riderboy, good riddance, retired or fired. Now, they will probably get CMP, who is just as careless with rider and horse lives. Derek deGrazia should be the chief instructor for course design in this country.
Wayne Roycroft on Caitlyn Fischerâs death:
âThe sport has its dangers, but obviously itâs just a total tragedy that weâve had these two occurrences,â Australian equestrian Wayne Roycroft told Fairfax Media.
"We would almost say theyâre freak occurrences. Thereâs no real answer to how or why. Theyâre accidents that happen.
âAs much as we hate it, to be honest with you itâs part of our sport. We would dearly love to say you canât have any accidents.â
Della Chiesa is the current FEI eventing committee chairman; Roycroft is the previous one.
I read that eventing would have been gone from the Olympics if Roycroft had not had the âbrilliantâ idea for Short Format to save it. No one asked then if the new format might affect safety and how.
Auburn, the new Badminton CD is Eric Winter.
[QUOTE=Gnep;8670703]
You are wrong.
Your examples have nothing to do with eventing. If F1, Nascar, or WEC, would have taken your approach, their drivers would still die at a unacceptable rate.
Eventing is very lucky that it flies most of the time under the horizon, especially in the US. It is a very small and in the US unimportant sport.
That is rather good, because with its mentality, it would not survive the public outcry to stop the fatalities.
Thatâs why other very highly rated and extremely dangerous sports had to turn themselves up side down to stop fatalities.
When the F1 driver Bianchi got killed 2 years ago, there was world wide reporting and an instant change in the rules and regulations, to prevent such an accident to hopefully happen never again.
When Walden was killed in Indy racing by flying debris from a nother accident, instantly development of devices to prevent further accidents like this started, not just in Indy but all the other open cockpit racing classes.
When Schumacher got rather lucky in an accident, not injured, because the high noses of the cars made it possible, that they could ride up into cockpit, the rules were changed, the noses were droped. When K Bush hit the inside barrier at Daytona and broke his legs, all tracks had to install the Saver Barrier inside and so on and so.
They have a culture of safety and react instantly, even if the odds that that accident will happen again is rather low. They investigate instantly and go to work and fix it. Thatâs why those in the public eye sports are still around.
They do not come up with statistics that describe that live it self is dangerous, they take responsibility.
They provide a good show that hundreds of million watch, but they do not accept fatalities, serious injuries or the possibility of that.
If they see it they fix it, it actually does not have to happen, Michael Schumacher, drop the nose, close call.
They get it.
Sorry you do not get it, the sport does not get it, its about eventing fatalities, nothing else and the mentality, its just below 15 per what ever and more babies in the US die during birth. That does not cut it any more.
Eventing has to say no more, thatâs it. Till it says that it, it has no support, should not have any, even from old farts like me, that did it for 40 some years and love it.[/QUOTE]
I am sorry Gnep that you have not understood what I am saying.
Gnep makes an excellent point here. The defensive reactions Iâve seen from pros/ULRs have been, âWe cannot prevent all accidents from happening, we need to accept the risk involved, etc. etc.â True. We canât make eventing completely safe, but we can make it safer. (I stole that quote from Sara Kozumplik, sorry. 
) However, it seems to have taken forever in the grand scheme of things to implement these safety measures â frangible pins, deformable logs (which have disappeared), better helmets/vests/etc.
In aviation, there is always something to be learned and improved on from each accident. Even if itâs caused by pilot error (and the majority of them are), measures are taken â whether it be mechanical or educational â to decrease the probability that a similar accident made from the same mistake(s) occur again.
One example of education/training that may sound simple and âduhâ-worthy :lol: to us is Crew Resource Management. For many years there was this culture of deference to more senior members of the crew â basically, what the captain says is gospel, do not question him or his decisions. It took YEARS of education in CRM for people to accept this. And the result? United Flight 232. A plane put in a literally unrecoverable situation managed to crash land with 185 survivors thanks to the flight crew working together. (Coincidentally, showjumping and racingâs own Michael Matz was one of the survivors.)
In other areas, stall warning systems/stick shakers were created to warn pilots audibly and physically of an imminent stall. Stick pushers were put in to further assist in stall recovery, because oneâs natural instinct is to pull back on the yoke without adding power. (Much like horses that end up on their forehands⊠leg before rein!) Ground proximity warning systems (GPWS) were created because planes were slamming into mountains even with capable pilots on board. Traffic collision avoidance systems help to prevent mid-air collisions.
