by Stacy Segal
It's a beautiful April day at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington. An excited crowd of equestrian fans has turned out for the prestigious Rolex Kentucky Three Day Event, and they've been watching eagerly as, one at a time, horse-and-rider pairs gallop across the arduous cross-country-style course.
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| Phil Walter/Getty Images |
Eventing can be dangerous—even
deadly—for horses and riders. |
At this moment, Olympic hopeful Laine Ashker has taken the field with her steed, 16-year-old New Zealand Thoroughbred Frodo Baggins (so named after his previous career as a movie horse, during which he enjoyed a star turn in The Lord of the Rings).
Laine and Frodo hurdle their way across the field, clearing the first three obstacles—flower box, picnic table, and set of rock walls—and all but flying over the fourth, a downhill set of logs.
But suddenly, at the fifth jump, disaster strikes: Frodo crashes a fence and flips violently over, smashing into the ground atop his rider.
Laine is rushed off the course in an ambulance, and veterinarians hurry to Frodo's aid, transporting him to a nearby equine hospital.
After the attending veterinarians determine that Frodo's skull and lung injuries are too severe for hope of recovery, the horse is euthanized.
His rider proves more fortunate; she'll live. But her good fortune amid disaster highlights an alarming trend: in the past 18 months, there have been no fewer than 12 fatal crashes at high-level equestrian eventing competitions worldwide.
The Path to Reform
There's been no shortage of tragedy in equestrian sports in recent years. Several painful images from the world of horse racing are still fresh in the public's mind: three-year-old filly Eight Belles collapsing and subsequently being euthanized on the track at Churchill Downs this spring, after breaking both her front ankles.
And 2006 Triple Crown contender Barbaro was ultimately euthanized after suffering injuries at the Preakness.
That's why it was such a welcome development earlier this month when the eventing community took a bold step forward in acknowledging the need for reform. Industry leaders representing the United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) and the United States Eventing Association (USEA) called their first-ever Safety Summit in Lexington, Kentucky June 7-8.
More than 250 stakeholders—professional and novice competitors, trainers, coaches, course designers, veterinarians and humane society officials—gathered in the heart of horse country to deliberate over the causes of these recent accidents and to identify tangible actions that can be taken to better protect the sport's equine and human athletes.
The protection, safety and well-being of all horses—whether they are high-level competition horses, carriage horses or backyard companions—is the guiding mission of the HSUS' Equine Protection Program. This commitment to equine welfare is what spurred eventing industry leaders to invite the HSUS' equine protection experts to take part in the safety summit, thus laying the groundwork for an ongoing partnership in the protection of equine athletes.
"The recent string of tragic injuries and deaths points to the serious need for greater protections in eventing ," said Keith Dane, Director of Equine Protection for The Humane Society of the United States. "The safety and welfare of the equine athletes in sports like eventing and racing is often overlooked in the pursuit of a prize or medal. This summit was an important and needed first step towards identifying and implementing needed changes to protect these horses, at all levels of competition."
The Challenges of Eventing
For Olympic medalist and USEF President David O'Connor, the Safety Summit's purpose could be boiled down to a single imperative: figure out how to reduce the number of horse falls.
"Why are we getting to a place where our horses can't deal with what's in front of them?" he asked early at the conference. "If we can reduce the number of horse falls, we can make this sport safer for the horses and the riders."
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| iStock.com |
Eventing requires extreme
athleticism from both horse and rider. |
Eventing presents unique challenges because it combines various other equestrian disciplines into a single triathlon-like competition.
During a three-day eventing contest, each horse-and rider pair must compete in dressage (delicate precision stepping, not unlike four-legged ballet), show jumping (an equestrian hurdles course, with lightweight obstacles that fall safely when bumped), and cross-country jumping (a longer course that combines quick turns, steep ditches, pools of water and solid, heavy jump obstacles).
The risks of the sport are many. The cross country phase is executed at a gallop, giving horse and rider only seconds to assess what's in front of them and how to clear it successfully.
While the rider has the opportunity to "walk the course" prior to competing, the horse—who relies on his riders and trainers to make good decisions for him—never sees the jumps until the competition.
And the majority of the jumps—which are supposed to simulate the sorts of real-world conditions a rider in the countryside might face—involve solid obstacles that can mean serious injury or death if not surmounted.
Safety Summit participants approached the issue methodically, breaking it down into several components including course design, rider qualifications and education, veterinary issues, and data collection. Throughout the discussions, several key points arose that suggested important actions the sport could take.
Better Technology
The most obvious fix is to make each jump obstacle less physically dangerous. Currently, cross country fences are immovable objects. In 2002, the company Barriers International developed a frangible (breakable) pin system that would mechanically respond to a horse collision by giving way, thus preventing the horse from becoming tangled in the fall and flipping catastrophically.
But the use of frangible pins is only feasible for certain types of cross country obstacles, and individual competitions have been slow to adopt the technology, citing its expense. A major decision at the Safety Summit was the USEF's commitment to begin buying the entire inventory of frangible pins and providing them, free of charge, to sanctioned competitions—and, meanwhile, to explore other "deformable" breakaway-fence technologies.
Slowing Down
Traditionally in the cross country part of an eventing contest, riders are not judged on their quality or precision of horsemanship—they're scored solely on whether they complete the course by a predetermined optimum time and whether their horse refuse any jumps. This emphasis on speed has created a system that often rewards recklessness and disadvantages riders who take more time to cautiously navigate a course.
During the Safety Summit's discussions of course design and rider qualifications, many possible approaches to this issue were raised. Veteran riders suggested better training at the novice level; competition organizers suggested instituting greater penalties for finishing a course too quickly. Others offered that courses could be slowed from the get-go by factoring terrain, footing, and event-day weather conditions into the judging process—not just the distance and number of obstacles.
A Cultural Shift
Sarah MacHarg, a young rider from Pennsylvania, said she attended the conference out of concern for the attitude she sees in the eventing world. "Our sport currently encourages people to chase numbers and [competition] qualifications," she said. "I want to see it restructured to encourage riders to chase education."
If there was a constant refrain at the Safety Summit, it was this need to pursue a fundamental shift in the culture of eventing—to more consciously, deliberately cultivate the mindset that a good rider is a safe rider, and that the horse's safety needs must come before the competitor's ambition.
While the summit was a necessary and important first step, it remains to be seen how far the eventing community is willing to go to turn the recent tide of tragic accidents.
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| iStock.com |
Competition horses rely on their riders
to make good decisions for them. |
One promising concrete plan to emerge is the USEF's intention to certify 500 instructors in the next two years, so the organization can mandate specific safety training for all participating riders.
"We know that the well-being, safety and quality of life of all horses is directly linked to the level of knowledge, commitment and personal responsibility exhibited by their human caretakers, "said Dane.
"Now that the need for more education has been identified, the eventing community must take the necessary steps to ensure its trainers; riders and owners are equipped with the knowledge and information to make sound and safe decisions for their horses."
"We need to look at each other and have more of an open dialogue," O'Connor acknowledged. "Criticism is not personal. The criticism will help the horses and the riders."
He acknowledged that such self-policing hasn't always been the way the equestrian community has done things in the past—but that it needs to be in the future if equestrians are to truly respect their animal teammates.
Riders may be eager to win medals, O'Connor said, but "the rider has to respect that the horse doesn't know that pressure. The horses are true partners in this relationship . . . The partnership is the prize, and when any horse or rider gets hurt, it hurts us all."
