Earlier this month there was a series of tragic events in Florida at the Red Hills Horse Trials competition. Horse trials, or "eventing," is an equestrian sport in which horse and rider participate in a number of disciplines including dressage (so-called dancing horses), stadium jumping (in which riders on horseback jump a course of fences in an arena or stadium) and cross-country (in which they jump a series of fixed fences in a course out in the open).
At Red Hills this month, two horses died going through the course and a 42-year-old Olympic-level rider, Darren Chiacchia, was critically injured. As of March 25, Chiacchia's Web site reported he was taken off a respirator, but was still in intensive care.
With all due respect to Chiacchia and other riders injured in this sport, this column is not about their safety. Unlike the horses, riders compete knowing full well the consequences, including death, that accidents can cause. Riders freely choose to undertake those risks. The same cannot be said for the horses.
The accidents can be horrific. Actor Christopher Reeve, for example, destroyed his spinal cord during an accident on a cross-country course. He ultimately lost his life.
Tallahassee.com, the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper's Web site, described one of the horse deaths at Red Hills as follows:
"Amanda Hunt, a spectator from Monticello, said she saw a horse named Leprechauns Rowdy Boy hit his head in the second of a four-hurdle jump about 3:30 p.m. She saw the horse go into convulsions for about 20 seconds and then he was still. Red Hills workers put up a screen around the horse and took the horse off the field within 10 to 15 minutes, she said. 'It was horrible,' Hunt said. After the horse hit his head, his rider, Missy Miller, was thrown into the water that was part of the jump. She immediately got up and ran to her horse, screaming, 'Get him,' Hunt said. Red Hills volunteers had to calm Miller down, who was hysterical, she said."
Although it seemed to spectators that the horse died from hitting his head on a fixed wooden fence, a necropsy later confirmed he had a sudden pulmonary hemorrhage before hitting his head on the fence and died from that. Whatever the cause, equine deaths at cross-country events are hardly a new phenomenon. They could conceivably be prevented if courses were designed so that horses did not need to die getting through them.
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