Demonstrating a commitment to safety, Red Hills International Horse Trials has built 18 frangible jumps for its six levels of cross-country courses.
Michael Etherington-Smith designed the CCI4*-S and Advanced courses and David O’Connor designed the CCI3*-S, CCI2*-S, Intermediate, and Preliminary courses.
Due to travel restrictions because of the pandemic, Michael Etherington-Smith designed the CCI4*-S and Advanced courses from England, coordinating regularly with O’Connor and course builders Tyson Rementer and Levi Ryckewaert.
“It was somewhat surreal having a facetime call with David, Tyson, and Levi setting the fences for this year’s four-star and Advanced courses whilst sitting back here in the UK,” Etherington-Smith said. “Fortunately, I am very familiar with the venue and can come up with plans for the courses without having to make a pre-visit even though it is obviously not quite the same, and I wouldn’t want to do it like this every year.”
This year, course designers and builders focused on making many of the jumps with frangible technology.
Red Hills is using both frangible tables and frangible oxers on its courses. “Mike and I designed many of the jumps to take advantage of the frangible technology because the sport has a strong initiative to incorporate this technology to reduce risk to horse and rider,” said David O’Connor. “The technology we are using on this course originated in Sweden.”
The frangible technology is easy to implement and if the jump collapses because of a horse and rider interaction, it is easy to set back up.
“It is always fun and challenging utilizing the latest safety fences in different and interesting ways,” said Tyson Rementer. “The commitment to safety at Red Hills is ongoing and constantly evolving to use the most up to date features available to us today.”
For more information, visit rhht.org.
As the 2023 competition year draws to a close and many of the high-performance and other riders are connecting at this year‘s USEA annual convention, the Great Meadow International organizers would like to update you on GMI.
United States Eventing Association (USEA) members at the USEA Annual Meeting & Convention were in for a treat on Friday as the U.S. Eventing Team was on hand to discuss their accomplishments this year at the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile.
“Test the best without hurting the rest,” said show jumping course designer Chris Barnard as he and fellow designer Marc Donovan led a lively discussion for nearly 50 participants at the Show Jumping Seminar on the first day of the USEA Annual Meeting & Convention.
This afternoon, USEA President Louise “Lou” Leslie welcomed U.S. Eventing Association (USEA) Board of Governors members, USEA staff, and USEA Annual Meeting & Convention attendees to the first of two Board meetings which will take place during this year’s Convention in St. Louis, Missouri, with the teaser that 2024 is going to be full of initiatives for more opportunities to access the eventing experience, some of which attendees might get first wind of during this year’s gathering. The 2023 USEA Annual Meeting & Convention takes place Dec. 7-10 at the Marriott St. Louis Grand Hotel.