Never seen this happen before!
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That is really heart stopping.
I presume the jump was attached to the ground in some way and it didn’t hold.
It appeared to me that if the jump had not rotated, maybe the horse could have gotten its legs out earlier rather than doing a somersault. Hard to say without using slow motion. The horse met that fence completely wrong and was not going to have a good jump no matter what.
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Yikes! Hard to know if the horse would have fared better if the jump hadn’t moved, but after that collapse down the bank you could tell it didn’t have any legs left. Trouble was definitely brewing.
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Any info on horse and rider injuries?
I’ve only seen it once, in a video from the UK of a very bad fall, but that was a much smaller fence at what looked to be an unsanctioned event or hunter trials. For it to happen at this level on a professionally designed and built course is terrifying.
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Commentator on Mondial du Lion livestream just reported rider OK after a time in hospital, any injuries unspecified, and horse walked back to stables after fall, checked by vets and fine.
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I’m so glad to hear everyone’s okay! That looked like a forward roll, like in gym class, but on a horse over a solid jump. Crazy! It gave way like it was a toy fence.
The horse tripped right in front of the jump. Seems like the free wheeling jump may have helped reduce injuries.
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It’s scary, not sure what to think. I hate seeing those pin bars rolling over towards the horse and rider. Big yikes. Hopefully a full review is done.
That landing makes me wonder the same and I know very little about eventing.
Thanks!!
Probably, had the fence not moved, the horse would have been able to move it’s legs out of the way. The previous landing was green rather than tired. Le Lion is not a very demanding course, as is apparent from the high number of clears inside the time, but it is designed to allow the young horses opportunities to learn. The biggest lesson is the atmosphere and the crowds (25,000 I believe) pressing around the fences. The cream usually comes to the top so we saw several 5* and Olympic horses in the making.
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Heloise is still in hospital. She has a pneumothorax but doing fine, according to her mother. He mare Carantina is home and (miraculously) uninjured.
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It’s a bit tough to say. When you slow it down to 0.25 speed, you can see that the horse very clearly hit the fence above the knee (almost at the shoulder). That is how rotational falls happen. That said, with the brush and the angle of the fence it’s hard to tell how much of the horse connected with solid jump (which would have caused rotation) vs. brush which is forgiving and slippery and might have allowed the horse to pop its front end free.
Definitely, definitely what is clear is that the fence should not have moved - a huge safety issue in and of itself, but as @Jealoushe points out those metal pins heading towards the horse and rider are particularly scary.
Agree with all of the above completely.
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If the horse had mostly just hit the brush, I doubt that would have been enough force to move the jump. I actually think the fact that both the horse and the jump flipped means that the horse would have rotated even if the jump had stayed fixed. It was the force generated by the horse hitting the top of it that caused the jump to also rotate. The horse must have hit the solid part of that fence pretty hard and up fairly high for it to flip like that.
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This happened years ago and I can’t find an article that explains it, but a rider named Amelie Cohen was killed in France when the horse hit an obstacle and the whole obstacle fell.
Thanks so much for the update. Very glad to hear Heloise is going to be okay and that the mare made it out without injury. It was a really horrifying fall.
Collapsible pin technology may have been helpful here. If the obstacle collapsed when hit, it might-might- prevent that rotational fall.
The horse would have rotated over that jump even if it had held solid.
I’m not certain I like the visibility of those fences- the horse comes around the turn and is totally unprepared for those particular jumps. My friend asked me to show her horse in a jumper class years ago. I had never ridden her horse before but thought I could give it a try. I had planned on being a spectator that day. Good thing I could fit in her show clothes. We did well except for one particular fence- had to make a tight turn around the corner and the mare was looking at a different fence coming around the corner so we ended up knocking the rail.
I don’t know why they have to hide difficult combinations around corners. Let the horse be able to look at the fence and evaluate the situation as they come in. The horse just looked totally unprepared for those particular obstacles.
I hope the rider makes a full recovery.
Heloise reuniting with her mare.
Back home but off riding for one month.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1746449972234593/permalink/3030398377173073/
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