Air-vest recommendation brought in for eventing

The jackets are to be recommended for international cross-country for the first time this season

AIR vests are officially recommended for cross-country in international eventing for the first time in 2022.

This is a recommendation not a requirement, and body protectors to the correct standard must still be worn.

“We can’t make it mandatory yet for two reasons,” FEI medical committee chairman Mark Hart told the eventing risk management seminar (22 January). “We don’t have enough definitive evidence to show the beneficial effect, and [to know] if there is any potential downside.”

He said the FEI has started to contact other sports, including motocross and car racing, as it looks more towards protection for the neck, chest, back, abdominal organs and shoulders.

“I think more research needs to be done. I think the preponderance of evidence is that air vests probably do help a majority of the time,” said Dr Hart. “As we know from seat belts, there are rare cases where seat belts actually are deleterious. You have to look at the overall benefit of a particular safety measure, knowing that it’s not going to work in every situation.”

A British Eventing spokesman told H&H it is not making a rule change at this point, but the situation is being monitored.

There is also a move towards continued monitoring of riders who have fallen.

With concussion “high on the radar”, Dr Hart said there is a need “to check in on” riders

By LUCY ELDER

throughout their time on site.

At present, riders must be checked by the medical officer after any fall before they get back on a horse or leave the venue.

“We know a lot of concussions are missed,” he said. “The hard part is that we cannot always diagnose a concussion in the first five minutes. Sometimes symptoms come on 30 minutes later, that night or the next day.”

He added that there must be “two parts” to managing suspected concussions – measures to assess immediately whether someone has sustained a head injury, plus evaluation of a rider who has fallen, as above.

Dr Hart also indicated that the FEI is looking at the potential of concussion blood tests.

“I think blood tests will be very important, but there’s a lot of research that has to happen to correlate that with the clinical scenario, and what we do with the results,” he said.

The fact the sport-horse world must “be ahead of public expectations” and shout about its positives to safeguard its future was also brought up at the forum.

Leading vet Jenny Hall and FEI eventing risk management steering group chairman Geoff Sinclair discussed what the future holds for eventing.

SOCIAL LICENCE

THIS broadly centred around horse sport’s social licence, or public acceptance of a practice, such as the involvement of horses in sport, and how it self-regulates.

“Many of the things we have seen affect eventing have not necessarily been about eventing, or about FEI events,” said Mr Sinclair. “Us as officials, and riders, have to say not only can I, but should I be doing this? Consider everything we do on an ethical basis. When we implement rules, be ethical and think about what the sport looks like. We know what is right and wrong and as a sport, we need to be ahead of the public’s expectations.”

But that spotlight equally affords horse sport a place to shout about its positives, its progress in welfare and safety.

Dr Hall said although welfare is “embedded” in the FEI, the sport must be on the “front foot” to make this more visible.

She added that developments such as frangibles, and the number of horse falls they prevent, and the ban on trimming whiskers are positive, yet not “terribly evident” to observers and the horseworld is not communicating these well.

“We need to be ahead of the public’s expectations”

GEOFF SINCLAIR