Description
Falls of riders, or riders and horses are undesirable as they may result in direct or indirect injury; direct as an immediate consequence of the fall or indirect, for example, due to loose horses falling on roads, running through fences or being hit by vehicles. Surprisingly there is little information about factors associated with falls across equestrian activities. We devised an online survey (Survey Monkey©) consisting of 20 questions asking respondents who had fallen off a horse/s in the previous 12 months details on fall frequency and fall circumstances were collected. The survey was disseminated primarily via Facebook and was open for 30 days in Dec and Jan 2020. A total of 1977 complete responses were received. The majority of the respondents were female (96.8%, n=1914). The main disciplines/activities that respondents were involved in were: Pleasure/hacking (55.8%); Dressage (51.8%); Showjumping (40.1%); Eventing (27.3%) (N.B. respondents were allowed to select multiple activities); 53% of respondents had fallen off once in the last 12 months, 24% twice and the remainder more than 3 times. The highest frequency of reported falls occurred between October and December. Only 11% of falls resulted in both the horse and the rider falling (making contact with the ground). Kruskall Wallis analysis identified fall frequency differed between disciplines (p=0.0004); pleasure and dressage riders recorded significantly less falls than showjumping and event riders (post-hoc Mann Whitney-U: p| Period | Aug 2022 |
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| Event title | 18th International Society for Equitation Science Conference |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Gloucester, United KingdomShow on map |