United States Eventing Association

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The Care and Management of the Ultimate Equine Athlete
Max Corcoran, who served as head groom for the O’Connor event team for more than a decade, gave a wonderful presentation about caring for the “Ultimate Equine Athlete”—the event horse. According to Corcoran, there is no replacement for thoroughly knowing your horse. Know his habits, how he looks and feels when he is at his best, and if there are deviations, don’t ignore them.

She also suggests keeping a journal and calendar for the horses and work backwards from your goal. If you are aiming for the American Eventing Championships at the end of the year, work backwards from that goal so that your horse and you are the fittest when AEC comes around. She also stressed knowing the rules about what can be in and on your horse when you compete, and that ignorance is not a pardon.

“Since the introduction of the short format, people do not rest their horses enough,” Corcoran said. “We have a huge attrition rate of horses breaking down at all levels –even the lower levels.”

Corcoran explained that even at Beginner Novice, horses sustain micro tears in their soft tissue that we cannot see even with ultrasound imaging, and that rest and time off is the only way to ensure that these can heal. If possible, she suggests pulling the horses’ shoes so that they can rebalance their feet naturally. This is also a time to let your horse fill out if they are thin or hard keepers.

Corcoran’s talk was a reminder of basic good horsemanship combined with the expertise that comes from being an upper-level event groom for many years.

Safety Committee Open Forum
Sarah Broussard, Chair of the USEA Safety Committee, led the hour-long discussion by first presenting a new device called a shock box, which measures the potential for a concussion based on data measured from an impact. The device attaches to the top of the helmet and may eventually be a device that can be used on scene at competitions, contribute to return to play situations, and contribute to data processing for impact research.

Roy Burek, President at Charles Owen, informed the committee of another device, developed by Adidas, that also measures impact and concussion potential. This device is slightly different because it is like a headband that goes right against the skull, so it does not take into account the protection the helmet has provided or the impact the helmet experiences.

Broussard said that more and more technology like these two devices will be available outside the lab and accessible by consumers.

The USEA wants to create a safer environment for horses and riders. In the last several years of investigation and research, we are starting to understand why accidents happen and how to lower risk. The challenge is to create consistency in the preparation of facilities and personnel in order to get consistent results to review; the USEF Safety Committee is regularly asked to review safety accident reports, and they are very inconsistently presented.

The Safety Coordinator is a generally new position at horse trials but is proving to be essential to providing the safest environment for competitors and event participants. There is not currently a training program or certification requirement for this position, but it is important for the position to be filled by someone aware of the duties required and have consistency in the reports across the country. Training type seminars at events or at the USEA Convention is an idea being explored.

The position of Safety Coordinator requires management, not treatment of patients or horses. They are advocates for safety and work with the Technical Delegates and Ground Jury as a consultant. They do not have the authority to say, remove a fence from a course because of problems, but they can suggest it.

“When we had our safety crisis, we were trying to figure out why it was happening and how to fix it,” Broussard said. “It has been six to eight years since the initial crisis, and we can really see in general terms that the numbers have gotten better. This is a risky sport, we have to remember. Yes, there is an inherent risk, but you find ways to protect yourself best and lower the risk.

“There was a very low percentage of falls in general this year. Out of the small percentage of falls that have happened throughout the year, a tiny snippet actually resulted in any injury. So there was a very low number of injuries that resulted from a low number of falls. We attribute this to better riding habits, better horsemanship habits, and better thought processes [from riders at events], also all the safety equipment that comes along with it.”

Lloyd Raleigh is the creator of an app called Speedcheck, and he has come on as a sponsor of the USEA and is attending his second USEA Annual Meeting and Convention this week. He presented his app to the room, which tracks pace and helps riders learn through audible indicators and GPS tracking.

“My coach was paranoid about pace,” Raleigh said. “He set up markers in a big field, stood there with a stop watch, and we went around and around learning pace. I’ve found that not many people have coaches with those stop watches anymore.”

Overall it has been a great year for safety with a good trend that we hope continues through continued education and research.

“The biggest portion of safety is education,” Broussard said. “Taking the tools we have and putting them into practice to teach us to be better.”

Future Event Horse Open Forum
This year 115 horses were qualified for the IDHSNA USEA Future Event Horse Championships, and enthusiasm for the program is clearly growing.

In 2013, the FEH Championships, along with the Spalding Labs Young Event Horse Championships were moved to Fair Hill and Galway with the same judges utilized on both the East and West Coast. They also offered Born in America awards, which is important to promoting breeding sport horses in the U.S. and rewarding participation.

The FEH Committee has been spending the past several years developing a teaching program for judges specifically structured towards event horses and feel the training of judges is going well. A judge needs to be able to assess not only adult horses, but young horses in varying developmental stages of life.

A number of FEH seminars have taken place throughout the year on both the East and West Coast. They are open to the public and free to USEA members. This year there were 87 participants and 30 new judges identified.

The challenges of the FEH program moving forward include:

• Offering more qualifiers in more parts of the country
• Putting the championships as close as possible to breeders
• Mixing FEH show with horse trials
• Standardizing the costs of classes
• Standardizing judging
• Ensuring safety and suitability of competition sites
• Defining the triathlete

This was a great brainstorming session with a group of people dedicated to young horse development and the future of eventing horses. Several ideas were discussed, including having several regional championships throughout the country.

Click here for more information about the FEH program.

Understanding Equine Equipment Design to Maximize Performance with Jennie Hegeman

Jennie Hegeman of Toklat gave an interesting history of equine equipment, surprising everyone with a recap of how little saddles and basic tack have changed. What has changed a great deal, thanks to developing technology, are the textiles. These textiles are used in horse boots, girths, saddle pads, and half pads, to name a few.

Hegeman explains that traditional beliefs in horsemanship often discourage riders from using cutting-edge technology. “Impact protection is the most critical thing in our sport,” explained Hegeman. “We believe in technology that is in our computers and our vehicles…so why don’t we believe it in our sport?”

She explained that materials that absorb concussion are better than those that don’t, but heat is another factor to take into account. “If a product says that the material is breathable and you can’t actually hold it up to your mouth and breathe through it…it’s not.”

She also highly recommends having a stretchy girth. “Horses’ lungs are huge and they are meant to expand and contract constantly, which is why horses have thin ribs. When we put stiff leather girths around them, they can’t expand normally.”

Check back this evening for even more seminar notes and highlights from Thursday's activities at the 2013 USEA Annual Meeting and Convention!