Friday afternoon was a blur of meetings and they are not over yet. I have included my thoughts on the meetings I was able to attend, but of course I wasn’t able to attend all of them. We will have links to the best convention coverage elsewhere later this evening–I know Josh from the USEA is working on some awesome videos. The early Thursday afternoon sessions were all about rules and safety.
The Rule Change Open Forum: The Rule Change Open Forum was surprisingly tame, with only a few moments of confrontational discussion. Many of the rule change proposals that I have already mentioned were brought up, including the helmet rule, the rider representative rule, and the mandatory suspension for concussion rule.
Surprisingly, the mandatory helmet rule proposal met almost no resistance from the large crowd in the room. I think everyone who developed the rule change proposal at the USEA is pleasantly surprised at how little opposition has been made against the helmet rule. Professionals and amateurs alike are coming together to support the proactive and common sense safety improvement, and I applaud everyone for not being blinded by tradition.
The rider representative rule change, which more clearly defines the requirements and rules for being a rider rep, was discussed thoroughly. Some people were concerned that it would place an added burden on the organizer, who would be required to name a rider rep 7 days before the competition, and on the TD, who might have to walk the course an additional time. However, by the end of the discussion I think most people were convinced that the current rider rep system is too informal and creates situations where rider reps are found the day of competition, and that the new rule would be a step in the right direction.
The concussion rule received a few procedural questions, and USEA Board member Malcolm Hook made it clear that the 7 and 21 day suspensions for concussions is a concept borrowed (Malcolm said “plagiarized”) from British Eventing. The sport world is becoming increasingly aware that concussions are serious and dangerous injuries particularly because a concussed rider can appear to be fine on the surface. As I mentioned in my Board of Governors’ post, the rule proposal contains the possibility for a rider to reduce the length of the mandatory suspension by taking a baseline cognitive impact test (an industry-standard test used by the NFL) before competing and then taking a follow-up test after their fall to prove that they have recovered to their baseline level. Malcolm Hook explained that this portion of the rule was designed for High Performance athletes who might have a mandatory outing one or two weeks following a fall. The only concern that I have is that someone could presumably ‘low-ball’ the baseline test. Mr. Hook did mention that there are countermeasures in the test to prevent cheating.
Testing center: “John, our baseline test reveals that you have the cognitive level of an Antelope.”
Since eventing in the US is governed by USEF rules, these proposals will all be finalized this weekend and passed on to the relevant USEF committees for approval. Ok, that’s about all I can stand on rules for now.
The USEA Safety Forum: At the USEA Safety Forum, there was considerable overlap between the Board of Governors’ Meeting safety discussion and the Safety Forum presentations. Dr. Hart presented the same presentation on the cardiovascular studies that he made to the BOG Friday morning, which you can read about below. The USEA Safety Committee’s presentation focused on the rider fall survey I talked about in the Friday morning post and the aforementioned proposed safety rules.
One particularly interesting moment in the Safety Forum was when David O’Connor presented the 2010 statistics on rider falls and horse falls. There were 970 falls in 2010, and horse falls occured at all levels in 2010, including two at beginner novice. While this number seems large, it is a relatively small percentage of overall starts on course. For example, 1 out of 260 advanced starts resulted in a horse fall.
The gathering of data is not just a mathematical exercise–it has led to some real improvements in safety. One interesting example that David gave is that a few years ago, Trakehner caused a high percentage of falls. Using that date, course designers raised the ground lines six to eight inches on Trakehners and now the fences are near the bottom of statistical accident causers.
Ultimately, the percentage of rider falls is quite small for the overall starters, but each fall is a dramatic point that we need to try to prevent. David said that one of the biggest contributors to the increase in safety since ’07 has been the ability of organizers to pull unsafe riders off of the course and that people are more likely to retire on course these days. In his summary, David did warn that because our sport is no longer in crisis mode, we may be at risk of getting complacent as a sport.
Building Team USA’s Pipeline to Success: I took a quick break from the safety forum to check in on the “From Young Rider to Olympic Rider” presentation from Sara Ike and Mark Phillips of the USEF and Bobby Costello. I arrived during Sara Ike’s presentation, which was excellent. Sara stressed the importance of creating a solid developmental pipeline to produce riders from the entry levels to the Team. Sara mentioned that of the $1.2 million budget the USEF has for eventing only 6% of that goes to the developing riders program, and some of that is USOC funding with specific spending requirements. After Sara’s presentation the floor was opened to discussions and questions from the audience.
From my perspective, I give the USEF a lot of credit for trying to address the developmental issue in cooperation with the USEA and its members. The meeting was a huge step forward in communication between the USEF and the public, and hopefully there will be many such discussions in the future. I wish I had been able to attend the entire meeting, especially because Sara apparently gave EN a shout-out in the beginning of her talk. Leslie from the USEA sat in on the entire meeting and we will link to her report when it is up.
We’ll have more from the late afternoon sessions soon. Go eventing.
