Can we help prevent rotational falls with frangible pins on the FRONT rail of oxers?

[Eventer724]

Hello everyone! I am not sure if there has been discussion on this specific question. I do recognize the amount of time we have spent on frangible pins etc. but I was wondering if anyone knew if there has been deliberation over putting frangible pins on the FRONT rails of oxers such as the one that Baileywick so sadly flipped over on saturday. Is there a reason why this hasn't been done yet? I see the logic behind frangible pins of verticals and back rails of oxers, but why not on the front rails as well? Yes the horse will not get hung up on the back rail if it does not make the distance over the fence, but the worst fall as we all know happens when the horse hits the fence on the way UP. Could this be another step in helping prevent such devastating accidents? I would be curious if there is a reason why this has not been done yet. Thanks!

[Gnep]

No you can not.
1. the horse brakes the pin on the front log, drops to the ground and slams the rider into the rear log, kills the rider. The horse would slide under the rear log and than ? broken back because it will get up.
Hasta La Vista Baby, I wont be back.
2. If the spread is not wide enough, the horses head will get hung up on the rear rail, front rail drops horse brakes neck.
Hasta La Vista Baby, I wont be back

The trick of all colapseble jumps is, none will prevent the horse from going down, but than the horse is still moving forward. It is not a dead stop from 15 to 18 miles an hour, 1/2 of aton has a lot of energy, if it would be stoped dead in its tracks, you would probably kill the horse and the rider would be flying with 15 miles per hour threw the air, big woof on landing.
Meat Wagon

[EventerAJ]

Agree with Gnep.

Large oxers made from large trees, when taken at a gallop, even on frangible pins, don't just drop easily like a show jumping rail. Allowing the horse to crash through a falling front rail will only cause a second collision with the back rail, possibly leading to greater injury and/or rider death.

[kcrubin]

Thanks so much for this question and explanation. I had the same question and now it makes sense to me why the front doesn't have frangible pins.

[joiedevie99]

This may be wrong, but I figured it couldn't hurt to throw it out there. What if only one side of the rail had a pin? What it force the horse to roll forward and onto its side instead of forward, up and over?

[Gnep]

To answer your question, the idea of the pin is a energy release. The horse forward momentum will be transformed on impact into a rotation, ass comes up because the front is arrested. The higher the horses ass the more weight on the log, at one point the pin will break. Than the energy is released and the horse drops down, the rotation is stoped. The log has to drop a certain distance, 40 cm, to change the direction, vector, of the energy, kinetic energy.
If you have one side up, the log will not drop far enough, the change of energy direction, instead of a rotation a fall downwards will probably not happen.

On top of it, it will not solve the problems of brocken neck and of geting horse and rider traped inside the jump or slaming into the rear log, deadly affair

[ksbadger]

The one aspect of frangible pin fence construction that is not emphasized - and just as important - is that there must be a 400 mm tethered drop on the part of the fence that falls away after the pin breaks. You can see this clearly on the British Eventing document on Frangible Pin Fence Construction here:
http://www.britisheventing.com/page.asp?section=00010001000200220001&sectionTitle=Frangible+Pins

It's the main reason why frangibles can't be used for levels below Prelim.

[TB_eventer]

another thought... I'm sure there's a good reason that this doesn't work either, but..

what if there were frangible pins on the front rail, and if they broke then the back rails broke away? This would be pretty technical/complicated... anyway, thinking out loud.

[Gnep]

Badger, wrong, you can use Pins at training and at novice, bn no, 40 cm are 16 inches drop, N = 2'11 or 35 "
16" + 16" inch diameter pole = 32"

Tb if you have the top, the spread of the Oxer cover, with boards, table like you probably could pin the top, but I have no idea if a 4 pin release will work, I would probably built a rather solid frame, fake the front log, using a split logand than rest it on the pins. But as a said I have no idea if a 4 pin release will work, I doubt it. The table we designed, is based on the domino or chain reaction , if x fails than y fails and than z . We deal on top of it with the weight restrictions of the Pin, how much preload the pin can have, especialy with big Oxers we are always very close to the max load of the Pins, because of the size of the timber.
It is not as easy as it sounds, the whole construct has to come down and in a way that neither horse or rider get traped or burried, if you have them traped, you got one hell of a mess
But I wonder if those special jump cups the guy in Germany developed, 10 years ago, would do the trick. I think they are a far better design than the Pin.
I have to find the link again and than I will post it.

