That age old debate about hats

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Agent XXX999

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I am of the opinion that its up to you. I wear a hat for hacking, xc and jumping, however I dont really wear one for flatwork schooling, which I know is really really bad and I am going to get told off, but I know my horse and I dont see the need, and I am alot more comfortable without one. Its my choice.

I find it strange that people are all "you must wear a hat" and then compete in a beagler though...I also find it fairly odd that people wear hats and then ride in shorts and trainers...or make their kids wear hats but allow them to ride bearback in a headcollar without one.

Part of my logic and reasoning over this is that on the continent, noone really wears a hat to do anything. In Germany, when I was over there, NOONE wore a hat to school in, (and I am talking riding mad wb's over huge grids) and occasionaly wore a beagler.

Also, when my mum and dad competed, noone wore a hat either.

When I did my neck in, it was the hat which actually contributed to the injury..because of the way I landed.

Opinions please - do you wear a hat? Tell all.
 
I'm a strange one- sometimes i do, sometimes i don't. when its hot i must admit i school without one as riding with a hat in the heat gives me a headache- never jump without though. And i never ride Harry, the naughty pony without a hat. my horse is abit of a donkey when schooling so i dont worry- i know its silly. But i used to ride my bombproof pony down the lane from one field to another with no saddle, bridle or hat. THAT was stupid!
 
I personally wear a hat, just my choice but I also come from an SJ yard where no-one wears one
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Personally I'm known on the yard for making all the "kids" wear one, I literally just throw a look and chin straps are done up
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this is one thing I am strict on, if you wear a hat, do up the chin strap!

However, once they are 18 they can do what they want, personally I dont think they will stop wearing hats but at the end of the day everyone is an adult and it is their choice/life to play with
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I agree it is up the rider, but no matter how well you know your horse, they are still unpredictable animals!
Since Archie threw me off and I landed on my head, I always wera a hat and insist that my trainer wears one aswell when he rides Arch. I do occasionaly take my hat off after a schooling session to cool down and I did jump my mare without my hat on ONCE coz I forgot to put my hat on!
 
yep i wear a hat all the time! i just feel safer, like when i get into a car i always put a seatbelt on - i feel weird without one! i rode a horse from the yard to his field once with no hat and in just a headcollar, and i was all bunched up and tense because all i could think was 'agh hes going to piss off with me!' he didn't. but he can be spooky so it would've been best if i didn't do that in the fist place!

i do agree thought that hats can be sooooo uncomfortable, spesh mine because its about 10 years old.
 
See no reason not to wear one, schooling, hacking or whenever. Touch wood I've only fallen off my boy twice and both times were in the school. The second time I'd finished schooling and was just walking him around to cool off, he saw something in the woods by the school, took off and I ended up underneath a heavy wooden jump wing, slipping out of consciousness. Not fun.
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Who knows what would have happened if I hadn't had a hat on.

I had it drummed into me that I should not ride without a hat and I never do. Not judging those who don't but I can see no valid reason to go without as a matter of course.
 
This time of year I wear a hat for riding on the roads, jumping, riding anything young or a bit sharp or competitions. If I'm hacking over the farm or training then I don't worry but I am a dressage rider and it is pretty much the norm to not wear hats - in theory the horse should be sufficently well trained to not be explosive! On the roads there is no accounting for the idots who might hit your horse in their car and I know where ever you ride there is always the risk of your horse stumbling & falling or the unexpected happening. I suffer badly from migraines, wearing a hat when it is warm can cause my migraines. I also can not wear one of the bulky current standard hats as they weigh too much which again gives me severe headaches. I have broken my back before now and a body protector wouldn't have prevented that injury, hats can prevent some injuries but not all & I take the attitude that when my number is up then it is up & if I die riding then at least I will go out doing the thing I love most in the world. At the same time I am a complete hypocrite as I insist the kids I teach always wear a hat & will not let them on a horse without - I don't want to have to explain to their parents why they ended up in hospital without a hat on!

What I consider to the most essential safety gear when riding are gloves & decent boots. I've seen more people injured from getting dragged because their foot has been caught in the stirrup than I have people with head injuries from not wearing a hat. Wrong attitude I know & everyone will be saying that it only takes one little fall to end up dead, but I tend to prefer to not fall off!!!
 
