Unbelievable Showjumping Fail: Horse Slips on Slippery Grass Arena!

Showjumping is one of the most widely spread equestrian sport in the whole world. As popular it is, the number of riders and horses is quite big who are more or less similar with this discipline. The more participants at a competition – the more different performances you can see in one same spot.

Fails and falls during showjumping competitions are not rare as there are lots of different horses and riders by age, character and experience. Although, this video shows a fail which you have probably never seen before.

What happened and why?

A girl is riding a horse at a jumping competition in a grass arena. It is also raining. Grass and rain, doesn’t sound right, ech? The video starts off already in the middle of a jumping course with no pre-story known to us so we can’t tell the reason why the horse slipped in front of the jumps. Maybe there was something that triggered the horse or rider to stress before this jump so the horse refused to jump, or did the horse slip while simply trying to take off for the jump.

However, this horse slipped and landed on its butt while the rider safely landed on her legs. The weather wasn’t the best and caused the grass in being slippery. Such thing can happen even when it is not raining because the grass is always slippery as a surface for horses when running and turning at high speeds. Of course, it is not impossible to prevent such a thin from happening. Riders like eventers who ride cross country courses through several surfaces at one run, use studs on the horseshoes for their horses. Studs help the horse’s hooves have more grip to the surface and prevent from slipping.

It is a useful solution but in the long run, the constant pressure for the horse’s joints when the leg is instantly ‘locked’ into the ground with no further movement, increases the strain on ligaments and tendons and causes injuries.