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Aaron – it is indeed a wider obstacle, and as one would expect produces a high number of absolutely hideous incidents. It wouldn’t last a year on a British racecourse.
Changing direction slightly, there are some hideous fences at some French tracks, especially provincial ones.
I once attended a meeting at Pointivy and it’s the only time I’ve walked out of a course in disgust.
Some of the fences are made of stone and in the two races over those fences I watched two horses suffer fatalities at the fence. One of them shot in the head, in front of the stands, with no screens.
Having said that jockey safety was even worse …… a jockey took a crashing fall on the far side of the course, but the only ambulance was parked by the stands and the crew had to be called three times to go and attend to the rider.
In another incident a rider fell at one of the fences in the home straight, he was still prone on the ground as they approached the fence on the next circuit. No bypassing, someone grabbed the jockey by both feet and dragged him off the course.
“But far from being unsafe, according to the most recent BHA data, the average number of falls at water jumps over a five year period was 3.29 compared to the average fence which had 10.43 fallers. Additionally, the risk of fatal injury from a fall at a water jump is less than half than at a normal fence”.
Interesting how they’ve worded that, Yeats.
Seems to be the actual number of falls rather than related as a percentage – which I find a bit strange.
At Aintree the Water is jumped just once, whilst every other fence bar the Chair is jumped twice. Figures of 3.29 will therefore seem less than if they were given a different way.Equally, “the risk of fatal injury from a fall at a water jump”, rather than the percentage chance of fatality after a fall at a water jump. Figures and language of that article although may well be true as written… Suspect they’re making use of the fact normal fences far outnumber water jumps. ie Suspect the percentage number of fallers that die after a water jump fall is actually greater than the percentage number of fallers at normal fences to die.
Value Is EverythingIt’s just not “falls” at water jumps but career-ending injuries suffered when failing to jump them safely.
The stats would be totally different if the water jump was the first fence to be jumped and even worse if it were the 2nd last or last obstacle in a race. At Sandown it is seven from home if I’m right and of course it has great stats as almost no horse is tired at that time and most likely in a fluent jumping rhythm.
I’m also in the camp that water jumps are a trappy obstacle that creates particularly ugly looking mistakes and falls, and they introduce too high a risk of injury. I believe the main problem is that they have a “lip” on them which, if a horse catches its legs on, creates a particularly hard and jolting impact.
Perhaps there is something to be learned from steeplechases in human athletics here. In these, the water jump has a gradual slope up exiting the water, so there is no lip to catch yourself or trip on. This is why we rarely see similar issues at the Olympics!
I’m not sure how easy it is from a ground maintenance point of view to have a slope rather than a lip but, if water jumps must be persisted with on racecourses, this would seem an obvious improvement.
Edit – Have just seen apracing’s earlier post about the water jump at Huntingdon, which is along similar lines to what I am suggesting. Clearly something can be done, so either make them safer or scrap them!
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