The FEI is contemplating whether or not to make security stirrups obligatory for eventing – because the British Equestrian Commerce Affiliation (BETA) confirmed it’s “working in direction of” a security normal.
The dialogue arose throughout the FEI eventing threat administration discussion board in Jardy final month.
5-time Olympian William Fox-Pitt mentioned he feels “very strongly that security stirrups in our sport are a no brainer”.
“I’d not let anybody go with no stirrup that both has a curvy edge, the place the foot comes away rapidly, or one with a deformable aspect,” he mentioned.
He added that there are lots of varieties and “some perhaps aren’t ok”, in order a sport, eventing has to search out ones that match the invoice.
“There are incidents the place I’ve been dragged, Harry [Meade] has been dragged. In these incidents, how fortunate are we to even be alive?
“We do all the things with hats, physique protectors, frangible fences – certainly stirrups, if we are able to do one thing, ought to change into a part of that.”
Olympic and world medallist Clayton Fredericks agreed.
“I believe we must always insist that every rider is coming with a security stirrup of some kind anyway,” he mentioned.
“I realise we need to have excessive requirements of that, however the actuality is a few type of security stirrup is healthier than none and being dragged. So I believe it’s a no brainer. We should always make it obligatory.”
FEI threat administration steering group chairman Geoff Sinclair instructed the discussion board that not having a security normal makes it troublesome to require riders to make use of security stirrups, however requested these current to contemplate whether or not they need to make them “extremely really helpful”.
Badminton and Olympic gold medal-winner Jane Holderness-Roddam mentioned: “As a baby, we all the time had security stirrups and I’m horrified to suppose that these days, it’s not obligatory in all equestrian sports activities, actually.
“There are an terrible lot of stirrups on the market and a few I’ve seen simply snap which can be alleged to be security stirrups. There positively must be a normal, I believe, and BETA would I’m positive be very blissful to assist to try this.”
BETA chief government Claire Williams instructed H&H that the affiliation is working in direction of setting a normal for security stirrups.
“The very first thing we have to do is to achieve a consensus assertion on what precisely a security stirrup is,” she mentioned. “We can not write a security normal till that’s determined.”
She defined that there are lots of totally different variations in how security features work on stirrups. This makes it a special problem to writing a normal for extra uniform merchandise, corresponding to a hat or physique protector, however work is below means.
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