PrintWe do it automatically: get in the car, fasten the seatbelt. This is drummed into us from the time we’re old enough to be aware that we’ve been strapped into a car seat. When we turn 16 and prepare to test for our driver’s licenses, the instructor shows us horrible pictures of the consequences of unintentional experimentation with the laws of physics. Most people get the message, even without active campaigning by state police.
Why, then, is there such resistance to automatically putting on a helmet when we get on a horse? I talked to a lot of people (wearers and non-wearers) in a lot of different disciplines to get a better picture of the thought process behind the decision to wear or not wear a helmet.
“I’m only riding on the flat, not jumping.”
This sentiment echoes across all horse disciplines.
- Dressage riders worry about overheating during their sweat-building schooling sessions.
- Hunter riders, who, until recently, didn’t have to wear protective headgear, don’t like the feel or the look of the helmets and aren’t doing anything dangerous anyway.
- “There’s only sand in the arena.”
- “I’m just going on a trail ride.”
- “The ground’s soft.”
- “I won’t be doing anything that’ll make me fall off.”
- “Cowboys don’t wear helmets.”
The worst accident I ever had to clean up happened to my best friend. We were 500 yards from the end of a 25-mile trek, walking (yes, walking) on a loose rein down a road, and the horse slipped and fell. He scrambled to his feet and was fine; my friend was unconscious for two days, and she was wearing a properly fitted helmet. The helmet split down the side with the force of the impact. The doctor in the emergency room said bluntly that if she hadn’t been wearing a helmet, there would have been no need for the ambulance—just a shovel. Even 20 years after the accident she still has some lingering damage.
Nicety was a lovely little beginner horse. She was in the lesson program because she was so beautifully behaved. One windy autumn day, I was holding Nicety for a student at the mounting block when a gust of wind blew a leaf or something (we never found out what) into her line of sight and she shied. The student lost her balance, slipped out of the saddle and hit her head on the mounting block. Or rather, hit her helmet on the mounting block.
Horses, as we all know, are living beings with minds of their own. Horses are prey animals and instinctively react with fight or flight reflexes—ways which may not be apparent to their riders and which may be impossible to stay with. A leaf fluttering in the mounting area might seem like the preliminary warning of a panther attack to a horse. A spook, a stumble or even a low overhanging branch could result in a fall which could cause a nasty head injury.
“It’s not macho.”
For this particular argument, I talked to professional bull riders. You want macho? These guys are macho. They may be insane (they don’t call it the longest—and most dangerous—8 seconds in sports for nothing), but bull riding is definitely macho. Trying to stay on top of a ton of angry pot-roast is no sport for the faint of heart, yet a lot of these guys wear helmets.
