Work continues of making eventing safer

INTERNATIONAL event rider Eric Smiley yesterday conceded that fatalities will never be eliminated from the sport, which took the lives of nine riders in 2007.

Smiley, however, said efforts would continue to make eventing as safe as reasonably possible, without changing its basic concept.

“For most people, it’s a case of trying to mitigate against the danger element, but to sanitise the sport is not why people compete. Through training, riders try to mitigate against the risk, but you can never eliminate the risk. The risk element is one reason why we compete. People thrive on challenges in life,” said Smiley.

“You must remember that what you are dealing with is an animal with its own thoughts and ways and not with a mechanism. It is a marriage of two partners trying to compete together.”

The Co. Down rider was speaking after attending last weekend’s Federation Equestre Internationale (FEI) Safety Forum in Copenhagen Denmark. The forum, chaired by Olympic champion David O’Connor and attended by delegates from 22 national federations, agreed the focus must be on education, experimentation, data collection and communication if it is to reduce the risk of what it described as “tragic accidents”.

The FEI said in a press release that delegates’ thoughts were focused by the nine fatalities, a figure which, if it was seen in any of the mainstream sports, would result in a loud outcry.

With education high on the agenda, Smiley said he would welcome the introduction of a licensing system in Ireland for domestic competition.

“Many countries have licensing rules at national level and I suspect it will become a proposal that all national federations should licence riders. The FEI already has a process, whereby national federations must license riders before they compete at international level. There is no licensing for national competitions in Ireland, but we are getting to a stage where there needs to be some form of approval to allow people to compete. At the moment, we have a coaching system and I believe these coaches could oversee, over a day or two, a test to ascertain if people are competent to compete. It works in a lot of countries and the fact is, it is deemed as being a perfectly acceptable process.”

However, the forum heard British team manager Yogi Briesner say that the idea of rider licensing — which is undertaken in France, for example — was too complicated to process. Also, he said each federation should be asked to appoint a safety officer.

It was also agreed that while education of riders and officials remains a priority, riders must also take responsibility for their actions across country and must always retain the idea of respect for fences. This point was reiterated by Smiley and New Zealander Andrew Nicholson.

Significant flaws in the collection of data were highlighted: of the nine deaths, seven were in national competitions and, while the data collected over the last five years reveals that most serious accidents occur at one-star and two-star level, it does not include national competition statistics, nor a breakdown of fence statistics for the different levels of competition.

A proposal was made that a more sophisticated system of data collection of cross-country statistics by each federation should be funded and managed by the FEI. Smiley said the parameters of data collection system should be as similar as possible in each country.

The forum saw delegates split into working groups, each asked to each produce two recommendations.

FEI Eventing Committee member Andy Griffiths said ground juries should be able to appoint officials to work in pairs to stop overly-tired horses on course and that judges should make more use of the 25 penalties awarded for dangerous riding. It was also suggested that a DVD be produced showing good and bad examples of riding.

It was also felt that riders should be taught how to fall to limit the risk of injury.

Mark Phillips, the US team trainer, urged the continuation of experimentation in frangible pins: “The frangible pin is the only thing which has been scientifically tested and is therefore the only tool we have to prevent the rotational fall without changing the nature of the sport.”

David O’Connor summed up by saying: “Education has to come from the national federations who will need to get programmes in place; this debate has to be driven nationally.”

* THE indoor spring league at the West Cork Equine Centre near Bandon begins on February 3, running every week thereafter until the finals on April 6.

SJAI points are on offer, with pony classes starting at 10am, followed by horses a 3pm, approximately. Enquiries to 023-49433, or, 086-8544628.