A few weeks ago ESJ wrote on the EventingSafety blog that the FEI would be holding a National Safety Officer seminar in Greenwich. What ESJ asked for at the time, and we seconded, was to have more transparency from the meeting. The FEI has responded and this morning they sent out a press release about the meeting. Part of the release explained that the rate of eventing falls is steadily declining at FEI events. Here are several paragraphs from the release:
Since 2005, the [fall] rate has dropped steadily from one Cross-Country fall per 17 starters to one in 19 in 2009-10. In 2009, there were 778 falls from 14,206 starters (an incidence of 5.48%); in 2010, this figure was 767 from 15,518 (4.94%).
[Giuseppe Della Chiesa (ITA), Chair of the FEI Eventing Committee, said] “Of course, we are happy to have a growing Eventing community, but we must make sure that these competitors who are coming into the sport and progressing up it are properly prepared for each level. Our priority is always to ensure competitors do not face any unnecessary risk in what inevitably will remain a risk sport.“The number of falls at 1* level, and the proportion of horse falls (240 in 2010), is still of concern, as is the consistency of national methods of record-keeping, and we are continually striving to find ways of educating officials and riders, and standardising data collection throughout the world.” [Full Press Release]
I’ll be interested to hear ESJ’s take on the situation, but I am very glad that the FEI is taking advantage of the chance to release safety statistics. Go eventing.
