|
|
RISK LETTER TO USEA
May 4, 2008
Dear Mr. Baumgardner,
My name is Jeanie Clarke Hannen, and I am one of the “silent” event professionals that you referred to in your response to the USEA members after the accidents at Red Hills. My active, enthusiastic community of students range from 15 to 55 years old, and they compete from BN to the CCI* level. I spend my winters in Ocala and my summers in Area 1. I accept risk for my self, my horses, and my students almost every weekend of the year.
Sadly both Rolex and the Kentucky Derby resulted in more horse fatalities, one on national television. This coverage, plus the recent New York Times articles, have brought our safety discussions onto a larger stage and have added to my students’ sense of urgency about the issue – seeing it in print in an esteemed national news outlet has made a strong point. This is serious. Smart people think the sport might be in trouble. The articles also mean that my well-read but completely non-horsey family members are now interested.
We are having some interesting conversations. Some of our family talk is about adrenaline sports. We are snowboarders, bike racers, mountaineers, kite boarders and windsurfers. We occasionally race motocross, skateboard in vert ramps, and jump out of airplanes. One of us is trained in dramatic sword fighting. So far we are all alive, but not all of our friends are. We wonder about injury and fatality statistics for all of these sports. We wonder about helmet quality and other safety measures. We have a family agreement: the punishment for getting injured is having to read the very long and very heavy biography, Lincoln by Gore Vidal. Strong deterrent.
Much of our family talk is about animal welfare. My family’s primary passion is fly fishing, so we sometimes kill animals, but we always intend to release them. We are also bird hunters. No shoot and release possible. I also have an aunt, uncle and cousins who race sled dogs at an elite level and have run in several Iditarods. Their sport faces many of the same issues as eventing. It is inherently dangerous to people and animals, it has an element of history and tradition, and its participants with four legs and with two love what they do.
As we talk about the issues, we get to the point in the discussion where the next sentence is that we accept the risk of death for ourselves and for our animals. This is “The Line” for event riders and for mushers. If we want to compete, we have to accept the line. Now everyone starts to protest: “Sure, but we can die driving to the barn or crossing the street…horses die of colic and out in the field…they are so fragile that accidents happen...I just go Novice and the jumps are so small my horse can make up for my mistakes...” All true, but we are asking event horses to participate in a sport that adds to their risk of injury and death. I accept The Line and I hope never to ride near it. I vowed long ago never to leave the start box, or to send a student out of the box, on a horse that was not thoroughly prepared for the level, thoroughly sound, properly equipped, and enjoying its job. I now add my own proficiency to that list, but I admit that it took me a few years know the difference. I vow never to leave the start box without recognizing and understanding the challenges posed by the course, posed by the horse I am riding, and posed by my own brain or competitiveness on any given day. When I am outside the scope of my knowledge on ANY of these criteria, I know enough to recognize it.
I believe that this is what coaches are for – it is the biggest part of my job, and it is the framework that guides the riding lessons I teach, the events I choose, the horses I recommend for purchase, the vets and farriers I employ, and the equipment I use and implicetly endorse. It is what motivates me to seek lessons and training for myself, to walk extra courses, and to join discussions. I must be 100% up to date on course design, teaching theory, veterinary advancement, and training methods, because it is my job to keep my students inside the Line. It is every professional’s job. Our national organizations support us with rules and guidelines, but it is our responsibility to make the right decisions for ourselves and for our students when they lack the expertise to make them independently. If a rider or horse in my program has a tragic accident, I need to know that my preparation and decision making to that point was perfect. There can never be a shadow of doubt.
An action plan? I’m already doing it. How can you help me? Please make your rules and your guidelines clear. Please make them proactive. Please make them teaching tools. Better rules lead to better decision making, but they must be well-communicated. Improve your rule books, schedules, qualification criteria and other documents. Re-write them so they are easier to read, less sterile, and better starting points for discussion. Relate your documents to one another and to safety. Also acknowledge that no matter how strong the rules are, not everyone will read them. Let’s put on clinics and forums at events that relate the rules to safety, equipment to safety, course design and course walking to safety. Let’s identify a pool of people who are qualified and willing to participate. Maybe it’s a job for the ICP that could help that program reach deeper into the community. Maybe a safety education program needs its own leadership and title. Please find the best people at all levels of the community and ask them to serve. Find an eventer with a communications firm who can help re-write the official rule books. Find trainers who can guide their professional peers through the complexity of the issues, and call on all of us to read more, discuss more, and make better decisions. Please call on me for whatever help you think I can be.
Thank you,
Jeanie Clarke Hannen
203 482 2141
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|