The 2026 U.S. Equestrian Federation Annual Meeting, held in January in Louisville, Kentucky, included an excellent presentation from the Human and Equine Safety and Welfare Committee, chaired by Dr. Mark Hart. I was very impressed with the work the committee has done and continues to do to improve equipment safety standards.
Let’s face it, riding is a contact sport. It’s one of the riskiest sports per participant, more dangerous than football, skiing, or even motorcycling in terms of serious injury risk. A rider is 20 times more likely to get hurt on a horse than on a bicycle. Falls from the height of a moving horse can cause severe injuries, so the work that the committee is doing is extremely important.
Unlike bicycles and motorbikes, where the rider and the bike typically fall together, in equestrian sports, the rider falls off the horse far more often than the horse falls with the rider. As such, there are about 300 horse falls in USEF-rated competitions each year, but approximately 4,500 rider falls. Safety improvements can only go so far, and without improved rider competency, reducing equestrian sport injuries is unlikely. In addition to enhancing helmet, vest, and stirrup safety, increasing trainer and rider proficiency is central to lowering the risks inherent in equestrian sports.
Understandably, riders want to progress quickly and successfully in height and venue. Interestingly, preliminary data show that most falls occur when jumper riders move from the 1.05- to the 1.15-meter level, which aligns with moving from the back ring to the big ring, and when mistakes start to have greater consequences.
© Kimberly Loushin
This is when the trainer’s role becomes most crucial, by aligning the rider’s expectations with their actual ability. Buying a 1.50-meter horse doesn’t instantly make someone a 1.50-meter rider; it just means you have farther to fall and a higher risk of injury if you make a mistake jumping that height. There should be a standard measure that ensures riders are ready to progress to the next level when they are truly capable, not just when they want to.
One’s ability to stick to the saddle is critical to compete safely when jumping, and more “saddle stickiness” is needed at higher fence heights. This is a physical skill that must be learned through practice. It takes time to be able to flat without stirrups, then progress to jumping without stirrups. Both are necessary skills for safely moving up the equestrian ladder with the well-being of rider and horse in mind.
Although riders will always fall off horses, minimizing the number of falls during competition can be achieved only through proper instruction and training at home. Trainers need to develop and test their students’ fundamental skills before letting them advance to higher levels of competition.
Improving riding safety requires a three-pronged approach: meeting minimum eligibility requirements for progression (a proposal currently under discussion within the U.S. Hunter Jumper Association), a formal trainer credentialing program, and better rider preparation and fitness.
Welfare Concerns And MERs
When everything goes smoothly, riding is pretty easy. When things start to slide or unexpected issues arise, the whole house of cards can come crashing down. This is when experience and training make a difference, impacting whether a bad situation results in a fall and/or injury to the rider and horse. Olympic course designer Leopoldo Palacios recently said that poor riding is a major welfare concern for horses. He emphasized that riders attempting courses at heights for which they are not prepared pose a significant problem. Ryan Lefkowitz recently wrote in The Chronicle about minimum eligibility requirements (MERs), and while she was arguing against them, they are a proposal which may help prevent riders from moving up in fence height before they’re ready, thereby reducing the risk of accidents.
MERs serve as a way to verify that riders, horses, and combinations have demonstrated sufficient competence and experience in the competition ring before attempting bigger, more demanding courses. The goal is to enhance safety, reduce accidents, protect horses, and maintain fair competition by preventing underprepared participants from entering advanced levels where the risk of falls and injuries is higher. MERs would use various metrics, similar to the model used in eventing.
Key proposed or discussed metrics include:
• Clear rounds or fault limits: A minimum number of fault-free (or low-fault) rounds at the current level before advancing (e.g., three to five clear rounds at 1.0 meter before entering 1.10 classes). This is similar to eventing, where MERs dictate completing a certain number of events with no more than 20 jumping penalties and no cross-country jumping faults before progressing to the next level.
• Points accumulation: Earning a set number of U.S. Hunter Jumper Association/USEF points at lower levels. Points are awarded based on placings (e.g., 10 points for first place in a class), and a certain number of points must be earned (e.g., 50 points to step up to Level 3, which is 1.0 meter in height).
• Completion requirements: Completing a minimum number of classes or shows at the current level without elimination or major faults (e.g., at least four competitions with no refusals or falls at .90 meters before progressing to 1.0 meter).
• Horse/rider combination focus: MERs should be applied to the specific pair, not just the individual rider or horse, accounting for the horse’s experience. For young horses (5 to 7 years old), there are age-specific qualifiers.
MERs are a structured approach to safely helping riders progress through the competition ranks. Although the correct metrics for MERs in jumping are yet to be agreed upon, once established, MERs would offer an additional way to help decrease riding injuries. But that is not enough.
Certification: Trainers Need MERs Too
While MERs provide a competition-based advancement system, a formal certification process for trainers would implement a skills-based advancement mechanism. This requires a structure to teach trainers how to coach students to advance and compete safely, based on their demonstrated skill competence.
