Equine Safety Risk Management Program

Summary

The Equine Safety Management Program has been developed to assist organisations to manage the risks associated with working with horses. The Program consists primarily of an assessment tool which considers the four critical aspects of rider and handler safety when working with horses: 1. Rider skills and attitudes 2. Horse skills and background 3. Environment in which the rider and horse will be required to work 4. Tasks which the rider and horse will be required to undertake By assessing and matching the four critical categories, risks to riders/handlers are therefore reduced. During the project various riders were assessed and rated by multiple assessors according to their level of riding capabilities as either a beginner, novice, intermediate or advanced. The assessment categories included areas such as, planning and use of equipment, rider application of safety, rider style, rider response to tasks and rider precision. 
The basis of evaluation criteria is categories for riders abilities according to the "British Horse Society", which is an internationally recognised standard and principle for assessing a rider's capabilities. Next, numerous horses were put through a series of challenges by advanced riders including various obstacles to assess their level of risk, especially as the obstacles and tasks increased in the level of difficulty. Riders and horses were then matched accordingly to the relevant job tasks and working environment. This raw data and results was collated to allow for further independent research of the tool's application, its validity and reliability being used by various assessors (or people who would be using the tool in the workplace). Statistical analysis determined the consistency between multiple assessors using the Equine Safety Management Program to rank different riders and horses. The study showed there was a high level of agreement between the assessors using the Program, with 94.0% (110 out of 117) of the ratings for the riders being in agreement with the majority rating, and 84.7% (94 out of 111) for the horses. Kappa coefficient of agreement, or kappa statistic (K) values, confirmed the high degree of statistically significant agreement between assessors when ranking riders and horses, with "excellent" (K=0.83) agreement for assessing riders, and "good" agreement (K=0.60) for assessing horses.