PrintA meeting of the minds results in many new proposals to make the sport safer.
For much of this year, the sport of eventing has been thrust into an uncomfortable position in the spotlight, due to a spate of terrible falls and the accompanying media coverage. At the first USEF/ USEA Safety Summit, held June 7-8 in Lexington, Ky., eventers sought to reclaim the sport they love, wresting it off of a track that many find dangerous and unsustainable.
“We’re here today because eventing, a sport we know and love, is in trouble,” said U.S. Equestrian Federation CEO John Long. “Things need to change. It can’t be business as usual anymore.”
The summit drew about 250 audience members, including many of the sport’s most prominent riders, trainers, event organizers, course designers, veterinarians and officials, as well as amateurs, young riders and parents. More than 1,000 e-mails with suggestions and comments were received in the weeks preceeding the summit, Long said.
Although a handful of concrete actions were set in motion at the summit, it served primarily as a jumping-off point, with USEF President David O’Connor and U.S. Eventing Association President Kevin Baumgardner pledging to take the ideas back to their respective organizations for consideration and to work out the details of implementation.
Both the leaders and the participants seemed apprehensive about the direction the summit would take. But when the group reconvened on Sunday morning, O’Connor said the session had exceeded his expectations. He asked for a show of hands from those who had entered the summit fearing that the sport would be significantly altered. As it turned out, the ideas discussed revolved not around changing the sport but becoming better participants.
In the end, the focus was primarily on rider responsibility and education and enacting sensible safeguards to save those without enough of either from themselves.
“We want to learn our three phases better and take care of our horses doing it,” O’Connor summarized.
The Enemy: Horse Falls
O’Connor distilled the essence of the summit down to one simple goal: reducing falls of horses. He noted that falls of rider only result in injury about 2 percent of the time, while non-rotational horse falls carry an injury rate of about 50 percent. Rotational falls, however, result in injury in a sobering 85 percent of cases.
For much of this year, the sport of eventing has been thrust into an uncomfortable position in the spotlight, due to a spate of terrible falls and the accompanying media coverage. At the first USEF/ USEA Safety Summit, held June 7-8 in Lexington, Ky., eventers sought to reclaim the sport they love, wresting it off of a track that many find dangerous and unsustainable.
“We’re here today because eventing, a sport we know and love, is in trouble,” said U.S. Equestrian Federation CEO John Long. “Things need to change. It can’t be business as usual anymore.”The summit drew about 250 audience members, including many of the sport’s most prominent riders, trainers, event organizers, course designers, veterinarians and officials, as well as amateurs, young riders and parents. More than 1,000 e-mails with suggestions and comments were received in the weeks preceeding the summit, Long said.
Although a handful of concrete actions were set in motion at the summit, it served primarily as a jumping-off point, with USEF President David O’Connor and U.S. Eventing Association President Kevin Baumgardner pledging to take the ideas back to their respective organizations for consideration and to work out the details of implementation.
Both the leaders and the participants seemed apprehensive about the direction the summit would take. But when the group reconvened on Sunday morning, O’Connor said the session had exceeded his expectations. He asked for a show of hands from those who had entered the summit fearing that the sport would be significantly altered. As it turned out, the ideas discussed revolved not around changing the sport but becoming better participants.
In the end, the focus was primarily on rider responsibility and education and enacting sensible safeguards to save those without enough of either from themselves.
“We want to learn our three phases better and take care of our horses doing it,” O’Connor summarized.
The Enemy: Horse Falls
O’Connor distilled the essence of the summit down to one simple goal: reducing falls of horses. He noted that falls of rider only result in injury about 2 percent of the time, while non-rotational horse falls carry an injury rate of about 50 percent. Rotational falls, however, result in injury in a sobering 85 percent of cases.
| What You Can Do Most of the safety summit focused on changes that need to occur within the USEA and USEF—rule changes, educational initiatives and data collection, for instance. It might seem as though the lion’s share of the work to be done is out of the hands of the sport’s rank-and-file—as David O’Connor stressed, the summit was focused on the .2 percent of trips that end in the fall of a horse, not the other 99.8. But over and over again, O’Connor and USEA President Kevin Baumgardner emphasized that a “cultural shift” is needed and that eventers need to become “evangelists” for safety. |
