Eventing’s Honor Roll, the one list you don’t want to be on

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I have an excel spreadsheet and it contains a list. That list is the Honor Roll of Eventing. The list contains the name, location, date and usually the manner of death of a rider who has given their life in the pursuit of our sport.

It is a list I don’t look at very often but yesterday I was moved to do so. I needed to confirm that Jade South was on the list, she is number 37. My list was compiled by another person who is passionate about safety in our sport and has entrusted me with a copy of the Honor Roll.
Until the EN post earlier this week, I was not aware of the greater details of Jade’s incident and now that I am, I am deeply sorrowed. My sorrow stems from the fact that as a community, we cannot accept the loss of horses or riders as a fact of life in Eventing but something to be avoided at all costs.
When we lose a life we must learn everything possible from the tragedy and ensure we do not make the same mistakes again in the future.
Personally, the final paragraph of John’s post was the light bulb moment for me that I wish to share.
One of the complications in looking at whether the jump raising up contributed to the fall is the difficulty of knowing if the jump moving was actually a good thing in the sense that frangible technology suggests that a jump being fixed in place and rigid is not always a good thing.


In 2010, another young lady Elena Timonina also 15 of Russia died on XC in a one star level national competition. Now remember that Jade South had a rotational fall over a 2 foot 6 (76cm) fence, the current rules in the USA do not recommend the installation of a frangible pin below 37.5 inches (95cm) although they can be if room for a minimum 16 inch (40cm) drop of the rail is available*.  
* A rail should be 6.5 – 15 inches (16 – 38cm), so there is not always room below 3 foot to make use of the frangible pin.
Back to my point. Elena died in a rotational fall where the fence did not appear fixed, trust me on this I have watched the video too many times, you don’t need it etched in your brain.  Essentially the fence stayed in the way of the horse and allowed a rotation to occur. THIS IS THE CRITICAL POINT.  STOPPING A ROTATION OCCURRING.
If the horse does not rotate then the chances of a serious injury are significantly lower, once a horse commences a rotation it is extremely difficult to stop. Thus preventing the rotation in the first place must be a primary goal for all in Eventing.
So firstly, an incorrectly fixed portable fence or an unsecured portable fence can create a pivot point from which a rotation can occur. By incorrectly fixed I mean fixed in a manner that allows the front of the fence to lift off the ground.  
I do hope that you were able to sit through the video in my post on Eventing Safety – Has a new era dawned on Eventing if you did, you would have taken away a critical thing about frangible fences. That is that they (frangible fences) can help by allowing the horse to do what it does best, stay on their own feet.  Frangible fences can help by getting out of the way of the horse, in the fraction of a second it takes for a rotation to begin.
If the fence is out of the way then the horse can get its feet on the ground, it may still fall but it probably wont rotate.
So how does this help our problem of portable fences?
  • A portable fence is designed to stay up, so even if it does fall, by the time it does fall, the horse will be rotating, we are talking a fraction of a second for a rotation to begin.
  • Another key element from Mat’s (Mim NewEra) presentation was that 200kgs (440 pounds) is the magic number, when a rail on a frangible fence weighs more than this physics wins and a rotation can occur. Ever seen a portable fence that weighs much less than 440 pounds? I haven’t.
Well, simply in my opinion leaving a portable fence free to rotate, free to move is asking for a rotation to happen. Can you still get a rotation if the fence is perfectly rock solid, absolutely, as you can with almost every other fixed fence on a XC course.
The key difference is that an unfixed portable fence has all the key features you want to avoid in order to avoid a rotation.
That is enough theory and abstract thought, this story is about two 15 year old girls, who will remain forever young and the many more on the Eventing Honor Roll.
I wish you all safe and happy Eventing and please remember, if you see something on XC you don’t like, find the TD or another official and ask a question–there is no such thing as a dumb question.
Yours in Eventing
ESJ

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