4*. I do not have the numbers, but horses euthanized and carted off was pretty much to be expected back then. Today, if a horse dies on course in a 3*, that is a huge deal - as we see in the euthanized horse yesterday across the pond.