Dr riders wearing protective hats...

Reading Courtney King's blog it strikes me as she is very lucky.

I say that as I sit here after an 8 hour shift in a Neurobehavioural rehab unit - working with people with severe brain injuries.

I don't think I have a patient with the vocab, language & memory that Courtney has, I help teach people the very basic skills, from brushing teeth, to making tea - it is a VERY long road, and life is never the same again for them or their families.

Repeatedly I am struck by how fragile life is, how these people I work with were like me one day, and everything changed in a moment - that could be you or me, and I seriously mean that.

Makes me seize every day, do everythign & put nothing off, but try to manage the risks in my life.
 
When I was a child a family friend's daughter fell off a horse without her hat on.

She was helping out at a riding school, just like I used to, and for some reason got on a horse "just for a minute" without a hat. It wasn't a lesson, she wasn't even really going anywhere, but she came off onto the concrete yard. Several anxious days and weeks followed for her family as they waited to see what the damage was, she fractured her skull but didn't damage her brain permanently. She was INCREDIBLY lucky.

I'd never ridden without a helmet anyway, and our riding school was very strict about hats, but this rammed the always wear your hat message home hard. My mum read me and my sister the riot act and vowed that if she ever found out we had ridden without a hat she would never ever let us near a horse again. As it was she nearly killed me when she found out what I was doing when I fell off and broke my arm and collar bone!

Even now if I see pictures in adverts or whatever of someone without a hat the first thing I think is God my Mum would kill me - and I'm in my 30s!!!
 
Can I ask a silly question? Why do dressage riders not wear protective headgear? Are dressage horses exempt from broncing, rearing, bucking, spooing, firing their riders off at a great rate of knots into the arena fence? Are those headbands they all seem to sport some form of protective headgear?

I am a great advocate for hat wearing. I do not think it looks elegant or smart to ride without one. My daughter keeps begging me to buy her a Patey (I have just sold mine on ebay), so she can compete at Intermediate Novice or Intermediate (when the time is right), so she looks the part. Tough titty darling, you will wear your smart Charles Owen with a PC purple sticker and a BE yellow sticker on it and put up with it. We have got a copule of teenagers on our yard who think its dead cool not to wear a hat. My blood boils when I think of it. Their mother just smiles indulgently and says that they know their own horses. I bet she would be thinking differently if she was sitting in intensive care with them after a nasty fall ....... heaven forbid.

I agree its each to their own, but I wish someone would make it illegal to ride without a protective hat, in the same way it is to ride a motor cycle. At least you can control a motorcycle - its not a living thing like a horse.

Kerilli - this one has got legs!
 
Any chance we can make it compulsory to wear cycle helmets too? They make it illegal not to have lights on your bike, but not to not wear a helmet...erm...
 
warming up for a BD adv med at beginning of jan i was wearing my champion gpa lookalike can't remember what its called and of the 4 other riders warming up for the medium only 1 was wearing a beagler so think people are thinking about it more and not following old traditional dress
 
Hopefully this will have made all the "I'm a dressage rider therefore I'm so good, and my horses are so well trained that it doesnt matter if I dont wear a hat" types sit down and think a bit.
Its such an easy thing to do- put on a hat- and could save your life. I honestly dont understand why you wouldnt? Can any non hat wearer justify that to me?
Yes, hats can get hot- which is why i have an airvented one, and they can also look very smart- like my velvet covered, flesh coloured harness charles owen show hat.
I think the new american law is a step in the right direction- and I would be glad to see BE do the same.
 
vallin said:
Any chance we can make it compulsory to wear cycle helmets too? They make it illegal not to have lights on your bike, but not to not wear a helmet...erm...
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Agree it should be! Sadly, though, a large number of cycling accidents involve traffic. In a vehicle/cyclist collision, the outcome is generally a crushed cyclist and a helmet wouldn't help. You don't have the same unpredictability on a bike; it won't spook or buck, so you're less likely to have a simple fall, but more likely just to be run over. I do wear a helmet on my bike, but I'd feel reasonably comfortable without one.
 
I teach in a riding school and I am supposed to wear a hat (I say supposed to, I normally forget and have to get it brought out to me! :o) I never get on a horse, I rarely really handle them, but the point is I have a responsibilty, as someone who is looked up to by the kids, to set a good example.
I don't mind, my hat fits beautifully and I forget I'm wearing it. Plus my BE sticker and PC sticker makes me look like I've done something :D

I have ridden without a hat, but it's not something I would plan on doing again. Apart from anything else, I felt weird without it! :D

Each to there own, but if I caught anyone on our yard onboard without a hat, I'd shove them off myself (at 25 I'm considered an 'oldie', so at that age they don't get the choice) :D
 
If you want to look the top, why not invent a top hat crash hat? Could make money too :p
A proper hat that could be made to look like a top hat, with a flesh harness!