All of these features are the result of learning from accidents! Theyâre there to help decrease the rate of human error. No, they wonât completely prevent accidents from occurring, but they have made flying safer. :yes:
[QUOTE=MNEventer;8670848]
The course designer for Badminton, Giuseppe della Chiesa, is on record basically saying safety on x-c is an afterthought: âOn cross-country day you hope everything goes well, but this is a high risk sport and that is something that is always there,â he says. âOn the one hand you have the best horses and riders in the world, but on the other you are pushing the barriers. The risk is there. We should accept it and live with it. It is about risk-management not safety. If you want to be safe do not ride a horse across country.â
To use an oft-quoted example, driving a car has a certain amount of risk. But we donât say âif you want to be safe do not drive a carâ. We increase the safety standards and require that drivers not be impaired, which in turn makes cars relatively safe. We donât shrug our shoulders and hope for the best.[/QUOTE]
You are not the first to take this quote, and use it to suggest that Giuseppe della Chiesa basically doesnât care about safety. And I just donât think that is a fair characterization of his words as quoted. He is right IMO - you cannot eliminate the risk involved in riding horses, on cross-country or otherwise. It IS ultimately all about risk management because we CANNOT make the sport âsafeâ. As we have seen in scary incidents like Silva Martinâs fall a couple of years ago - even walking is not âsafeâ.
Personally, I want the sport to strive to lower the risk of serious/fatal falls, and make it âsaferâ - ideally based on real data. But I really canât take issue with a course designer who acknowledges the realities - that the sport will never be SAFE, it is all about risk management and that a course designer, particularly at the 4* level, has a difficult task - making the course challenging but also reducing the risk of incidents. Whether or not you think this particular course designer is effective as walking that line, I donât think its fair to say that safety is after-thought when he is simply acknowledging that true SAFETY is not possible on XC, its about managing the risks.
The way I read Della Chiesaâs and Roycroftâs quotes said this to me.
âEventing is a risky sport, but so is all horse riding. Accidents are going to happen. Fatalities are freak accidents that no one can predict or prevent. Weâll keep on going with the safety program we have in place because we ARE trying to prevent fatalities, even if our prevention technology seems to increase falls, but in the end, deaths are freaks and canât be predicted or prevented. So toughen up, cupcake.â
I happen to think that when you get knee jerk reactions to incidents (deaths) by untrained people, you really arenât helping things that much.
Would event riders pay an extra fee of (say) $25 for each startdirected toward a safety fund for each start?
[QUOTE=Calamber;8670829]
The movement of a horse and rider do not conform to algorithms. That is the problem with statistical science, oftentimes it does not correlate, most especially when one is using a computer to compute rather than physics and sliderules. Algorithms and itâs companion alter-ego, programmable software cannot do this job adequately, it is why so many buildings, cranes, and bridges are collapsing. We have lost the ability to read real science with the capability of human reason that is not measureable with a computer program or with algorithms for that matter. Mathematics is not a genuine science, it is faulty measurements at itâs best.[/QUOTE]
This is absolute gibberish in case anyone without an engineering/ stats background was wondering. Iâm not sure what they are trying to say but rest assured bridges are not falling down on a regular basis because we use mathematics instead of slide rules and physics.
I canât believe I even typed that, it makes literally no sense.
[QUOTE=Gnep;8670703]
You are wrong.
Your examples have nothing to do with eventing. If F1, Nascar, or WEC, would have taken your approach, their drivers would still die at a unacceptable rate.
Eventing is very lucky that it flies most of the time under the horizon, especially in the US. It is a very small and in the US unimportant sport.
That is rather good, because with its mentality, it would not survive the public outcry to stop the fatalities.
Thatâs why other very highly rated and extremely dangerous sports had to turn themselves up side down to stop fatalities.
When the F1 driver Bianchi got killed 2 years ago, there was world wide reporting and an instant change in the rules and regulations, to prevent such an accident to hopefully happen never again.
When Walden was killed in Indy racing by flying debris from a nother accident, instantly development of devices to prevent further accidents like this started, not just in Indy but all the other open cockpit racing classes.
When Schumacher got rather lucky in an accident, not injured, because the high noses of the cars made it possible, that they could ride up into cockpit, the rules were changed, the noses were droped. When K Bush hit the inside barrier at Daytona and broke his legs, all tracks had to install the Saver Barrier inside and so on and so.
They have a culture of safety and react instantly, even if the odds that that accident will happen again is rather low. They investigate instantly and go to work and fix it. Thatâs why those in the public eye sports are still around.
They do not come up with statistics that describe that live it self is dangerous, they take responsibility.
They provide a good show that hundreds of million watch, but they do not accept fatalities, serious injuries or the possibility of that.
If they see it they fix it, it actually does not have to happen, Michael Schumacher, drop the nose, close call.
