Having read some of the thoughtful articles written by the more experienced and respected members of the upper levels in the eventing community, such as U.S. Equestrian Federation President Kevin Baumgardner’s Forum “Here’s What The USEA Is Doing About Safety” (April 11, p. 32), I’m left with the same questions and the sense that the arguments seem to be dancing around the issue, but the heart of the matter hasn’t revealed itself.
I certainly don’t claim to have that insight. As a non-riding parent of a daughter who has competed through intermediate, I can only offer some observations taken from a model that I’ve used in my professional life that has nothing to do with horses.
It seems to me that most of the discussions center on the human element: designers, technical delegates, riders, coaches, officials. Very little thought is given to the single most important part of the cross-country equation—the horse.
Clearly something has changed in recent years regarding course design that has had a detrimental effect on the horse’s ability to understand what he’s supposed to be doing. Maybe more effort should be put into understanding how and at what speed the horse thinks, learns and processes information, and why he becomes so confused that he causes a near-fatal accident for his rider.
What about the cumulative effect of the course? Many people talk about single jumps involved in accidents as being straightforward tables, verticals, etc., but nobody seems to take the entire course into account. (There’s only one coach with whom I’ve walked who has ever tried to put the entire course into perspective at the start box.)
If a designer mixes elements, abruptly changes how they are used, alters the position of a question in the terrain, puts a drop in an unexpected location, does it not enter anybody’s head that the horse might not figure it out in time to adjust?
We’ve all seen courses where the designer gets stuck in a rut, brush fly fences on level landings, five of them on one course. But after the fourth brush fence what happens if the take off is in the water and the landing is a drop? Will the horse know how to react?
ADVERTISEMENT
Does his recent experience prepare him for the change in terrain and landing?
Do we give horses more cognitivecredit than they deserve, expecting them to quickly adjust to new situations? Or are riders and designers so confident that they believe a thinking animal (and one with personality quirks) will blindly and willingly do what its rider asks contrary to its own sense of self preservation?
If this is truly a partnership, it’s time we put the horse at the foundation of the discussion. Instead of designing courses for spectators, riders and the designers’ need “to push the envelope,” I suggest that courses be built around the animal’s natural inclinations, and we develop a better working knowledge of those innate capabilities.
Who can say definitively what a horse will do in a controlled environment, let alone on a cross-country course?
Animal behaviorists haven’t been mentioned in anything I’ve read, but maybe it’s time we found out scientifically if the humans have realistic expectations of their equine partners.
Most coaches I’ve heard on cross-country walks try to explain how the horse will “read” a particular question, but that knowledge is essentially anecdotal and garnered from years of experience; it’s good but not infallible and is certainly not scientific.
Also, what body of knowledge guides a course designer? Is it personal experience or something more quantifiable? Instead of spending so much research money finding out how to get horses to hold up under the physical demands of the sport, it’s time we collected some concrete data about horses and their mental abilities. Yes, it will take time and money, but we’re supposed to be trying to save lives as well as the sport for future generations.
ADVERTISEMENT
In the meantime, maybe we could begin to analyze old course designs—distances, terrain, positioning, types of jumps, combinations, materials, every detail, even the position of the sun if need be, and compare them with more recent ones in order to try and figure out the fundamental distinctions between them.
Perhaps some revealing comparisons will become evident, some confluence of factors that made older courses less deadly than modern ones.
Meanwhile, maybe designers should take a step back to the more tried and true (but keep the frangible pins and other safety features) while the U.S. Equestrian Federation and USEA committees develop a new set of guidelines.
One last analogy. At a conference regarding the new educational standards for testing elementary school children, the speaker asked the rhetorical question: “What would happen if by some miracle every child was able to meet the standard, i.e., pass the test in the time allowed?
“Would educators and policy makers pat themselves on the back and be proud of their accomplishment? No. Everybody would reach the conclusion that the test must be too easy and so must be made more difficult.”
Children’s natural cognitive skills only have so much scope regardless of test designers’ needs to be ever raising the bar.
Ellen Baker Wikstrom, Aurora, N.Y., is the mother of Alexandra Wikstrom, a young rider who actively competes in the preliminary and intermediate divisions in USEA Areas I and II.