[deltawave]

I think one of the things we need to keep in mind is the "dynamics" of a rotational fall, and the worst case scenario: a rider being crushed under a somersaulting horse. THAT is what is Priority Number One in terms of prevention. We can't prevent horses making mistakes, horses falling, horses chesting a jump with pins. We can, hopefully, prevent the fall from crushing and killing the rider in some cases, however.

Not meaning to be brutal, but the rider's life is what is most important. Anything at all we can do to prevent ANY and ALL injuries is gravy. But we just can't have horses landing on riders at full rotational velocity.

[Gnep]

well there is to approaches to the problem, You can try to save the rider and hope the horse will make it, or you can come from the other side, if you save the horse you probably will save the rider to. If the horse does not flip, the rider will not be crushed, horse is save rider is save and I think if you save the horse you will save the rider, right now we concentrate on saving the rider and not the horse.

[jumpsnake]

Thanks for the actual explanations here. I too was wondering this.

[deltawave]

Good point, Gnep. :)

I think by far the easiest thing to do in the short-term is to ease up on the courses a little. Will it solve every problem? No, not hardly. But it is easily done, and as Denny said, someone will still come in 1st, 2nd and 3rd. If and when the casualties drop, and/or we gather some meaningful data that can allow problems to be corrected, then the ratcheting-up can start over, intelligently.

[TB_eventer]

Thanks Gnep, that's some great information. I'd love to see that link.

[Gnep]

DW, this is now the third thread I am asking the same question and I have asked this one befor.
Why do we have such a problem, horses droping dead rider geting killed or badly insured, or horses geting killed in the US and UK and not in Mainland Europe.

Why is the savety issue such a pressing problem here and the Uk and not in Europe. I read German, I read French, I read Italien and Spanish, I can not find anything on the web and through personal contacts that would indicate that they have the same problem and trust me they have more events, equaly tough events, more riders and rides. You can go a CCI or CiC every other weekend in Europe, every weekend a N to A. They should have a horryfying statistic, just because of the numbers and they don't.

What are they doing differant ?

I got pictures from a CCI 2 star course, no pins, none at all, no roping, not one jump, by our standards that course would have not gotten a certification, jumps that are misserable traps and so on. 80 Style building with a 2007 design, I got similar pictures from N to A shows, with jumps that are killers, as we used to built and design in the late 70 and early 80, no TD would certify those courses in the US and on top of those type of builts they throw all of todays technical stuff into it and they ride in all kinds of weather, were we cancel they ride.
But they do not have the accidents as we have.

WHY ?

[JER]

DW, this is now the third thread I am asking the same question and I have asked this one befor.
Why do we have such a problem, horses droping dead rider geting killed or badly insured, or horses geting killed in the US and UK and not in Mainland Europe.


In 2007, there were 3 rider deaths in France (Amelie Cohen, Julie Silly and Maia Boutanos).

(Also, there were horse deaths at Pau and Saumur in 08 but the horses were from UK-based entrants -- Zara Phillips and Clayton Fredericks.)

[TyB]

What about the new Prologs? How are they working and would they have prevented the rotational fall that Bailey Wick had?

Here's some info. on them: http://useventing.com/competitions.php?id=1759

[Gnep]

Jer, get the nationality corealation, I take from the names, 2 were not french.

[riderboy]

DW, this is now the third thread I am asking the same question and I have asked this one befor.
Why do we have such a problem, horses droping dead rider geting killed or badly insured, or horses geting killed in the US and UK and not in Mainland Europe.

Why is the savety issue such a pressing problem here and the Uk and not in Europe. I read German, I read French, I read Italien and Spanish, I can not find anything on the web and through personal contacts that would indicate that they have the same problem and trust me they have more events, equaly tough events, more riders and rides. You can go a CCI or CiC every other weekend in Europe, every weekend a N to A. They should have a horryfying statistic, just because of the numbers and they don't.

What are they doing differant ?
I got pictures from a CCI 2 star course, no pins, none at all, no roping, not one jump, by our standards that course would have not gotten a certification, jumps that are misserable traps and so on. 80 Style building with a 2007 design, I got similar pictures from N to A shows, with jumps that are killers, as we used to built and design in the late 70 and early 80, no TD would certify those courses in the US and on top of those type of builts they throw all of todays technical stuff into it and they ride in all kinds of weather, were we cancel they ride.
But they do not have the accidents as we have.

WHY ?Again, this seems like such a BASIC question that I can't believe some sort of study has not been done. Is it lack of funding? Lack of interest? What about New Zealand and Australia?