Archery Intersectionality: Target Archery Meets Horses

My fellow Target Archery Marshals,

Recently, I attended an event with mounted archery (archery while mounted on an equine, or mounted on an equine-drawn vehicle), and also received questions about running/assisting with mounted archery at an East Kingdom event that I’m archery Marshal-in-Charge of. We didn’t get too far into details because (knowing nothing about horses or mounted archery) I quickly declined to take responsibility for anything horse-related, instead offering them range time when I would not be running target archery.

After that conversation, I started thinking about what my responsibilities as an archery marshal, vis-a-vis mounted archery, might be. Mounted archery as a hobby is growing rapidly, not only in the mundane equestrian world, but now in the SCA equestrian world too. I spoke to my wife, who not only has held numerous SCA offices locally, but also has a long history in corporate compliance-type roles professionally. She had a lot of questions regarding safety, insurance, and how this would shake out if there was an injury – none of which I had a good answer for.

I also had some very real (to me, at least) concerns about being unjustly blamed if something DID go wrong. The recent situation with Master Wulfric at Gulf Wars has many Marshals worried about how much support we might get at the corporate level if someone powerful gets mad at you for enforcing the rules on them – and I don’t even know the rules for equestrian stuff! Additionally, while I’m prefectly comfortable safely running a target archery range, I don’t want to be responsible for horses or their safety in any manner.

This was all one big mess to me, at this point, so I reached out to Duke Timothy of Arindale, Æthelmearc’s Earl Marshal, for clarification. He leaned in the opposite direction from me: “It’s archery, you should be involved”. I then brought up the perceived insurance issues (the SCA requires separate insurance and waivers for equestrian for a reason), and he quickly decided that his best course of action here was to kick the question upstairs to our new Society Earl Marshal, Maestra Arabella da Siena:

“I received a question from one of our local archery marshals and I wasn’t sure how to answer it.

Equestrian archery is becoming a thing in this area. Does he submit the details of it on his report, does the equestrian marshal submit the details on their report, do they both do so, or should I not be allowing such activities to take place unless the MIC is warranted in both?

Thank you for your time,…

Sir Timothy”

The answer he received:

“Sir Timothy,

Great question.

Equestrian archery should be submitted under Equestrian.

The MIC does NOT need to be warranted in both. Equestrian activities fall under the equestrian marshallate. The rules actually make it clear that an activity in one marshal form can’t require a marshal from another form.

However, we have been talking about cross-over at the Society level. A Target Archery marshal of course should be able to help with archery equipment inspection, and other non-horse related aspects of EQ archery. But a TA marshal can’t run EQ archery by themselves due to the extra specifics related to horses.

And very glad to hear that EQ archery is picking up in your area!

-Arabella”

I also went ahead and read through the SCA Equestrian Handbook. The vast majority of it was irrelevant to me, but there is actually a section on archery in the back. An interesting thing there is that the equipment standards for mounted archery seem, to my reading, at least, to disqualify traditional/trad archery equipment. The equestrian rules say, in section C-3-a:

“All archery equipment should be consistent with pre-17th century archery in looks and function. Modifications for safety are excepted.”

This seems to say that a mounted archer would be allowed to shoot arrows shafted with wood grain carbon shafts, but would not be allowed to use their Samick Sage takedown bow that they use in SCA target archery. There is definitely no Open Class and Period Class distinction here, it’s kind of a mashup of both – more restrictive in some ways, more permissive in others.

The Equestrian Handbook also has some very brief rules for laying out ranges and safety zones, a rule prohibiting crossbows in any manner, and a rule requiring ammunition to be inspected prior to each use (as is done in combat archery). It’s very short and TA marshals should certainly read it before agreeing to assist with anything having to do with mounted archery.

I believe that, going forward, my personal policy for mounted archery at SCA events will be:

1. Mounted archery should happen within the confines of the equestrian part of the event site, not on the target archery range
2. If asked, I will assist with training equestrian marshals in how to check bows and ammunition, and checking them at events
3. If asked, I will assist equestrian marshals with setting up safe ranges and building targets, and training them how to do so
4. I will do nothing else

It is clearly important that I remember that I am simply providing suggestions to the Equestrian Marshal-in-Charge, and it’s their show. I am, upon request, offering expertise as a subject matter expert in the areas of range and equipment safety, not making calls. You, my fellow Target Archery Marshals, may choose to address this issue differently, but lacking other, clearer direction from on-high, this is how I will be proceeding when target archery intersects with mounted archery.

I’d be very happy to discuss this with other TA and Equestrian marshals – it’s an emerging area that needs more thought and discussion, and I have a lot of questions. For example: why isn’t everyone on a horse wearing a helmet at all times?

Yours in Glad Service,

Baron Snorri skyti Bjarnarson, Scarlet Guard
Master Bowman, Captain of Archers of the Duchy of Arindale
Æthelmearc Regional Target Archery Marshal, Region 5 (central New York)

REFERENCES

SCA Equestrian Marshal’s Handbook: https://www.sca.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/equestrian_handbook.pdf

SCA Target Marshal’s Handbook: https://www.sca.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/target_archery_rules.pdf