One week post-Rolex: Thinking about risk and safety

In the long run, we're all dead.
John Maynard Keynes

It's a good day to die!
Crazy Horse


This year it was Kingpin
As you know, Kingpin died at Rolex last week. This year the accident was not related to the fence, or ambition clouding rider judgement. Arguably Kingpin's death was related to the extreme stress of the physical exertion. I love horses, yet I can't quite bring myself to condemn the risky sports that have come under such scrutiny -- eventing, steeplechasing, racing. In the last two years I've felt conflicted about attending Rolex, and it hasn't helped that Bob witnessed the death of Quiet Man last year. He won't go any more.

One of the things that draws me to eventing is that at that level of the sport, the horses truly seem to love what they are doing. No matter where I stood on the course, the first fence or the last fence, I saw horses that were confident and eager, not fearful. If a horse looked resistant or unhappy, it was in the dressage ring! Some animals need a job to do -- border collies, for example, and probably Jack Russell terriers. I'd argue the same holds true for the wonderful freaks of nature that end up galloping and jumping around the Kentucky Horse Park at 22 miles per hour.

Responsible horse ownership
We're the owners and stewards of these magnificent animals. The fact is, there wouldn't be too many horses around if we couldn't use them to suit our purposes. Many of us take risks with our horses because it's we enjoy the kind of sport and recreation they provide. Horse sports are risky enough, but there is also a risk associated with trailering, trail riding, and even tying or cross-tieing. We accept those risks because they help to bring us enjoyment. The fact is, horses serve us and our needs and ambitions, however modest they are. We have to be careful about pointing fingers, there is always someone (PETA?) more risk averse than we are.

A bad year for horses locally
This has been a tough winter/spring for some of my equestrian acquaintances. I know two people who lost horses in pasture accidents -- one broke its leg in the pasture he'd been in for years, the other broke a hip while turned out in a small paddock. A good friend of mine is now trying to save her foundering mare, and it doesn't look good. A breeder in our region routinely loses three or four of the twenty or so foals she breeds, and occasionally a mare. For what it's worth, breeding strikes me as at least as risky and heart-breaking as eventing. The foal fatality rate seems alarmingly high. All this makes me wonder if horses in extreme sports are really that much more likely to cross the rainbow bridge than a horse at the average boarding barn. Athletic exertion isn't the only risk out there.

My (lack of a) conclusion
The thoughts written down here probably wouldn't stand up to logical or philosophical analysis. But at the moment, I'm metaphorically throwing up my hands and saying THEY DIE ANYWAY, in freakish and unlikely accidents, doing nothing in particular. Remember Peron dieing from an IV injection? Teddy fatally injured during a hack, at home on his own farm? Seattle Slew breaking his pelvis in a breeding shed accident?

I'm glad the eventing community is trying to make things better, and I hope they can reduce injuries to horses and riders. But in the meantime, I'm thinking about the farrier I used in North Carolina when I first bought Harvey. "Horses will break your heart," he told me as he rasped Harvey's hoof. All too many times I've had occasion to remember these words.