The International Equestrian Federation has launched a world-wide inquiry into the four fatal accidents on the British horse trials circuit. A working party is to be set up in co-operation with the British Horse Trials Association, which has itself held independent inquiries into each of the four deaths.
Mike Tucker, who currently chairs the BHTA standing committee on safety in horse trials, has been brought in as chairman. His national committee has just released its findings from the inquiry into Polly Phillipps' death in Scotland recently.
An ad hoc working group was set up at Burghley to look into Simon Long's fatal accident last weekend, and in both cases it was found that the fence construction could not be blamed for the falls. Both riders died of crush injuries after their horses somersaulted the fences, landing on top of them.
Australian Federation chairman Wayne Roycroft, who chaired the group at Burghley, has been drafted onto the new international body with a special brief to act as co-ordinator of any further investigations called by other countries.
The new body is to investigate every aspect of the sport, including cross-country fence construction and design, the format of one-day events, on-site medical support and protective clothing for riders.
The Dutch Equestrian Federation is to present the results of its two-year study on the use of breakable material for cross-country fences at the FEI open forum in Boekelo, Holland next month. Two of the fences on the Boekelo cross-country course will partly consist of this new material at the Dutch three-star CCI, which runs from October 7th to 10th.
Mike Tucker has been working on the BHTA standing committee with Captain Mark Phillips, designer of the Burghley cross-country, Badminton director Hugh Thomas, Mike Etherington-Smith, course designer for next year's Sydney Olympics, international rider Ian Stark and Dr John Lloyd-Parry.
Tucker said yesterday that his standing committee had already recommended that all available expertise be pooled from both inside and outside the sport and, more particularly, that information be gathered from other risk sports. He expects that the new international body will be working initially from these recommendations and said there had been "a tremendous rallying round" by everyone involved in the sport following the spate of fatal accidents.
Tucker said that Hugh Thomas has offered the facilities at Badminton for use as a central pool for collating all information. The BHTA has called an emergency board meeting for tomorrow at the Blenheim three-day event in Oxfordshire where Irish rider Sam Moore was killed in a fall two years ago.
In show jumping, Eddie Macken will be making his international debut with new ride Cruising in just over two weeks time. Cruising has been entered in the stallion class at the world breeding championships at Lanaken in Belgium later this month and joins Coolcorron Cool Diamond (Robert Splaine) and Clover Brigade (Tom Slattery) on the Irish Horse Board funded trip.
Tom Slattery has notched up three national Grand Prix wins with Clover Brigade this season. He also had five victories to his credit with his other stallion Coille Mor Hill to earn his first ever victory in the 1999 Land Rover show jumping league.
The Co Galway rider immediately donated his £5,000 winner's cheque to cancer research when it was presented to him by Land Rover MD David Harpur at a special lunch in Dublin on Monday.
Francis Connors, who has won the league title seven times since its inception in 1980, gave Slattery a run for his money throughout the season, but finished nine points adrift in the overall standings to take £2,000. Last year's winner Clement McMahon netted himself £1,000 for third place.
