MIM Safe New Era Clip & Pin
Since the inception of the new set of FEI rules came into place on the 1st of January this year, the Eventing world has been without frangible pin technology that meets the new regulations. Until now. A clip and pin designed in Sweden has been announced as the very first cross country jump safety apparatus to pass the new FEI approvals scheme for frangible devises. This means that the MIM Clip & Pin are currently the only devises permitted for use during an FEI competition worldwide under the new FEI Eventing rule (546.2.4).
This new Clip & Pin design has been through rigorous testing over many years in Sweden, Australia and the USA. The inventors, Mats Björnetun and Anders Flogârd, initially began working on frangible devises after coming from the car safety industry. “We believe our two products provide course designers with ample versatility, but this does not mean the work is over. Eventing will always be a risk sport but everyone who loves it should never stop questioning how we can take those risks down to the absolute minimum,” said Björnetun, who also runs a yearly FEI Event at his farm near Gothenburg.
The best part about the MIM Clip & Pin is that it has a re-usable indicator tool which can be used by fence judges to quickly ascertain if the pin has been weakened by a non fall-inducing impact. This is superb because it helps prevent situations in which a competitor is assigned penalties for breaking a jump that might have already been damaged. (Think Clark Montgomery and Loughan Glen at Rolex this past year…that would have been handy!) Any weakening of the MIM Clip by previous impacts is indicated by distortion of a small metal flag which is easily visible to the naked eye. It is also very easily replaced by a common fence judge. This is a huge improvement over our past frangible pin technology, and I look forward to seeing it on courses.
