Olympic gold medallist David O’Connor has instructed different disciplines to start out monitoring falls as contemporary figures display round 1 / 4 of eventing falls don’t occur at cross-country fences.
Mr O’Connor, the FEI eventing committee chairman, made the decision all through his cope with to the FEI basic meeting (21 November).
He highlighted the relief in cross-country leaping falls lately, which H&H coated as a part of discussions on the eventing possibility control seminar in January (information, 16 February).
“There’s been a 16% relief in horse falls simply within the closing six years, which is a beautiful important quantity, and a 70% relief in any form of rotational fall within the closing 10 years,” stated Mr O’Connor, including that this nods to the certain affect measures, together with frangible units, training, course-design, and minimal eligibility necessities, are having.
However he famous one “standout” determine is that 25% of overall falls, which contains horse and/or rider falls, don’t occur at cross-country fences. Those come with falls at the flat, within the different levels and warm-ups.
“That’s a quite surprising quantity,” stated Mr O’Connor, suggesting different disciplines get started monitoring their fall knowledge to begin to perceive extra about this.
“I do know america has in truth began the method of taking a look throughout all disciplines at what is going on, and no longer simply leaving it as much as one.”
The FEI has been gathering eventing fall knowledge for a few years, however till 2018 any fall no longer at a cross-country fence used to be recorded as “non-fence similar” – without reference to how and the place it took place. Since 2018, those had been separated into extra detailed classes, to assist the game higher perceive any traits.
For instance, of the 1,165 falls in 2022, 842 had been at cross-country fences, 87 non-fence similar at the cross-country, 146 happened within the showjumping, and 90 all through warm-ups.
Mr O’Connor added that he encourages different disciplines to document knowledge is as a result of numbers may also be relatively unexpected, and handiest from understanding those can the game then begin to ask questions on causes for falls.
FEI clinical committee chairman Mark Hart instructed the meeting of a number of primary ongoing tasks round rider protection. Those are headlined via a challenge to judge the efficiency of equestrian helmets, with the advice for extra checking out requirements.
An equestrian helmet operating staff used to be put in combination this yr, comprising stakeholders and professionals equivalent to engineers, teachers, producers, clinical workforce, an Olympic rider, racing professionals and the eventing possibility control staff.
Dr Hart gave a brief abstract of one of the most staff’s primary findings; the conclusions are set to be launched on the finish of the yr.
“Our objective is to lower no longer handiest falls, however in parallel, we want to make efforts to additional cut back critical head accidents within the inevitable match of falls in our recreation,” stated Dr Hart.
“[The working group] evaluated the efficiency wishes for protecting headgear and assessed the present requirements towards the ones wishes, to raised decide if present requirements might be stepped forward to supply higher coverage for our riders to scale back critical head accidents.
“After in depth overview of the to be had knowledge, the operating staff is recommending further checking out requirements and diminished head harm transmission limits for stepped forward protection.
“It’s anticipated that those suggestions will evolve as clinical standards are subtle and proceeding analysis is taken out.
“We additionally hope that this may nudge the certification organisations to faster replace their requirements, and expectantly ultimately have harmonisation of the certification tasks world wide and feature a common commonplace usual.”
In a separate challenge, the FEI clinical committee is coordinating the advent of a professional activity pressure on air vest protection and effectiveness. The purpose of the air vests operating staff will likely be to behavior a whole literature overview of to be had knowledge on equestrian harm patterns for chest, backbone and thoracic accidents to decide what function the units may have in decreasing accidents.
They’re going to additionally assessment suggestions of different sports activities, equivalent to motocross, and expand particular analysis tasks, with the eventual intention of translating those findings into new checking out usual suggestions for producers and certification organisations.
Different key tasks within the pipeline for 2024 come with exploring a brand new device for reporting rider accidents, to create an “total equestrian database for accidents”, plus steering for establishing committees on the way to arrange a psychological well being emergency plan for his or her occasions.
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