United States Eventing Association

Having the ability to school cross-country obstacles and questions at home is an invaluable resource, but designing a home course requires a lot more than just a few jumps scattered around the property. Safety should be your number one concern, no matter if you are building the course for your own benefit or to create a new opportunity in your community for open schooling.

“Where can we even find this?” asked a participant during the ERQI Reports for Officials and How to Use Them session at the 2021 USEA Annual Meeting & Convention. Forum leaders Cindy Deporter, Rob Burk, and Tim Murray were on-hand to answer this question and many more as they explained the origins of the ERQI ratings and the purpose of the algorithm’s measurement.

“I had no idea that I had a concussion until I got sick at night and woke up with a bad headache that wouldn’t go away,” said eventer Mia Farley who fell at an event a few years ago and ended up with a bad concussion.

What is the EquiRatings Quality Index (ERQI) and how does it work? Learn just that, hear from the USEA Safety Subcommittee, the Eventing Licensed Officials Committee, and more in this recording of the EquiRatings Quality Index Webinar for Licensed Eventing Officials that took place earlier this year.

At the 2021 USEA American Eventing Championships presented by Nutrena Feeds, competitors, trainers, parents, volunteers, and spectators had the opportunity to sit down with professional eventer Jon Holling and former leading steeplechase jockey turned international Advanced three-day eventer and co-founder of LandSafe Equestrian Danny Warrington to discuss all things safety as part of the USEA’s Event College. Here are some of the most hard-hitting questions and the duo’s answers.

What do you get when you combine an aviation engineer, a successful amateur rider, and a galloping event horse? The answer, it seems, is the man who has made a massive contribution to the work of the FEI Eventing Risk Management Committee, and his name is David Vos.

In December 2020, Dr. Erin Contino, a practicing veterinarian and an active eventer in Area IX, gave a presentation at the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) Virtual Convention on advances in safety in the sport of three-day eventing.

On March 1, 2021 the USEA Board of Governors submitted a rule change proposal to US Equestrian (USEF) modifying Appendix 3 of the USEF Rules for Eventing. That proposal was outlined at the 2019 USEA Annual Meeting & Convention, shared in May 2020 by the Chair of the USEA Cross-Country Safety Subcommittee Jon Holling, later discussed in Eventing USA and through various other communication platforms including a live webinar hosted by the USEA. This was one of four different safety related rule proposals submitted by the Board to the USEF and previously considered with the membership.

In less than a year the USEA Foundation, USEA, and a group of passionate stakeholders have managed to raise $500,000 to build frangible fences thanks to donations from USEA members and eventing enthusiasts around the country. This money has gone directly to 116 different USEA recognized events with 151 frangible tables, 53 oxers, and 34 gate/wall fences already out on course – all built with grants distributed by the USEA Foundation.

MIMclip technology will be used at all levels of international eventing competition (CCI*-CCI5*) from January 1, 2021 in accordance with the 2021 FEI Eventing Rules approved by the Federation Equestre Internationale (FEI) General Assembly in November 2020. The Swedish-made frangible devices are the only ones to pass the new FEI testing standards to date.