WTF Are We Doing?

[tbchick84]

I was going to start a new thread for this thought, but the thought was inspired by this thread, so I’ll put it here.

I was my usual bored at work self last night. I started watching videos of jumping clinics. I zeroed in on one ULR who seemed to be saying all the right things. Keeping the horse forward to the fences, balanced but strong through the turns, it there’s any question about the distance, add the stride rather than launch a flat disaster. It all sounded good to my lower level brain. When I ran out of clinic videos, I watched a few on him riding only to see him doing the opposite of what he was teaching. Twice, he gunned an underpowered horse to a fence that resulted in a rotational fall. I don’t know if either horse survived. It made me sick to my stomach to watch those horses tumble down those hills and made me think about the “WTF are we doing” thread. If the rider has done what he was telling his students to do, he would have added a stride and taken an awkward, but most likely safe jump.

I get the adrenaline thing, the need to make time, and riders who might just not handle stress well, but this all seemed so unnecessary. It made me wonder if this is part of the problem of falls causing harm to horses and riders where the thought process is seemingly just not there, and if is this rider is the exception or the norm.

[Jealoushe]

Updated to add Crackerjack.

That is 7 horses in 2017.

RIP

[HeyJealousy]

@Jealoushe

Updated to add Crackerjack.

That is 7 horses in 2017.

RIP

Jealoushe, I am so sorry that it probably seems like I’m going around to different posts and attacking you but I promise that is not my intention. I’m just feeling a need to state my opinion. I wanted to put things in perspective here. YES, 7 horses, even 1 horse is too many. HOWEVER…this is 7 horses out of thousands of horses. Do we have the actual numbers of the amount of horses who have competed this year? If it’s listed somewhere in this thread I apologize. But 7 out of (at least) thousands is a pretty darn low percentage considering the demands of the sport. Sure, there are ways to continue to improve it, and yes, it’s terrible that the lives were lost, but there is no way to mitigate this risk entirely. There just isn’t. Just like there is no way to completely eliminate the risk of a horse breaking it’s leg in the field, or having an aortic rupture, or any other number of things that could occur within a sport or outside of it. I do understand the desire for courses that do not punish horses for their mistakes, and I do agree there are a lot of improvements to be made by course designers. A LOT of improvements. But hasn’t that always been the case? Even in long format days with more gallopy courses, the fence construction and the fact that riders were allowed to fall and continue on despite injuries and probably a lot of concussions, doesn’t seem very safe to me.

Granted, take my opinions with a grain of salt because I am a lowly Training level rider but I have worked for several ULR’s and am quite familiar with the steps they take to ensure the well being of themselves and their horses. I also galloped horses at the track for several years and it was the same deal. Despite the best care and a perfectly manufactured surface horses break down. Do we get rid of racing and eventing entirely? Because that is truly the only solution I see to bring that death count down to zero.

[Jealoushe]

I would able to sleep a lot better if these accidents had a bit more research given to them. Even the ones where they are “bad steps” or the horse just drops dead.

7 horses is 7 horses.

This thread isn’t meant to blame one thing - riders, courses, designers, etc. It is meant to keep safety on the top of everyones mind and ensure we are doing what we can to understand these occurrences. Which at this time, I don’t feel we are. If you feel we are, you are certainly entitled to feel that way.

Keep in mind this thread is a few years old, and changes have come since then. So that is a great thing.

[Gestalt]

Jealoushe, I appreciate you keeping this thread up to date. Not only is it a good place to track who have been lost, but changes or remedies to courses, fences, etc. It’s a hard thread to look back thru tho.

[Where_sMyWhite]

@Jealoushe

I would able to sleep a lot better if these accidents had a bit more research given to them. Even the ones where they are “bad steps” or the horse just drops dead.

What additional research would you like to see?

It was my understanding, at least as recognized events, that horse deaths had a necropsy. Is that not the case? I can see/understand why the results of a necropsy may not be made public; should they be?

If you necropsy a horse, open the chest and find it full of blood, I’d guess aortic/pulmonary artery failure. I suspect that there is research going on to try to understand why this occurs. You looking for additional data to be collected, ensuring eventers are added to research data or ?

Much research and data is done/collected for TB breakdowns both during racing and during training. I suspect eventers wouldn’t be added as the data is specific to the racing industry but what additional research do you feel should be done for eventers?