We could look to other sports to lay out a framework. USA Swimming requires all coaches at practices or competitions to hold a current membership. That membership mandates coaching certifications, including swim-specific safety. USA Gymnastics mandates professional/competitive coach membership for sanctioned events, requiring instructors to be certified for the level at which they are coaching. U.S. Ski & Snowboard requires coach membership for access to sanctioned competitions, with certification mandatory for all coach members.
Several other trainer certification and licensure programs exist in equestrian sport in other countries. In the U.K., trainer and coach certification for equestrian sports centers on the Equestrian Coaching Certificate pathway from British Equestrian and UK Coaching. It is a progressive system designed for both general riding and specific disciplines, progressing from assistant roles to professional-level coaching. The program includes structured courses with workshops, self-study, and assessments for Level 1 Assistant Coach (a six- to 12-week course), Level 2 Independent Coach (10 to 16 weeks), Level 3 Senior Coach (a one-year course), and Level 4 Advanced Coach (minimum two years).
Germany also has a solid, well-structured certification system through the German Equestrian Federation, Deutsche Reiterliche Vereinigung, which is comparable to Britain’s Equestrian Coaching Certificate and its well-established British Horse Society pathways. The German system is rigorous, progressive, and emphasizes classical horsemanship, safety, and professional standards. Like in the U.K., it emphasizes hands-on skills, theory, and exams. Pros often go further: the Bereiter (licensed instructor) qualification through the German Riding School in Warendorf is like a multi-year apprenticeship with riding tests and ministry approval. It is a three-year equine manager course that blends care, riding, and teaching.
Here in the U.S., the U.S. Hunter Jumper Association has an Instructor Credential program that starts with 10 self-paced online courses covering riding theory, lesson planning, equine law, business basics, concussion awareness, and stable management. The applicant takes online quizzes and requires 80% to pass. There is a one-day in-person workshop on group teaching, followed by an exam day in which the candidate plans and runs a beginner flat lesson and a novice over-fences lesson. Successful applicants then become USHJA Credentialed Instructors. While a good start, the program does not provide trainers with the depth of knowledge and experience in fundamental training techniques necessary to maximize rider safety.
There needs to be a mandate requiring certification for equestrian trainers at USEF-sanctioned events. This would align equestrian sport with other established national governing body standards, enhancing consistency, safety, and professionalism across the sport. Certified trainers would understand the skills a rider needs before advancing to the next competition level. They would also know how to teach those skills.
Students would be expected to demonstrate different skill levels before advancing to higher levels of competition. For instance, riding without stirrups is the most effective way to develop a rider’s “saddle stickiness”. Riding without stirrups is very difficult for beginners, but it is a skill that improves with practice. It is not always fun, but it is necessary. One’s ability to ride without stirrups is an indicator of ability and readiness to negotiate more difficult jumping courses.
Saddle stickiness doesn’t come out of a spray can. If you need sticky spray to stay in the saddle, you shouldn’t get on. The lowest level skill for riding without stirrups is trotting competently without them. The highest level skill is jumping a 1.15-meter course without stirrups, which is required for Dover Saddlery/USEF Medal and ASPCA Maclay riders.
Another necessary jumping skill is the ability to control and vary the number of strides between two fences. Riding under perfectly controlled conditions on a prepared horse with perfect distances between jumps does not build rider competence when facing the increasingly difficult challenges presented in the ring at higher heights and varying distances. Being able to control a horse’s stride length is a necessary skill for advanced jumping competitions. These are just two examples of the types of skills a formal certification program could require coaches to teach. Certified trainers would be equipped with a common understanding of the skill set needed for riders to advance to more difficult competition with an acceptable level of risk.
Rider Fitness
Lastly, physical fitness becomes increasingly important for safe riding as the difficulty increases.
Riding itself is not an exercise program; the horse does all the running. You should exercise to ride, not ride to exercise. Trainers should insist their students take responsibility for their physical conditioning if they want to ride safely and competitively. Riding is not physical—until it is, such as when a plastic bag blows across the ring and the horse bolts, or a horse stumbles on landing over a jump. Physical resilience, balance, and the rider’s ability to control their own body in the tack matter, and they require physical conditioning.
Adults who don’t supplement their riding with other exercise programs and then ride competitively at horse shows increase their risk of injury due to underlying physical limitations. That, in turn, affects security in the saddle and the ability to handle minor problems or losses of balance, which can quickly escalate into bigger trouble, especially in the ring. It’s hard to communicate effectively with a horse if all your attention is focused on staying on.
If we truly care about safety and welfare, we must look beyond the things we buy—better helmets, safety vests, and breakaway cups—and ask tougher questions about long-term preparation, accountability, and education. Horses suffer when riders skip steps, and riders suffer when trainers skip steps. Safety equipment, MERs, trainer certification, and rider fitness aren’t just nice-to-haves; they’re essential cornerstones of safe competitive riding.
Progress in our sport shouldn’t be measured solely by the levels of competition entered, but by one’s ability to perform competently and safely in those events. This requires developing skills, knowledge, and experience under careful supervision, which would be achieved through certified trainers. If we rebalance rider ambition with ability, and coaching with certification, we will not only see fewer falls but also cultivate a new generation of riders who are safer, more resilient, and better stewards of their horses.