They get it.
Sorry you do not get it, the sport does not get it, its about eventing fatalities, nothing else and the mentality, its just below 15 per what ever and more babies in the US die during birth. That does not cut it any more.
Eventing has to say no more, thatâs it. Till it says that it, it has no support, should not have any, even from old farts like me, that did it for 40 some years and love it.[/QUOTE]
One of the best posts yet.
Except, you know, that isnât what he said. He specifically said that he was conscious of risk and the importance of risk management/minimizing the risk.
âIt is important to have the right philosophy about the sport. We all work to minimise the risk but we canât have zero risk. The more respect you have for the risk, the less risk you have. You move at full speed over fixed fences on a horse and something might go wrong.â
I quite agree with him - riders need to have respect for the risk that this sport presents. That doesnât mean we canât strive to make it safer (i.e. less risk) but we canât eliminate the risk completely and riders need to remember the risks and make decisions accordingly when on course and when deciding what horses to run at what events/level.
This. Better stated than I EVER could.
Havenât read this whole thread, so forgive me for being late to the party, butâŠ
Have any course designers come forward and spoken about the difficulty of the questions?
[QUOTE=Gry2Yng;8671445]
This. Better stated than I EVER could.
Agreed - great article. I think there are a number of ideas presented that would be âlow hanging fruitâ and not all that difficult to implement with the technology available today. I bet there are very few cross country jumps on any upper level course that are not recorded from at least one angle on somebodyâs phone or camera (not to mention the professional photographers and videographers), and it would be so much easier for investigators to obtain and share the video/pictures than it would have been even ten years ago.
One thing, I think, thatâs still missing from proposals is guidelines around what to do if multiple falls are occuring at a single fence during the course of a competition e.g. the Vicarage Vee at Badminton. One fall may indicate that something happened with that horse and rider pair that did not happen for any other pair at that event - certainly still worth keeping an eye on how the fence is riding and analyzing/mitigation after the fact. Two falls at any one fence - increasing cause for concern. More than two is absolutely a pattern and seemingly a worse accident just asking to happen. In the light of recent events, it seems that an accident to a horse or rider at any fence that has been responsible for more than two falls in a division should be removed immediately from the course. Yes, later riders could have gone the long way at the VV but many of them didnât - so donât give them the choice.
[QUOTE=vineyridge;8671304]
Would event riders pay an extra fee of (say) $25 for each start directed toward a safety fund for each start?[/QUOTE]
The crazy thing is⊠they already can. Just donate to an appropriate place - e.g. the collapsible fence study, USEA Foundation - this page appears to be new in the past couple of days.
Here is a PDF from the USEA with an overview of Safety Studies (not sure how old it is) with links to each program.
There was a global safety conference that was supposed to take place earlier this year, but it didnât get enough funding. I had my doubts about the line-up of speakers/experts for that forum, but at least someone was trying.
British Eventing also helps improve Safety globally through its Safety Partnership with the University of Kentucky, with whom it shares both data and research. (In other words, I bet you can donate to either BE or the U of K directly towards research.)
[QUOTE=Groom&Taxi;8671587]
Agreed - great article. I think there are a number of ideas presented that would be âlow hanging fruitâ and not all that difficult to implement with the technology available today. I bet there are very few cross country jumps on any upper level course that are not recorded from at least one angle on somebodyâs phone or camera (not to mention the professional photographers and videographers), and it would be so much easier for investigators to obtain and share the video/pictures than it would have been even ten years ago.
One thing, I think, thatâs still missing from proposals is guidelines around what to do if multiple falls are occuring at a single fence during the course of a competition e.g. the Vicarage Vee at Badminton. One fall may indicate that something happened with that horse and rider pair that did not happen for any other pair at that event - certainly still worth keeping an eye on how the fence is riding and analyzing/mitigation after the fact. Two falls at any one fence - increasing cause for concern. More than two is absolutely a pattern and seemingly a worse accident just asking to happen. In the light of recent events, it seems that a fatal accident to a horse or rider at any fence that has been responsible for more than two falls in a division should be removed immediately from the course. Yes, later riders could have gone the long way at the VV but many of them didnât - so donât give them the choice.[/QUOTE]
May I add your idea to a list I am keeping full of brainstormed ideas?
Keeping with Gnepâs auto racing comparison, they have not gotten the safer barrier installed everywhere it should be. Out of control race cars prove that every few weeks by finding an unprotected spot to hit. Ask Tony Stewart and Jimmy Mac who found unprotected cement after sliding in fresh grease from a blown rear end last week. Track erroneously figured it was a straightaway, nobody was going to hit the inside wall there.
