Zara Phillips breaks her collarbone as fall kills favourite horse

[Madz]

I'm heavily involved in eventing and show jumping, Zara is my idol what she has achieved is amazing. She cares so passionatly about the sport and her horses. Tsunami was a lovely mare who she thought the world off. Unfortunatly in this sport the xc element involves stationary jumps that do not have the cups used in show jumping. This is because the weight and design of these jumps simply don't allow it. They do however have specialist pins that attach to the sides - however as demonstrated, during a rotational fall (the type of fall Zara and Tsunami II had) the pins simply do not break away as they should.  British Eventing are desperatly trying to work something out that will help keep the sport safer whilst still maintaining the essence of it. The whole thrill of xc riding is the fact that the jumps are stationary, there is a new sport called Jump Cross that features knock down fences - it just isn't the same as xc.

Zara and all the other riders know all too well the risks involved as they set off on the course, what happened is a terrible accident that unfortunalty happens in this sport and is something that the sport as a whole are really trying to fix. I wish Zara a speedy recovery. 2008 has not been kind to her. She is a fantastic rider and I look forward to seeing her about again competing next year, hopefully with Toytown now sound again. She was very very lucky. A friend of mine was thrown of her show horse and busted her collar bone, it was extremly painful.