William Fox Pitt Fall

William Fox Pitt is a great rider. I have only seen him on TV but it is obvious he is a top pro. His recent injury demonstrates how difficult and thus dangerous the sport of eventing is. If a rider of his caliber can be seriously injured, then anyone can. I have friends and family that never got it why I competed in dangerous equestrian sports. I played polo for over 25 years, a sport that has the second highest per capita mortality rate of any sport. Why did I quit? A serious injury that I could not come back from. I was also injured in eventing, and in other equestrian sports. For me it was the horses. I just have this compulsion to know what a horse can do. I think that is the driver for most competitive riders. We like to push the envelope, and while most riders can tell you the number of broken bones they have, many of us competitors can't, just lost track.

Competing at dangerous equestrian sports is an adult decision. When it's not, that's a problem. For example about 15 years ago eventing made a real comeback. It became trendy. By 2008 the death toll was mounting. Riders were being killed at almost every level of the sport, which should not happen. 2008 New York Times Eventing Article When I was a kid there were four levels, Training, Preliminary, Intermediate and Advanced. Since then Novice and Beginner Novice were added. Also, when I was a kid your horse could fall four times on a cross country course before you were eliminated. It was believed back then that horses will fall and you'd best know how to manage that eventuality. Then it was three falls, then two and now you are out with one. Many of the changes were necessary and good. Some were not. For example as the number of permissible cross country falls went down, the levels where you could carry a whip in dressage went up, which violates my "If you are not ready to compete, don't compete" rule.

The NYT article talks about that rule in relation to the danger in eventing. Mick Costello, a cross country course designer, said, “You have people who didn’t grow up fox hunting or going on wild rides the way we did. They haven’t been used to tumbling falls. They get a thrill out of going fast, and a lot of them aren’t ready.” That's the key, I think. Are you and your horse ready? After the spike in rider deaths in 2008 a rule change was made that required an adult instructor to sign off on whether or not a child rider was ready, not a bad idea because back then I had students going from one level to the next against my advice because they wanted to be cool by competing at a higher level. These kids would lie to and pressure their parents into taking them to competitions they were unprepared to manage. I felt obligated to stop teaching these riders, some of whom showed great promise as competitors, but they were a danger to themselves.

But having said all that, you can have it all together, be a pro, have a great horses and still end up strapped to that yellow plastic board and get loaded into the ambulance. S**t happens. And then there is that last injury, the one that ends your career. I was lucky. I am now 69 and I have trouble putting on my socks, a small price to pay for an awful lot of fun. I hope William Fox Pitt fares as well as I have.