Having seen what some of the top dressage horses do at Olympia, I can't understand why anyone would not want to wear a hat :confused:

Glad to see that things are being changed, and if america has the rule, it will only be a matter of time before BD introduces the rule :)
 
What about western? Cowboy hats are about as much use as a chocolate firguard when it comes to protection.

I personally always wear a hat, and I understand the headwear agrument.
I am a bit shocked how many of you seem so for the whole health and safety, risk assessment, no win, no fee sue culture. Everyone is so influenced by major insurance companies, it quite sad really.
This nanny culture is destroying equestrian sports. Think about all the gymkhanas which have disappeared.
Now most secondary and definitly primary schools will not take children on any school trips.
So, although there is a perfectly valid agrument for protective headwear while riding, I am for free choice.
 
The thing with the free choice argument is that if we followed that path, there would be no seat belts in cars, no requirement to wear a helmet on a motorbike, no law stipulating that those under the age of 14 must wear a helmet on a horse on the roads....

Of course we wouldn't have such a shortage of organ donors if we revoked all these laws....
 
Yes well riding is high risk sport, maybe body protectors should be compulsary. Maybe children shouldn't ride then. Maybe horses shouldn't hack on the roads. Maybe xc should be banned. Maybe cars should be limited to 60mph. Maybe moterbikes should be banned.

Life is high risk, thats what makes it what it is. I agree with wearing a hat but you can't force people to be wrapped up in cotton wool whether you agree with it or not. And even with all this protection, seatbelts, laws people still get killed.
You can't make a law for every hazard.
People should (and must) be able to assess risks for themselves and think for themselves.
 
SpottedCat - great minds think alike here! There's a word for the hatless in A&E - donors or donorcycles.

I do believe in free choice. I also believe that you shouldn't have make a horrible mistake in order to learn a lesson. And I won't tell you what the NHS cost of care is for someone post-brain injury. Suffice to say, I know of a case where someone had an accident on a horse abroad, suffered a head injury and they bust through their £15 million travel insurance policy just bringing them back to the UK safely. And that did not include their rehab and the cost of altering their home to accomodate their resulting disability.
 
But you could be sensible & try to manage the risks.

You wear a back protector to try and minimise any serious injury if you fall xc
You train and train and train so that you can be the best rider you could be, to try to stop falling off.
You wear a seatbelt so that in the case of an accident, hopefully injury will be minimised.

Its a case of weighing up the risks & things to manage them.

Would you go jump in the deep end of the pool if you couldnt swim? No, you would wear armbands or learn! :)

Horse-riding is a very dangerous sport and the least we can do is wear a hat to protect our heads, if worst comes to worst :)
 
I always wore a hat & then became sloppy, moving to my own yard It got on my nerves wearing a hat so I didn't. However I have changed this now since coming off a horse last year, all I can say is thank god I was wearing a hat as I would of been in intensive care.
Ive always worn hats on horses I didn't know but Im making an effort to wear a hat on all horses.

I would however like a new hat but can't afford it. Love the look of the new hats.
 
Exactly only_me, yes you should wear body protecter xc etc. You should train etc. But you could say for instance ban deep ends in swimming pools. Then there would be no risk. Ban xc, then there is no risk, etc etc. Is it fair though?
I am studying hazard managemnt at degree level (albeit on a larger scale, earthquakes, floods etc). Hazards should be managed but ther is point when you take away people's ability to think for themselves and their free will.
 
i have a hat with a lovely hoof print stamped into the back of it (TBH the horse that did it was going that fast i didn't notice i'd even been stood on but that's by the by)
i used to know a guy that had a horrible head injury falling off onto concrete, if he hadn't been wearing a hat he would be very dead

i have even taken to wearing a hat when handling some of our youngsters, esp in weather like today!

on a different note, skiing this year i wore a helmet, so did most people i skied with, years ago noone wore helmets skiing, but i think natasha richardson's death highlighted to people that actually skiing is also quite a dangerous sport

i think we know more about risk these days, my mum rode hatless for years, and wore a patey for hunting, my dad rode in a flat cap or top hat, my granny a lovely silk headscarf, or a bowler or patey, and so on, these days my mum has a crash hat & wouldn't dream of wearing anything else!

