[QUOTE=vineyridge;8157239]
Recently. In the Short Format era.
For anyone interested in eventing risk management and safety, I found this site:
https://eventingsafety.wordpress.com/
Author is an Australian FEI TD, John Lechner. It’s worth reading. I’m not sure if it’s up to date, though.
I’ve just been doing some research on rider deaths in eventing competitions. I’ve gone back through 2008 on the LONE list (19 deaths), and only one or possibly two are not the result of rotational falls. One rather interesting factoid is that, except for one 15 yo Russian and this year’s Italian woman, all the deaths in eventing have been males.
Except for Winter, none since 2008 have been at CCIs. Most have been lower than 2*. There is one in a CIC3*. None have been in NA.[/QUOTE]
Rotational falls are without doubt the most dangerous, and we have made progress in reducing these falls through changes in fence design and frangible pins. So we need to study the best ways to further reduce these falls. So all we need as a start is a close study of the fences over which these falls have occurred along with the frequency of falls over particular fences. More info would of course be beneficial. There have been isolated falls over fences that have caused no problems at all for years - but nonetheless, one fall is one too many. I do like the idea of skinnies being used as it is quite possible that rather than fall, horses have the option of running out. But this also involves an increase in technical questions (a skinny is a technical question for most) to which many on this forum object. But there are other ways, of course, including frangible pins, to reduce R.Falls but studying these data more closely is much needed.
The data are there. One can access the fall and the fence number through USEA and then go to the course itself. I would be surprised if the safety committee does not have these data.
As for the other findings, I doubt it would be appropriate or politically correct to forbid men from competing. And if we decide to only allow competing at the CCI Level that would mean that most of us would be s-out of luck. I am pretty sure that this latter finding is simply due to the pretty obvious fact that there are far fewer competitors at the CCI level than at the HT level. Another possibility is that the standards for safety at the FEI level may be more stringent simply due to the level and risk and attention to safety. I suspect that the latter has less influence than the former, although I must admit that I have found that the local HT may not have as high a standard for fence design and safety than those at the international level. I have run more than one prelim and intermediate locally where I was concerned about safety (footing most often).
So, the preliminary data are there at least for more recent years. In the distant past, I really do not think there was the attention to safety and falls were considered sad but inevitable. We have made progress but not enough progress, and the very recent injuries are a big wake up call to work harder.
Let’s start an analysis on rotational falls, severity of injury to horse and rider, and type of fence. We do have the resources and we have some who are very gifted at gathering, collecting data. I can analyze data for sure, but have limited time to collect. This does not have to be under the auspices of a formal organization.
Or we can continue to discuss what someone else needs to do. Which is fine as well but most likely not being heard, especially amongst the chatter here on this forum.
Peace, 
