fixed url

Simultaneous fixing!! w00t! Almost as good as, well, you know.

Necropsy and tape reviews? It sounds like they suspect foul play!

I love riding, its another favorite pastime for me..My daughter loves jumping. (that, I personally do NOT like to do) I prefer western, reining and cutting, myself. My spawn is an english girl.

However, their are risks in any sport and this is no different.

You may not know it, but there is a science to jumping. Each stride is counted between jumps. The horse may not have had enough strides between the last jump and the next or too many strides, and refused (or busted thru the gate as they said) and fallen. Some of the jumps are just not bars, but walls, walls and water, so it is not always flat when they come to a sudden stop.

(Chipping is when a horse adds a stride after the expected point of take off to go over a jump. It is awkward, and will cause a "lurching" effect to the rider.)

The horse doesn't know what it is like between the jump, the idea is to CLEAR the jump...Horse loses footing and falls and breaks neck.

I'm just a lurker here usually, but this was something I know a bit about and had to chime in. My horse and I compete in the same type competion as this girl did. We are currently doing Training level (pic here if anyone is interested: , which is one below what she was competing at, which was Prelim, judging by the color of the number on the jump she was jumping. She was going cross country. The obstacles are solid and do not fall, made of logs, railroad ties, etc. The course at her level would have been close to 2500 meters long, so there's no counting stride out there like in the hunter ring. You'd lose count pretty quick. The horse hung a leg on the fence, at least that is how it sounds. That can happen to anybody. My mare hung a leg at a stadium fence and did the head over heels thing, or so i'm told, I don't actually remember any of it, guess it got knocked out of my head :)
Sucks when it happens, but it does happen from time to time. Efforts to make the sport safer have actually produced the opposite effect, but I won't go into that here...

AH, Gotcha. For some reason, I thought it wasn't a cross country event.

Props to you for doing it. I have jumped a few times (never because I wanted to, my horse thought it would be a good idea) and I managed to stay on. I am sure it wasn't a beautiful site to behold.

Jumping with a western saddle really isn't recommended, ya know? Ow!