[Christa_P]

@HeyJealousy

Jealoushe, I am so sorry that it probably seems like I’m going around to different posts and attacking you but I promise that is not my intention. I’m just feeling a need to state my opinion. I wanted to put things in perspective here. YES, 7 horses, even 1 horse is too many. HOWEVER…this is 7 horses out of thousands of horses. Do we have the actual numbers of the amount of horses who have competed this year? If it’s listed somewhere in this thread I apologize. But 7 out of (at least) thousands is a pretty darn low percentage considering the demands of the sport. Sure, there are ways to continue to improve it, and yes, it’s terrible that the lives were lost, but there is no way to mitigate this risk entirely. There just isn’t. Just like there is no way to completely eliminate the risk of a horse breaking it’s leg in the field, or having an aortic rupture, or any other number of things that could occur within a sport or outside of it. I do understand the desire for courses that do not punish horses for their mistakes, and I do agree there are a lot of improvements to be made by course designers. A LOT of improvements. But hasn’t that always been the case? Even in long format days with more gallopy courses, the fence construction and the fact that riders were allowed to fall and continue on despite injuries and probably a lot of concussions, doesn’t seem very safe to me.

Granted, take my opinions with a grain of salt because I am a lowly Training level rider but I have worked for several ULR’s and am quite familiar with the steps they take to ensure the well being of themselves and their horses. I also galloped horses at the track for several years and it was the same deal. Despite the best care and a perfectly manufactured surface horses break down. Do we get rid of racing and eventing entirely? Because that is truly the only solution I see to bring that death count down to zero.

I read about very few deaths at training and below, so looking at preliminary and above, especially 3&4 star events it’s probably more like hundreds. Right now, every time I see discussion about a 3 or 4 star events I wonder how many horses and riders will be severely injured or killed - not if there will be severe injuries or deaths, it’s how many.

These events are like playing Russian roulette and the horses are not given a choice about pulling the trigger. If I were in a position of selling a nice horse right now I would not want it going into upper level eventing any more than sending an endurance horse to the UAE.

I’m sure the horses are very well cared for, but until changes are made to the cross country courses to make them safer and more fair to the horses I can’t even watch. I feel real changes won’t be made until there are no sponsors, no spectators, and no volunteers to support these events.

I’m am just a poor horse person that has fun at local shows and events in various disciplines when I have the time and money that is sick of seeing the carnage.

[Jealoushe]

@Where'sMyWhite

What additional research would you like to see?

It was my understanding, at least as recognized events, that horse deaths had a necropsy. Is that not the case? I can see/understand why the results of a necropsy may not be made public; should they be?

If you necropsy a horse, open the chest and find it full of blood, I’d guess aortic/pulmonary artery failure. I suspect that there is research going on to try to understand why this occurs. You looking for additional data to be collected, ensuring eventers are added to research data or ?

Much research and data is done/collected for TB breakdowns both during racing and during training. I suspect eventers wouldn’t be added as the data is specific to the racing industry but what additional research do you feel should be done for eventers?

Data I would like to see;

How feed, supplements, etc effect horse soundness, and overall health. Do they contribute to any of these deaths?

Does the type of course, heart rate changes, gallop - then pull up, then gallop - contribute to the deaths?

Does footing contribute? What about the breeding, training, schedule of the horse? What about the tack used? What about past falls of the horse? What about the stress of travel over seas?

There are SO many variables. It’s one thing to open the horse and say - the horse died from pulmonary aerotic rupture, it’s another to say it’s lack of fitness, or too much change in MPM during the gallop, or the supplements used over years caused this.

We have the technology to track this stuff now, so I would love to see every detail pertaining to falls and deaths added to a databank and analyzed.

[Marigold]

@HeyJealousy

Do we have the actual numbers of the amount of horses who have competed this year?

I second that this would be helpful information to track as well. It helps to make trends in any direction much clearer.

@Jealoushe, thank you for beginning to include brief context for each incident on the first page. The clearer patterns in injuries can be, the more I hope the research you discuss above can be directed. I know it’s more work for you, but I find it very helpful and appreciate your effort.

[Jealoushe]

The numbers of horses competing will be available from the FEI for FEI events I believe. Not sure if the National bodies track this.

