Exactly. We all know and have known for years that an air vest and/or a conventional vest is useless when you’re crushed by your horse. No point in debating something that is so well-evidenced. There’s no other side to the debate except idiocy.
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Can anyone provide a link to that thread?
Re: the British child event rider who was killed recently, the inquest details have just been released. It supports the talk at the time, that she had been jumping round bales at home.
oh my goodnesssss…
“I’m told Iona attempted to jump and Jack caught the bale at the start of the jump,” he said.
He said Iona “landed on the floor on her stomach” and that Jack “somersaulted and landed on top of her”.
Mr Milburn said Jack was 14.2 hands (4ft 10in) and the hay bale was 1.32m (4ft 3in) tall.
What a tragic however preventable accident.
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I see you highlighted the height of the hay bale. We don’t know if this is a height this pair normally jumps or if she had successfully jumped these bales before. My step-mother used to routinely jump 4 ft+ with her pony.
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I think at 4’3, a round bale is a very poor choice of jump for a large pony. It’s the shape of the bale, not the height it’self, and the fact the bale is completely stationary. Regardless of whether someone can, doesn’t necesarily mean someone should. I’m sure they were just out having fun, but some risks aren’t worth the thrill as we see here.
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You often see young riders taking their ponies and horses over round bales on Instagram. It’s apparently the cool thing to do. Admittedly, I did some stupid stuff as a young rider, but this trendy picture opportunity gives my increasingly middle-aged self heart palpitations. I’m so sorry to hear it claimed a life.
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Same info that was directly in the article. Ponies can jump 4+ isn’t in debate. Unfortunately the sibling was recording jumping in the field when the accident happened. The video was handed over to police. A quick google tells you more that what was written on the post to which you refer.
It is tragic. I’m not sure what your issue with publicly available info being presented.
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Oh my god! That is heartbreaking.
Yes. Not to derail the thread. She was putting together a tribute video to the pony because she was moving up to horses. Her mom has posted and made public the unfinished tribute video (without the accident clip obviously) on FB. The sibling was videotaping for the next clip to be added.
Heartbreaking. Tragic (and publically available).
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When I was a teen, one day while jumping I got it in my head to try to jump my 14.3 mare over one of the round bales in the field. She was an excellent, safe jumper and rarely stopped. But she was also incredibly intelligent-- and therefore repeatedly refused to jump the bale, no matter what I did. To this day (and especially after reading this news), I am thankful that she had WAY more sense of safety than I did. What a tragedy.
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I don’t have a problem with it being presented. It was that she highlighted that portion of the sentence and then put that it was a preventable accident. I took it as the poster was inferring that she was doing something wrong by jumping that height and overfacing the pony which led to the fall. If she routinely jumped that height and had jumped those bales before it is a different scenario than if she only routinely jumped 3’6" with this pony and decided to jump much higher than normal. Yes it is tragic either way.
Generally on this thread people are trying to figure out the root cause of the death/injury. I was pointing out that 4’3" is not necessarily an unreasonable height for a large pony. Just because she was jumping a pony over something that size does not mean that was directly the cause of the accident. If the pony slipped or they picked a wrong spot this could have still happened over a smaller jump. Obviously it would have been totally preventable if she didn’t jump at all.
There was a bale jumping accident in SoPi a few years ago. A 20something eventer, IIRC.
Not sure why anyone would think this is a good idea.
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Hello, I’m still in the thread so you can direct your comments to me 
You assumed I was saying the pony couldn’t jump that height, but my bolding of that section, was to highlight what was being jumped, and yes, that it is a horrible choice of fence for a child and a pony. The height wasn’t the issue, but the combination of that height, being a round bale (the shape, the front face, stationary, etc). I’m sure if the fence was a foot lower, she likely would have cleared it. It was preventable, there was no need to jump the fence other than “for the likes”. Which we are now seeing kill people all the time…insta fame right. I am not blaming anyone, just saying it was terrible, tragic, and totally preventable.
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My sister and I jumped a huge amount of questionable things including unsecured bales as kids whenever we were unsupervised. No fame was involved, it was the 1980s-- 90s. I think it’s a side effect of being a kid and not really aware of consequences.
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As did I, but it was confirmed it was for video, so thats where my comment came from.
I have seen round bale jumps on course walks in the distant past. I think they would pass the geometric standards shown here if they had a proper ground line: https://eventingnation.com/wayne-copping-knock-down-cross-country-courses-arent-the-answer/
Raw round bales in a hayfield would have a false ground line even though they have an inviting and forgiving apex. (assuming the bale was laying on its side rather than standing upright) Which way was the bale in situ?
Round bales put on the side of the hill to reduce take off height, staked, and with a proper ground-line and rail over top was a favorite jump of mine on course at perhaps Morven or Plantation years ago. However, an un-staked round bale invites a horse to bank it if they get to a close distance, with bad consequences. I saw a horse jump up on a newish bank one time and its legs got stuck in the top, and that horse was so scared I never saw it compete again. No one got hurt there because the bank didn’t roll.
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I addressed Pennywell since she quoted me and was the one that thought I was objecting to you quoting public information such as the height of the fence. She also specifically mentioned that she knows ponies can jump 4 foot. I was trying to clarify my thought process since obviously she didn’t understand what I meant. For all I knew you understood my point.
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