Mim NewEra Clip & Frangible Pin on a Corner at Chattahoochee Hills for the AECs
I haven’t seen or heard it reported anywhere yet but I know there was a potentially nasty fall at the AECs (American Eventing Championships) last weekend in the Advanced Class. The good news is that both horse and rider walked away! The reason, the fence was frangible. The fence (see pictures) was one of three with the Mim NewEra Clip System installed. There were also many others using frangible pins around the course.
NOTE: In the USA Frangible Pins are compulsory on certain fence types and are provided FREE of charge by the USEF.
The corner fence that had the fall was an open corner and in fact used both Frangible pins on the front rail and the Mim Clip on the back rail. I hear that the horse chested the back rail which would normally have severe consequences and in fact may still have done so with a frangible pin installed in the traditional manner.
I leave you with this, an email sent by Dan Starck (Course Builder for the AECs) to Mats Björnetun (co-Founder of Mim), it says it all.
Hi Mats,
The American Eventing Championships ended here today. I ended up using the MIM hardware on 3 jumps on the Advanced course.
- The table that you built here with my help
- an oxer (actually, a hybrid with a frangible pinned front rail and MIM back rail)
- an open corner (again, with a pin on front rail and MIM back rail sharing the corner post)
I’ve attached a couple of photos of it.
We had a potentially disastrous crash at the corner. The horse totally chested the back rail. It was really ugly, but the MIM system worked beautifully! It was still an ugly fall, but the horse and rider both walked away. I watched the video of it this afternoon. There is no doubt that we would have had a very bad outcome had it not been for the MIM hardware.
Congratulations on saving another eventer.
Best to you and your family.
Dan Starck
Mim NewEra Clip & Frangible Pin on a Corner at Chattahoochee Hills for the AECs
Eventing Safety and Risk Management 