Tuesday, July 22nd, @ 10pm, HBO Real Sports will air its story on Eventing. While we certainly hope the story will be balanced and accurately portray our sport, we are concerned by the preview HBO sports put out late last week. The story is entitled "Deadly Ride" and features among others, an interview with a mother who has tried to force her daughter to stop eventing.

USEF President David O'Connor did a lengthy interview for the story with Real Sports correspondent Frank DeFord. In the interview, David provided DeFord with important context around the recent spate of accidents and talked at length about what the sport was doing to improve safety. We feel like the interview went well. But of course, we do not control how much of the interview will be used in the final story.

We were encouraged that the story's producer, Tim Walker, attended the USEF/USEA Safety Summit in June. He sat through each session and said later that he felt he had learned quite a bit about the sport. So while we are a bit troubled by the sensationalistic title and description of the HBO story, we will withhold final judgment until after we've seen it. But we are prepared to respond vocally to HBO, if warranted.

We wanted to take the chance, as we come under the microscope again, to remind everyone that our commitment to safety is unwavering. In 2008, the following rule changes were passed:

If a competitor falls on course, related to a fence it will result in elimination.
By 2009 all open oxers at the Preliminary Level and above must be designed using frangible technology.
Tougher qualification standards (starting December 1) that will require four clean cross-country rounds (as well as qualifying dressage and stadium jumping scores) to move up a level.
Since the Eventing community came together in June for the USEF/USEA Safety Summit a number of important initiatives are in the works.

The USEF has assumed the cost for frangible pins for licensed competitions.
The USEF Fall Form was updated to better track what type of fences cause falls.
The USEF Watch List is being finalized to put riders on notice that they have been observed riding dangerously at a licensed competition.
The role of officials has been expanded so that a larger group of officials can pull someone up on course if they are riding dangerously.
There is a renewed commitment to education, and the organizations are dedicated to having 500 instructors by the end of 2010 through the Instructors Certification Program.
Veterinarians feel that mandating necropsies on any horse that suffer a fatality at a USEA recognized competition is vital in gathering data and understanding accidents and trends. The USEA will assume the full cost of these necropsies.
We would also like to hear what your thoughts/reaction to the HBO story or about safety in general. So please email us at: [email protected] or [email protected].

Many thanks,