Coroner Calls for Improved Safety After Horse Rider Death

Emma Jonathan, 23, had been competing in the Hartpury Horse Trials in Gloucestershire on August 8 last year.

She was thrown off her horse, El Nino, just before the end of the course after the five-year-old mare struck the fence at jump 19 and flipped vertically through mid-air.

Miss Jonathan, from Petersfield in Hampshire, died from massive internal injuries after her chest was crushed under the weight of the horse which rolled off her before trotting away.

Recording a verdict of accidental death, coroner, Alan Crickmore said he would be writing to British Eventing to ask them to note concerns he had over the sport’s risks.

There is currently research being undertaken at the University of Bristol into how to make fences safer by improving the capabilities of the pins and reduce the risk of a serious injury from a fall….

Read the entire story
Date: 3-20-2009
By: http://www.telegraph.co.uk