Are competition horse deaths really “freak accidents” or is our industry just refusing address the elephant in the room and start utilizing proven prevention tactics?

Isn’t it interesting how virtually every time a horse dies in competition, it’s a “freak accident?”

What a fun way for us humans to evade accountability and justify a lack of effort put into prevention.

When I say competition, I’m referencing any instance where a horse is competing for human interests, at any level.

Not all of these “freak accidents” result in death but many result in injury to horse and/or rider. I firmly believe that many would be preventable if earlier signs of building stress were noticed and addressed.

Anyways, the most recent “freak accident” involves a dressage horse.

A horse competing at an international level bolted on his rider following the prize ceremony, so out of control the rider had to bail off.

The horse then proceeded to bolt at full speed before running into a stone wall, slipping, falling and breaking his femur.

For a domesticated flight animal to be so panic stricken that they quite literally are blind from fear isn’t something that should be shrugged off as a freak accident, that implies it’s an unpreventable fluke.

Losing a horse is devastating and what I’m going to say next I want to clarify is with no disrespect to those who loved the horse.

The type of husbandry and training that increases the likelihood of horses experiencing this level of panic is so normalized that many of those immersed in it are doing what they’ve taught is best for the horse.

Now, let’s jump into it.

First off, a horse who suddenly bolts, panics and runs to this degree had to have been trigger stacking prior to this.

It isn’t a sudden, one off event that isn’t contributed to by chronic stress or pre-existing stressors and suppression of communication of stress.

What triggers might be stacking?

The general bustle of the show environment.

A history of shows being highly stressful

Poor emotional regulation

The discomfort of a restrictive noseband paired with a double bridle.

Being ridden over flexed and in an inherently uncomfortable position.

Chronic stress being ignored and suppressed in training or written off as personality.

Lack of turnout / social access to horses

General discomfort or pain from a number of different possible factors…

This isn’t to say that all of this was the case for this particular horse, but these issues are the case for many internationally competitive horses and there is a consistent pattern of equestrian media, riders, trainers and show organizations like the FEI making light of horse stress.

The fact of the matter is that the level of terror a horse has to be experiencing to forego self preservation and be running blind in fear is a level of fright that is not only dangerous but also extremely detrimental to welfare.

We should be doing EVERYTHING in our power as an industry to avoid horses ever becoming trigger stacked to this point.

And we aren’t.

When stress is rampantly normalized to horse people and they’re taught indicators of anxiety and/or pain are just normal horse behaviour or funny quirks, they can’t see the earlier attempts from their horse to communicate anxiety.

This leads to riders being blindsided when a very stressed horse, who likely has chronically recurring stressors, finally can’t suppress their internal state any longer and must outwardly react.

This lack of emotional regulation is exceptionally dangerous to both horse and rider.

It is, in many cases, avoidable.

But, the current attitude of so much of the horse world makes addressing this difficult because people are in denial that there is an issue in the first place.

How many more times do we need to call recurring injuries and deaths of horses “freak accidents” before we realize they aren’t so freak? They’re frequent.

And we could, at minimum, reduce their occurrences by looking at the common denominators leading to these accidents and making changes.

Or referencing the findings of modern research that support the need for an overhaul of the entire horse show industry.

These awful and traumatic accidents can be made much less likely to occur if we train, care for and handle horses in a manner that doesn’t put them in a chronically anxious state.

A horse who isn’t terrified out of their wits and unable to find any safety isn’t likely to react in this manner. Not as severely or for as long.

This was blind panic.

So, now, isn’t it time to ask ourselves why such highly trained horses so often struggle with basic emotional regulation skills within the very environments their entire “job” necessitates?

Why, as an industry, are we allowing organizations like the FEI to continually ignore what is a growing body of evidence showing the rampant stress in upper level sport horses and where change is needed?

It’s undeniable.

But, let’s even pretend this was just a freak accident.

Why would we not want to take steps to make these types of things less likely to occur?

If it could even save one horse, why not?

Equine behavioural scientists have the gold standard of knowledge when it comes to trying to understand why horses react the way they do.

Their expertise should be valued and listened to in competitive horse sports.

They should be collaborated with to do continued research to understand more areas the industry needs to improve.

The industry needs to act now and start making real tangible changes for the benefit of horse welfare or we are doomed.

It is absolutely negligent to continue ignoring the elephant in the room and making no effort to address the degree of stress so many competition horses are facing.

It is killing horses AND people.

And it will kill this industry, too.