Point-Two Air Jackets

Getting back to physical safety precautions, the Point-Two Air Jacket is an excellent way to reduce the injuries that many riders suffer when they fall off their horses. Originally developed for motorcyclists, the Point-Two Air Jacket is an inflatable vest that protects critical areas of the body, including the ribs, collar, neck, back, and vital organs according to this article. It works much like an airbag in a car and uses an air canister to inflate the vest in 0.1 seconds. A ripcord attached to the saddle triggers the canister as soon as the rider begins to fall from the horse and the vest inflates. According to this article which was written in 2009, vests in the United States cost $750 with each replacement canister costing $22.50 and the ripcord being sold separately. Personally, I think a great addition to the rules of eventing in all nations would be making the Point-Two Air Jacket mandatory for all competitors.

Licenses and Proposed Scoring Changes

I've had a recent hiatus, as you all can probably tell, due to time constraints and a lot of discouragement regarding this topic. It's a narrow and difficult topic to research and almost all of the information I've found recently, while incredibly helpful, is dated at about 2008, the time of the last summer Olympics in Beijing. It appears that nobody seems to be interested in eventing and all of the safety issues along with it, until the Olympics roll around. It's too bad I'm not doing this research project next semester, huh?

Anyway, I've stumbled upon a couple of potential changes to the sport that may alleviate some of the safety problems that are being faced and neither of them directly impact the way courses are designed or the wallets of the eventing bigwigs. The first article deals with requiring the licensing of riders at four star events. This new measure would record dangerous riding, disciplinary offenses, and medical records of each rider in an attempt to curb and hold accountable reckless riders. While this seemed like a viable option in 2008 that was being considered, I have not found any recent information on it and it does not appear to have been implemented.

The second article is quite long and detailed and provides excellent statistics on rotational falls and injuries and fatalities of both horses and riders. One of the interesting proposals of this article is a new scoring system that is less ambiguous about the reason for eliminations during competitions and would allow future researchers to compile more accurate statistics about the number and nature of falls during a competition. The current system allows certain types of falls and fatalities to hide behind vague labels such as "elimination." The current system and proposed system looks like this:

A Visual Demonstration of Frangible Pins at Work

This video provides a visual example of how frangible pins work and really helped me to fully understand the concept. As the horse hits the obstacle, the pins break, causing the fence to collapse and the horse's momentum to change. Now, the horse no longer has enough momentum to flip entirely over and the possibility of the rider being crushed or pinned beneath the animal is avoided. This video was produced by the USEA (United States Eventing Association).

Rotational Falls

 

This video gives a visual demonstration of what frangible pins were designed to prevent - a rotational fall, in which the horse, unable to clear the fence, essentially "trips" and flips over the fence. Both horse and rider were uninjured after this particular episode, but for many who suffer these kinds of falls, that is not the case. These types of falls often cause spinal damage and can be fatal for both horse and rider. Frangible pins were developed to prevent such falls from happening.

Frangible Pins

Photo by Tricia Booker

I found a great article on frangible pins that is from the British Eventing website. British Eventing is the governing body of equestrian sports in England and the article has valuable information on how the pins work, when they should be used, as well as documented incidents of when the pins broke and prevented serious injury of both horse and rider.

I also found a blog from EventingUSA written by Dan Starck, co-chair of the USEA Eventing Course Designers/Builders Committee & Member of the USEA Safety Committee that explains the "frangible pin rule" adopted by the USEA and USEF (United States Eventing Association and United States Equestrian Federation respectively) in 2008. This rule had already been in place in England for several years and was supposed to be implemented in the U.S. in 2007, but was delayed due to trouble finding a reliable supplier. I would be interested to find more information on the dearth of pin suppliers...

Both of these articles contain very promising links that I will explore in later posts.

A Few Words of Introduction

For my topic I am exploring the dangers of eventing, specifically cross country eventing. For those of you who don't know what eventing is, it is an equestrian sport where horses and their riders jump over a series of fences in a test of speed and accuracy.

One of the reasons I chose this topic was because of my experiences watching eventing at an annual horse show in Devon, Pennsylvania, a tradition my family continues to this day. My mom was also involved with horses when she was younger and while she never competed in events, she knew how to ride and to jump and was - and still is - passionate about horses, a passion she has somewhat passed down to me (though alas, my lack of funds and local lessons has made riding impossible for me).

What also makes the topic of eventing so interesting for me is that there is safety equipment available that would help alleviate many of the dangers that riders face; however, it is not used at many events because of its high expense. This begs the question: How willing are we to save money at the expense of people's safety?

While some may argue that the sport is inherently dangerous, of which there is no doubt, I believe that the organizations that design the courses are putting price tags first and safety second. It is precisely because of the sport's danger that every stop  should be pulled out and every precaution taken. There is simply no excuse as to why such equipment as frangible pins are not a standard part of all fences or why vests designed to inflate upon impact are not available to or required of all riders who compete.

So far, I found two articles about the dangers of cross-country riding (equestrian's most dangerous event). The first article discusses the alarm that swept the riding community in 2008 when prominent rider Darren Chiacchia suffered a traumatic fall from his horse during a cross-country event. Chiacchia was one of twelve equestrian deaths that occurred that year. Many riders are concerned that the courses are being designed for a skilled elite and are too difficult for the majority of riders. Concerns are also being raised over the lack of safety precautions such as frangible pins (which allow part of the fence to fall down if the horse knocks into it) which are often left out of fences because of their $70 price tag. Course designers, on the other hand, argue that the increased amount of the deaths and injuries are due to an influx of inexperienced riders. Chiacchia's accident, they say, was simply a fluke.

The second article is more general in its scope and includes the dangers of uncompetitive horseback riding as well. The information that I found interesting in this article was mention of a study done on injuries sustained in sports, including horseback riding by a spinal injuries consultant. His conclusion appears to support the argument of the course designers in the first article. Another piece of interesting information deals with some of the safety equipment that has been designed for equestrians. I'm not sure whether or not it will be relevant for my topic, but I think for the time being that it is worth noting.