[chism]

@TrailPony

I guess this is where we will have to agree to disagree - I don’t see the sport as dangerous in the same sense you do. I don’t consider Eventing any more dangerous than any other sport that involves high levels of risk and skill.

What do you propose the Eventing community do to lower these risks? Should we make the jumps smaller, take out the XC phase all together? I don’t see a viable solution because you lose the heart of the sport when you change it from what it is now. I don’t think the jumps are too big or that the horses are pushed too hard or too fast. I think there are unfortunate accidents, that’s all.

You mean "Unfortunate accidents " that involve the death of a willing creature doing what its’ rider is asking of it? I’m not sure how you can compare this to a different sport that has a high level of risk for ONE individual, compared to one when one of the partners is unaware of the risks, or in the case, unable to make an informed choice. "

[HeyJealousy]

@chism

You mean "Unfortunate accidents " that involve the death of a willing creature doing what its’ rider is asking of it? I’m not sure how you can compare this to a different sport that has a high level of risk for ONE individual, compared to one when one of the partners is unaware of the risks, or in the case, unable to make an informed choice. "

so…we should do away with all horse sports, then? because i’ve seen horses die show jumping, barrel racing and standing in their stalls. Not sure how we mitigate the risk completely of “the death of a willing creature doing what it’s rider is asking of it”. i just don’t understand the proposal here. yes, horses are willing and generous creatures and they can die while being ridden, competed, etc. does that mean we get rid of all sports inwhich horse and rider participate?

[Peggy]

@Jealoushe

Data I would like to see;

How feed, supplements, etc effect horse soundness, and overall health. Do they contribute to any of these deaths?

Does the type of course, heart rate changes, gallop - then pull up, then gallop - contribute to the deaths?

Does footing contribute? What about the breeding, training, schedule of the horse? What about the tack used? What about past falls of the horse? What about the stress of travel over seas?

There are SO many variables. It’s one thing to open the horse and say - the horse died from pulmonary aerotic rupture, it’s another to say it’s lack of fitness, or too much change in MPM during the gallop, or the supplements used over years caused this.

We have the technology to track this stuff now, so I would love to see every detail pertaining to falls and deaths added to a databank and analyzed.

Even if the data is collected going forward then it could be analyzed at some point when the data set is large enough. But you’d need to collect a lot of information, much of it that will end up not being significant, so that some clever person can sit down and try to make sense of it.

[chism]

@HeyJealousy

so…we should do away with all horse sports, then? because i’ve seen horses die show jumping, barrel racing and standing in their stalls. Not sure how we mitigate the risk completely of “the death of a willing creature doing what it’s rider is asking of it”. i just don’t understand the proposal here. yes, horses are willing and generous creatures and they can die while being ridden, competed, etc. does that mean we get rid of all sports inwhich horse and rider participate?

Of course not… but when horses and people continue to die, it’s foolish not to ask if we’re doing all we can to minimize the risk. Humans make a choice to compete in this sport, knowing they could die as a result of it, horses do not. They trust us to care for them, not make them collateral damage.

[Jealoushe]

@HeyJealousy

so…we should do away with all horse sports, then? because i’ve seen horses die show jumping, barrel racing and standing in their stalls. Not sure how we mitigate the risk completely of “the death of a willing creature doing what it’s rider is asking of it”. i just don’t understand the proposal here. yes, horses are willing and generous creatures and they can die while being ridden, competed, etc. does that mean we get rid of all sports inwhich horse and rider participate?

I hate this argument so so much.

It’s been beaten to death in this thread and pretty much everywhere.

We all know driving a car is dangerous, does that mean we don’t look into how prevent fatalities? No, it means we get even stricter guidelines, testing, etc.

Texting became popular, then people were dying from texting and driving like crazy. Research done, texting while driving now illegal. Huge fines up here in Canada.

The public isn’t sitting around saying, oh well you risk your life getting into a car, why bother changing anything.

[cbv]

@Jealoushe

Data I would like to see;

How feed, supplements, etc effect horse soundness, and overall health. Do they contribute to any of these deaths?

Does the type of course, heart rate changes, gallop - then pull up, then gallop - contribute to the deaths?

Does footing contribute? What about the breeding, training, schedule of the horse? What about the tack used? What about past falls of the horse? What about the stress of travel over seas?

