Georgie Campbell death a reminder of eventing’s annus horribilis of 1999

The concept is that rather than up-ending a horse into a rotational fall, using a complicated set of physics, a fence now collapses or drops when hit hard enough sparing that eventuality. Over the period from 2012 to 2023 there has been one fall with no rider injury for every 21 starters, one fall with slight injury every 260 starters, one fall with serious injury every 674 starters and one fatal fall for every 28,476 starters. More specifically, in that period, horse falls have decreased 36 per cent and rotational falls have gone down by 55.5 per cent, from one rotational fall for every 377 starters in 2012 to one per 851 starters in 2023. If things can be learned from this fall by all means learn them but I’d hate for there to be a knee-jerk reaction to it.” Other high-profile riders to to have been badly injured recently include Nicola Wilson, who sustained multiple neck injuries at Badminton in 2022 but, though not back competing, has returned to coaching, while Caroline March, who was paralysed from the waist down in a fall in 2022, died in Switzerland earlier this year after writing an open letter to friends saying that it was ‘not an existence I want.’