After Olympic rider and 2003 Pan American gold medalist Darren Chiacchia suffered serious injury when his horse flipped and fell on the preliminary level course, and two other horses collapsed and died on the advanced XC track from pulmonary hemorrhages the United States Eventing Association (USEA) decided it was time for things to change. The latest casualties cause them to look into changes takign into account the dozen rider fatalities worldwide in XC events, as well as numerous horse fatalities. New changes will be made to make XC events safer again, while still allowing for competition.

Well hopefully this will help do something to prevent future tragedies. We should all take into consideration that although these events are for our entertainment, horses still need to be cared for and respected as the beautiful animals they are.

We keep hearing about all these terrible tragedies for both riders, as well as horses.

There definitely needs to be some changes made for greater safety to horses and humans, and things have really gone on like this for far too long as it is.