There are SO many variables. It’s one thing to open the horse and say - the horse died from pulmonary aerotic rupture, it’s another to say it’s lack of fitness, or too much change in MPM during the gallop, or the supplements used over years caused this.

We have the technology to track this stuff now, so I would love to see every detail pertaining to falls and deaths added to a databank and analyzed.

Do you have any idea the # of horses and horse/rider combos, much less the costs involved in trying to design a study to answer any, much less all, of the variables you list?

And my guess is most if not all the variables explain very little of the variation involved. And that many are correlated so will overfit any predictive models developed.

My first question would be how does the % of injuries/deaths in horses/riders in eventing compare among all disciplines and a control group of horses that do not compete. All the career ending accidents/injuries to horses in my 40 years of horse ownership have occurred in the pasture during turnout, except one that occurred in a stall. The only deaths of riders I am personally familiar with include one while fox hunting and one an instuctor sitting on a pony giving a lesson.

All the above is anecdotal, but I want a baseline of injuries/ death among domesticated horses and across disciplines before I make sweeping generalzations about one discipline, and spend limited resources on research unlikely to provide solutions without context.

[RAyers]

cbv,

NO, you don’t need control or anything you suggest. A properly designed epidemiological clinical study can elucidate many variable correlations and associations without controls, paired subjects, or baselines. We do it all the time in medicine. The biostatistician (MD/PhD) in our research group spent 10 years at Chernobyl working on predicting radiation risk and outcomes. Given the massive incident, there was no baseline or control until well after the event.

The same techniques are used in clinical trials where we can’t afford baselines or controls (these are published in scientific journals). The mathematics is fairly easy to understand but the nature of their characterizations is insanely complex (consider ANOVAs of an ANOVA of regressions, or the like), and well beyond my capabilities.

So, yes, we can do this, not as expensive as you may think. And, as the Evil Chem Prof suggests, we can collect a brutally large dataset of thousands of variables for comparison. I do this for my studies on alloy corrosion in patients receiving orthopedic implants (to which there are no baselines or controls since nobody is willing to have pure Ti implanted in them just for a study, and some of the elements used in alloys have no biologic function so there is no baseline).

[jumpsnake]

Thanks Reed, I was just about to post something similar.
i think it is very likely that there are some horsey grad students out there who would be interested in this sort of thesis. There is SO MUCH mumbo-jumbo in the horse world, it is beyond time to use some actual science, especially when things like supplements are used by so many people. Human supplements get called out all the time, it’s very likely the case that equne supplements are not always what that say. Maybe it’s not normally an issue for the smurf- level horse, but it is at a 4*.

note: I just pulled supplements out of jealoushe’s list to use as an example. This sort of thing could be true for any/all/some of the factors listed, plus many more.

[JER]

My dearest fellow eventers,

Our sport is not changed via science, studies and/or evidence. History shows that our sport is changed by…

…princesses.

The short format was adopted at the end of the reign of an FEI president whose full name is something out of commedia dell’arte or perhaps an Ionesco farce: María del Pilar Alfonsa Juana Victoria Luisa Ignacia y Todos los Santos (et omnes sancti) de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias, Duchess of Badajoz, Dowager Viscountess of la Torre. She was not a rider herself but made it well-known that she hated steeplechase and wanted it out of eventing. Poof! and phases A, B, and C vanished into the ether.

She was succeeded by another princess, Princess Haya, who took it upon herself to make changes on the XC course at the 2008 Beijing/HK Olympics. She’s not a licensed official or a course designer or even an eventer but she is a princess, which apparently counts for a lot in this sport. (Princess Haya is an accomplished equestrian and an impressive person in general, although she’s married into a rather unsavory lot of repressive leaders.)

So WTF are we talking about data, studies, science, etc? What we need is a princess who can come along and fix the sport in a good way.

(And before anyone mentions Zara, she is not a princess. Her mum ensured that her children would not have royal titles. Good on the Princess Royal for that.)

[kcmel]

@JER

My dearest fellow eventers,

Our sport is not changed via science, studies and/or evidence. History shows that our sport is changed by…

…princesses.

(And before anyone mentions Zara, she is not a princess. Her mum ensured that her children would not have royal titles. Good on the Princess Royal for .)

A technicality. I nominate Zara.