The "Safety Nuts" Are Ruining Eventing

Ever since the first Neaderthal tamed and rode the first eohippus people (and very likely that very first guy) have been falling off horses. Anyone who rides is going to fall off. This is not an opinion this is a fact.

Secondarily, people who ride frequently and and who ride competatively are going to get hurt! I have a friend who broke her neck while trotting in a circle on a longe line. Most injuries are broken bones and concussions - some people are killed.

Under today's rules for Eventing a fall of rider incurs Elimination. This was not always the case - a fall of rider used to cost sixty faults plus whatever time faults were added.

Elimination for a fall of rider is a "safety nut rule" and it is counter productive. Take the novice rider who tumbles off at the first fence when her horse refuses. There goes her entry fee of $175 or more. There goes her stabling fee of $100.00 or more. Most importantly there goes the experience this rider had come to the event to acquire.

At the other end of the spectrum, at an international team competition one rider's fall can eliminate the entire team.

My first Olympic Games was Rome in 1960. It was there that I saw a man who has been one of my eventing heros ever since - Bill Roycroft, of Australia. There was a notorious fence at those Games about three or four from home called "the sewer pipes". It was constructed of cement pipes at the brow of a hill set up like this: OOOOOO. There was a thin line of rails about the thickness of my arm set on the take off side at just the level of the top of the pipes. There was no ground line. The horses could not guage the fence because they could see through it, particularly because it was sited at the top of a hill with a down hill landing. Well through the competition riders realized that the fence could be jumped at an angle thereby increasing the horse's ability to understand the question being asked. Prior to that there were many falls of both riders and horses.

Bill Roycroft is quoted as follows the book Badminton Horse Trials, The Triumphs and the Tears: "Our Olympic preperation continued at Aldershot (England), and then we flew to Rome for the Olympics. I had a fall on the cross-country at the notorious concrete Drainpipe fence, but completed the course before being taken to hospital with a broken collarbone and damaged shoulder. There I learned that another member of our team had had to withdraw when his horse broke down after the cross- country, but that if my score could count, we were in with a chance of gold. So I discharged myself from hospital the next morning and managed a clear showjumping round and as you know Australia won gold."

I saw Roycroft's fall. I saw, as he remounted, that he had injured one arm. By show jumping time in the Piazza de Sienna, in Rome - the cross country had been at Pratoni del Vivaro - every one knew that Bill Roycroft had broken his collar bone. Nonetheless he jumped a heroic double clear for his team to insure the Gold Medal. The spectators, no matter their national alliance, cheered wildly. Everyone knew they had witnessed true grit and true courage.

At the present time no one reading this article will ever have the chance to see a heroic performance such a Roycroft's because the "safety nuts" have taken over the sport of eventing!

The following is addressed to those "safety nuts" who decided that a fall of rider was cause for elimination.

Riding is a risk sport! You can legislate until you hair turns grey; but, you cannot legistate safety in riding and you certainly cannot legislate safety in Eventing. Elimination for a first fall of rider is a lousy and an exclusionary rule. It needs to be changed back to the way it used to be - 60 faults.

Are comptitors today so soft that a tiny tumble should cause elimination?
How about we just cut out the Cross Country? - just have dressage and show jumping - it would be a lot safer! In fact no eventing at all would be a lot safer! Oh, what the hell! - let's go all the way and just say no more riding. That would be a so safe that former riders and eventers would have to incur their injuries falling down stairs.

Cora Cushny, Editor