Meeting of Footing Experts

FEI representatives met with leading footing specialists in Windsor on May 16 for a brainstorming session which will likely provide the criteria upon which all future championship arena footing is to be based. The meeting, which drew riding surface experts from around the world, was a proactive response to the report of the FEI Working Group assigned to assess problems associated with footing after the Athens Olympic Games.

The round table discussion covered many areas including veterinary concerns, ideal structure and components of footing suitable for the level of the sport, future protocol with regard to tenders and the role of the professional footing expert within the championship organisation and the composition of an FEI "cut sheet" which would provide acceptable standards and required procedures to be followed by future championship Organising Committees. It is envisaged that these guidelines will be set in time for use by the 2008 Olympic Games Organising Committee.

The meeting was chaired by international judge and long serving FEI Bureau member Noel Vanososte. He thanked all those in attendance for making the time and effort to attend the meeting (Oliver Hoberg, responsible for the acclaimed footing at the Las Vegas World Cup Final this year, drove all night from Germany) and was hopeful that the ideas generated would prove immensely valuable to the future of the sport. His comments were echoed by John Roche, head of the Jumping Department and Simon Brooks Ward, new chairman of the Strategic Planning Committee. "Athens was a catalyst," said Brooks Ward. "We have to be clear about the criteria which needs to be set down for future surfaces which have the welfare of the horse paramount, but also provides a level field for sporting performance. The role of this meeting is to establish what that criteria should be. Course design, the budget, maintenance programmes and contractual agreements all need to be considered alongside the footing which is the most fundamental element of any event."

All agreed that the application of scientific research combined with years of experience and gut feeling should produce the best humanly possible result, however as FEI veterinarian Jack Snyder pointed out: "We simply don’t know what is the best footing for the horse’s sake. We don’t know what forces are going up the leg. Measuring impact, that is, horses landing off 1.50-1.60 metre jumps, on different surfaces could give us a clue which footing provides the least amount of trauma to a horse’s leg, but a lot of work still needs to be done."
"A horse’s foot needs to move when it hits the ground," noted Sydney Olympic course designer Leopoldo Palacios. "So what a rider perceives as a super footing may not be what is safe for the horse."

John Roche explained that there were ongoing studies on sport surfaces (not solely equestrian) being carried out in Australia, the US and Switzerland and the FEI would assimilate this research before delivering the final draft of the footing cut sheet to the IOC.

In addition to FEI representatives, attending the meeting in Windsor were: Simon Barrey (AUS), Robert Jolicoeur (CAN), Francis Clement (FRA), John Weier (LUX), Oliver Hoberg (GER), Ton and Ben Agterberg (NED), Bart Poels (BEL), Martin Collins (GBR), Franck Gesner (FRA), Michael Whitaker (GBR), Gerrit Jan Swinkels (NED), Frederic Cottier (FRA), Patrick Bhechler (SUI) and Christian Pace (FRA).