But the difference between the sports is the fact the barrier was lacking was immediately pointed out by the commentators before the cars even stopped, NASCAR mentioned it in the press release, the driver community was quite vocal, and even that tough bunch wasnât saying suck it up, it happens. They were saying it happens BUT hitting so hard was preventable and continue to press for safety improvements by tracks be it catch fences or safer barriers.
Maybe presenting a more concerned face to the public would suit Eventing more. Just seems that if race drivers admit they donât want to get killed or badly hurt and publically speak up for safety improvements after fatalities? Riders could without being seen as weak or cowardly.
Course cars just get wrecked and rebuilt to race another day, not suffer traumatic injury and death.
The first things that seems needed, it seems to me, are full scale, 3D maps of the terrain of each XC course. That should be relatively simple to generate and if the entire venue that could be used for courses is mapped, for each course, the jumps would simply have to be located on the pre-existing map.
Without such maps, we donât have any basis for the effect of terrain on jumps at any given jump. They would provide the starting point for jump analysis in case of an incident.
Secondly, how could it hurt to paint the front face and back edge of a table a contrasting color (preferably one the horse could process)? That would be one of the articleâs cheap, short term interventions until the studies are finished.
Thirdly, why not have three official video cameras at every jump? The first would be, say three strides out from the jump and cover the approach. The second would be at the level of the takeoff point and cover the takeoff and the flight path. The third would be on the landing side, on the opposite side from the takeoff camera and cover the whole landing to galloping off phase of the jump.
Consumer video cameras ought to be adequate; most people can get access to one, and the event wouldnât have to buy hundreds of cameras. They could even share; or the governing bodies could start buying a trove of cameras that they would rent or lend to recognized events.
Fourth, every venue should have to send a copy of its course designs and course maps to the Safety Committee as a permanent record for research.
I loved the EN article. What it makes absolutely clear is the importance of defining goals and objectives and procedures BEFORE starting to make changes.
[QUOTE=Gry2Yng;8671618]
May I add your idea to a list I am keeping full of brainstormed ideas?[/QUOTE]
Absolutely. I am going to go edit the original post to take out the word âfatalâ in front of accident in the second to last sentence because I really meant ANY falls - not just fatal ones because sometimes the outcome is not known until later.
In my theoretical proposal, I also feel really ambivalent about what to do (if anything) at the two fall threshold. At that point, it may or may not be a pattern, but if youâve had any and then the next one is catastrophicâŠ
[QUOTE=Blugal;8671607]
The crazy thing is⊠they already can. Just donate to an appropriate place - e.g. the collapsible fence study, USEA Foundation - this page appears to be new in the past couple of days.
Here is a PDF from the USEA with an overview of Safety Studies (not sure how old it is) with links to each program.
There was a global safety conference that was supposed to take place earlier this year, but it didnât get enough funding. I had my doubts about the line-up of speakers/experts for that forum, but at least someone was trying.
British Eventing also helps improve Safety globally through its Safety Partnership with the University of Kentucky, with whom it shares both data and research. (In other words, I bet you can donate to either BE or the U of K directly towards research.)[/QUOTE]
Yes, people can donate, but many people wonât. They may well recognize a worthy cause when they see one, but horse care and competition cost so much, that donation doesnât get made. If there were a mandatory safety fee built into the entry fee, maybe USEA wouldnât have to beg for money to continue the Kentucky Study.
[QUOTE=Groom&Taxi;8671639]
Absolutely. I am going to go edit the original post to take out the word âfatalâ in front of accident in the second to last sentence because I really meant ANY falls - not just fatal ones because sometimes the outcome is not known until later.
In my theoretical proposal, I also feel really ambivalent about what to do (if anything) at the two fall threshold. At that point, it may or may not be a pattern, but if youâve had any and then the next one is catastrophicâŠ[/QUOTE]
See PM
In the interest of preventing accidents in the first place, would it make sense to add comparing a horseâs resting heart rate when first presented and then compared to his/her return to resting rate following XC in order to start establishing some data on how many horses are actually fit enough to do the job? It literally takes a minute to check the resting rate, so I cannot see it creating a huge crimp in a competitorâs day.
I forget the actual numbers, but once a number is established of when a horse is found to be fit, it could be applied to every horse at an event. Something along the lines of a horse found to return to resting heart rate within 5 minutes of XC is determined to be normal while a horse who takes longer than 5 minutes is then placed on a watch list for the next competition. That would give stewards a list of horses to be watching for and have more latitude to pull the pair up if the horse appears to be laboring the next time out. This way if, if they are screamed at by the competitor for pulling them off course, they have a leg to stand on.
