Video: Oliver Townend and two other falls at the "The Hollow" Rolex 2010 WARNING - GRAPHIC

I cannot imagine the shock of seeing those three falls. I hope and pray all riders and horses are fully recovered.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Bernd on April 26, 2010 at 8:00am

Well, horse riding is not an easy sport without risk anyway, but riding over fixed fences is definitely asking for trouble. I wonder how many dead people and horses we will need to come to the conclusion of changing it into a less dangerous format.

I know its fun to ride a horse cross country in high speed, but the fact that the fences are fixed will always imply a high risk for a rotational fall and hence a rider breaking his or her neck. (not to speak of dead horses)

Just wait that it happens at one of the next olympic games and the IOC will happly ban eventing from the olympics in the future. -And I think they they would be right to do so! Actually I think they should do it now. I might make people think it over.

Competitions over fixed fances should be banned, full stop!
Riding is dangerous enough without that already.

ciao
Bernd

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Permalink Reply by Barbara F. on April 26, 2010 at 8:43am

Hi Bernd,
I read somewhere that this particular fence had frangible pins and that it was supposed to come down. I guess we'll hear more about that this week.

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Permalink Reply by Bernd on April 26, 2010 at 8:57am

well, looking at the video, the 2 horses definitely hit the fence hard enough to make it come down if that was at all possible. I think the flexible pins are only useful in cases where the assitants have to dismantle the fence in case that a horse falls straight into it and is locked up there.