crash hats & velvet harness hats are a lot more stylish than they used to be, and i think they'll only get better as technology progresses, so we can hopefully remain both safe & vain!!
 
racingdemon said:
i used to know a guy that had a horrible head injury falling off onto concrete, if he hadn't been wearing a hat he would be very dead

crash hats & velvet harness hats are a lot more stylish than they used to be, and i think they'll only get better as technology progresses, so we can hopefully remain both safe & vain!!
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Is very dead worse than dead? :D :D :D (sorry being cheeky now i've had a pimms)

I agree that hats are becoming more stylish, although I don't understand why no-one has brought out a PAS015 (or SNELL) top hat with flesh coloured harness, I'm sure it would look good once people were used to seeing it!

Beaglers have already had safety put into them - they are called riding hats with harness :D
 
I do think this is a generational thing RD - I know it was drilled into me to wear a hat at all times by my parents on a horse/bike so I still do it. All my friends wear helmets to climb/snowboard/ride/bike - at last count I have a snowboard helmet, a skate helmet (for roller derby), three riding hats, a cycling helmet, a climbing helmet and my hard hat for site work!

I think as our generation becomes the 'older generation' of riders, it will gradually fade out and protective head gear will become the norm - if a ban doesn't come in before that.
 
All that dressage needs is literally ONE top rider competing with a helmet. Dressage is all about fashion -- if Edward Gal rode a test with a helmet instead of a top hat, everybody would follow suit.

At the Munster international Patrick Kittel warmed up with a tailcoat and helmet, and Kirsten Sieber did too :)
 
absolutely SC, already my boys have helmets galore, and i'm very concious of setting a good example of helmet wearing, I was very excited to see some really cool ski helmet covers recently!
 
fiarmay said:
warming up for a BD adv med at beginning of jan i was wearing my champion gpa lookalike can't remember what its called and of the 4 other riders warming up for the medium only 1 was wearing a beagler so think people are thinking about it more and not following old traditional dress
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that's really good to know. :) :) :)

re: "Are dressage horses exempt from broncing, rearing, bucking, spooing, firing their riders off at a great rate of knots into the arena fence?"

Yes, obviously, because all that raw power and exceptional athleticism is obviously totally controllable, you can just turn it off at a second's notice... ;) ;)
or maybe it's only Olympic standard riders like Courtney and Debbie who get bucked off... lesser riders like us lot would obviously NEVER have that happen to us... ;) ;)
 
dominobrown said:
I personally always wear a hat, and I understand the headwear agrument.
I am a bit shocked how many of you seem so for the whole health and safety, risk assessment, no win, no fee sue culture. Everyone is so influenced by major insurance companies, it quite sad really.
This nanny culture is destroying equestrian sports. Think about all the gymkhanas which have disappeared.
Now most secondary and definitly primary schools will not take children on any school trips.
So, although there is a perfectly valid agrument for protective headwear while riding, I am for free choice.
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where did any of us say anything at all about Health and Safety, the litigation culture, etc etc?
i'm for free choice too. if i had children, i'd allow them go through grids without stirrups and reins, play bareback cowboys and indians, all the things i did (with a hat on, fwiw! mother made me wear one of those hideous JOFA things). but we're talking about adult riders (who, however you look at it, are bigger, heavier, therefore fall harder - pure physics - and whose bones aren't as bendy...!) falling from higher up on big powerful comp horses, not kids on ponies. i had countless falls as a kid and never hurt myself. wish i was still that light and bendy!
 
FrodoBeutlin said:
At the Munster international Patrick Kittel warmed up with a tailcoat and helmet, and Kirsten Sieber did too :)
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But they didn't ride their test with one did they? That's the difference. Like you say, we need someone to come down the centre line in a hat with harness rather than a top hat to make a difference.

A number of the Canadian Eventing team are coming over to Badminton this year, wonder what they'll be wearing for their dressage...
 
If anyone wishes to lend me their 2012 horse, and transplant their abilities, I will happily come down centre line in a tweed and hat ;) :D
 
only_me said:
If anyone wishes to lend me their 2012 horse, and transplant their abilities, I will happily come down centre line in a tweed and hat ;) :D
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I'll join you m'duck :D


Maybe it's the thing - those who have those skills, etc., don't have the, um, thinking behind wearing a crash hat :D :D

Ah well.

As I've said numerous times, been there, done that. If I do go the dressage route, it will be a crash hat all the way :D

And the idea about a protective top hat - brilliant :D
 
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