An involuntary dismount at Pine Top. Photo by Kate Samuels.
As equestrians, we face a certain amount of inherent risk due to the fact that we understand we are dealing with one-ton animals with minds of their own. As eventers of varying levels, we take a little more risk than some others because we are traveling at speed over solid objects for part of our competition. In recent years, there have been many wonderful safety enhancements, namely air vests and frangible pins, and I feel that our sport has really made a huge effort to move in the right direction with these precautions. However, one can never assume that eventing is categorically safe.
A recent report from BBC Sport speaks to the concerns that plague riders, spectators and course designers on the eve of a big competition such as Burghley. While Capt. Mark Phillips has received his fair share of critics in this year alone, you must admit that designing a CCI4* course that will be challenging enough for the likes of Andrew Nicholson and yet safe enough that four-star first-timers will reasonably be able to complete is an unenviable position. “When the first horse gets round safely there’s a sigh of relief, but you never relax ’til the last horse has finished,” Phillips said in the BBC report.
Frangible pins have greatly reduced the likelihood of rotational falls such as the ones suffered by Tom Gadsby and Laura Collett recently, but even when combined with air vests, they cannot completely rule out accidents. Our technological advances and increasing comprehension of how to help horses understand questions are not racing toward a fixed goal, as our sport itself is ever-evolving, and the best are getting better every day. This makes safety a very tough job indeed.
From BBC Sport:
“We cannot make this sport, any more than you can racing or skiing, categorically safe. All we can do is make it as safe as we possibly can,” Capt Phillips, who has designed the course for this weekend’s Burghley Horse Trials, tells BBC Sport. “An awful lot of thought goes into the design of a course and individual fences, in terms of profile, the materials you use, take-offs, landings, the horse’s understanding of the question, light and dark, colour, contrast.
“There are a multitude of factors that go into every fence, all of which are designed to give the horse every opportunity to get its feet out of the way of a fence, and to jump it clearly and safely. “But it doesn’t matter how safe you make a track for racing cars or a cross-country course for horses – there’s always that possibility for accidents to happen when human beings are traveling at speed.”
“It’s finding that line between making it an exciting competition, a bit of a test for the horses and riders, but not going too far. That’s hugely difficult and why there are not so many of us designing four-star courses around the world. We work very hard to stay the right side of the line.
“If everybody just goes galloping around the cross-country, clear inside the time, and it’s a dressage and show jumping competition, nobody thanks you for that. Spectators, viewers, everybody goes, ‘Well, that wasn’t very exciting’. It’s a very fine line.”
Read the full BBC Sport report HERE.
