The U.S. Eventing Association Cross-Country Safety Subcommittee, formed three years ago, has come out with a series of recommendations aimed at cutting down the number of accidents in the discipline.
“It is not a realistic goal to say there will be zero accidents, a realistic goal is to minimize the risk of the sport. I think it is okay to compete in a high-risk sport and not to be okay with accidents or fatalities as long as you are doing everything you can to minimize risk,” said Jon Holling, who chairs USEA’s cross-country safety subcommittee.
“When an accident happens, you don’t have to completely overhaul everything, but you have to calmly look back at it and say ‘What are the problems and where do we have it right?’”
He added, “The reality is that the officials have been doing a pretty good job, and I think that a lot of what we have been doing has been making things safer. We just need to find where we can do even better.”
The subcommittee has four proposals.
“Not any one of these things is going to fix the problem. In reality, it is a high-risk sport and we are looking at minimizing the risk,” Jon said.
“I think these four things can help minimize that risk – having different layers of safety or regulation helps improve the safety of the sport.”
The first idea is increasing Minimum Eligibility Requirements (MER) and rider categorization. After an analysis of recent accidents in the U.S., Jon believes riders should have more of a base of knowledge and ability than what the current MER standards demand.
“We looked at records of very successful upper level riders – Olympic caliber riders – and what we found that in most cases (virtually all of them) did two to three times more than what our minimum requirements are to be able to move a horse up,” said Jon.
“When we looked at that, we said, ‘Maybe we don’t have right what we are requiring for the base of the sport.’ We felt pretty strongly, and the data confirmed, that one way we can increase the skill of riders and the horsemanship and relationship between the horses and the riders is to raise the minimum eligibility requirements. In a nutshell, people will have to do more at a level before they can move up.”
While each national level has a different set of requirements, a good example is the Intermediate level – currently horses are only required to achieve MERs at four Preliminary level horse trials (and one can be with 20 cross-country jumping penalties).
“I had a horse this year entered to move up to Intermediate, and at first, I thought maybe I hadn’t done enough Preliminary horse trials with him, but when I looked, I had done nine and all of them were clear and good,” Jon mentioned.
“It just shows you – as an Advanced Level rider – I am debating moving this young horse up and I have already done over double what was the minimum requirement. Just because you have done the minimum doesn’t mean it is right, but it gives you a baseline idea of what should be done.”
The subcommittee is still working out the final wording of the proposal, which would then need to go forward to the appropriate committees of the USEA, including the Board of Governors before moving to the U.S. Equestrian Federation, but the proposal would also include rider categorization or licensing similar to the FEI (international equestrian federation).
The subcommittee also proposed a rule change to have show jumping rounds at Training Level and above during which five rails or more are knocked down be penalized with compulsory retirement when show jumping precedes cross-country. A similar rule already is in place in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark and Germany. The subcommittee worked with EquiRatings and the statistical analysis showed that there is a significant correlation for those who had four rails down in show jumping with horse falls on cross-country.
After the 2008 safety crisis, wording was added to the USEF Rules For Eventing under EV112 Dangerous Riding, which allows for the president of the ground jury to designate one or several deputies to spot dangerous riding on cross-country. These deputies can include eventing officials who aren’t at the event in an official capacity, USEA ICP Certified Instructors at Level III or IV, and riders who have represented the U.S. at the Olympics, World Championships or Pan American Games. The deputies are provided with radios and red flags and can stop riders after consulting with the ground jury.
Jon said this rule worked really well for a while, but hasn’t been utilized terribly well recently. The subcommittee voted to send a memo to all officials reminding them to use this tool, especially if there is a certain area they can’t see on cross-country or if they are spread thin with show jumping and dressage going on at the same time.
If officials see dangerous riding, they have the power to penalize riders 25 points, eliminate them or issue a warning card. The rider can also be added to the USEF Watch List.
The fourth initiative is the Frangible Technology Fundraiser launched on March 2 to provide funding directly to organizers to build nearly 500 frangible tables at all USEA recognized events across the country.
“The Frangible Technology Fund is just one piece,” continued Holling. “Having that table be frangible isn’t going to solve the problem by itself, but it will help minimize the risk.”