It is an age old debate & the usual reasons will be quoted as to the pros & cons of wearing or not.

I believe that if you wish to exercise 'your right' not to wear your hat then you must speak to your insurance company & pay the vast increase in insurance premium assuming they would give you any cover. Additionally, should you actually come off & get injured, then you should be made personally liable for the thousands of pounds of treatment the NHS would have to pay out to treat your injuries.

Suddenly 'the right' not to wear protective headgear doesn't seem quite so appealing.
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The fact that your parents never competed wearing hats isn't really a good arguement either. When I first started riding motorcycles I never wore a helmet, it wasn't law then, but now no one would dream of riding without one.
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This should create a lively start to the day on here!
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I agree that as adults, it is each to their own and on their own head (apologies for the rubbish pun!) be it regarding the consequences of not wearing one. Children should always always be made to wear one and adults around children should be setting a good example by doing so too.

I personally think that occasionally being uncomfortable is a small price to pay for doing as much as possible to protect your most vulnerable and important asset. I really can't believe people who say "wearing a hat caused my injury to be worse" believe this. If you hadn't been wearing the hat, you would likely have ended up with a different, but much worse injury.

I also think that wearing a beagler is as good as not wearing one (as tragically proved by the very sad story recently where a lady died after being struck in the head when her hat fell off- maybe a correctly fastened chin strap could have made a difference in that case?)

Riding is a risk sport and of course there are some situations where even the sturdiest hat cannot help you out, but there are plenty of situations where it will and it's silly to take an extra risk for the sake of vanity or a sweaty forehead.
 
I do think its upto the rider, nothing annoys me more on picture posts when people ask why riders arnt riding hats- in this day and age people are well aware of the risks- leave them to it.
I have grown up with ponyclub so the rule has always been if you are mounted you have your hat on and you have it done up and though when I went out hunting as a child I had a Patey (which IMO is as good if not better than a chinstrapped hat) I came off my ponies so many times but me and my hat never parted company, unfortunately I grew out of it aged 12 and Pateys arnt cheap.
I very very rarely not wear a hat on Oshk or the younger ones because I don't trust them enough to not do something stupid, but Bertha and Monty and Wills are a lot more predictable so when I'm schooling sometimes I dont bother
 
Personally I now think hats are there for a reason, admittedly I never used to ride my old horse in the school for flatwork and rode some horses at dealing yard without. I now realise I was very lucky and you would not catch me not wearing a hat correctly done up now. Much like I always jump in a body protector. But then i am one of those that if I fall off it is normally in a big way and ends in breaks or something
 
If someone wants to ride with or without a hat it's their personal choice. I wear one whenever I ride, but I know plenty of people who don't. It's up to them, they have to calculate the risks.
 
I think if I didnt have my hat on Id feel like I was missing something, like riding without a saddle
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Ive fallen off onto my head with a hat on and ended up in A&E - I dread to think what would have happened if I didnt have a hat on
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Im gonna stick my neck out here by saying I think if you are riding on the road it should be made a legal requirement just as if you were riding a motorbike....
 
Ride mine in the school in a Beagler esp in summer cos I get really hot in even a vented hat - hack, jump etc in hat.

OH wears hat all the time.

Strange thing is I always put beagler on - probably as safe not wearing one as wearing it but feels more 'normal'
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Never used to wear one, now wear one all the time. Because I'm a mum and my kids will not do as I say not as I do, they will do as I do, the minute my back's turned!
However, I don't wear a body protector, and I don't strap my children up in them either. If they have to wear one they do, and if they ever get seriously good and start hurtling round fair sized xcountry course, they will wear one, but putting a child in an iron lung to have a little trot round a school seems counter productive, to me.
 
I would always wear a hat riding. As much as you trust any horse they are big unpredictable animals and we cannot control their thoughts or their environment.

I once fell off and landed on my head (split my hat clean down the middle) and if I hadnt been wearing a hat god knows what would of happened without one.
 
Always ride in a hat. I've only fallen off Sienna twice, both times XC but wouldn't school her without a hat. Hats are always newish, if one sustains a fall & has a really hard bang it's replaced.
Kids aren't allowed to fetch ponies up from field unless they are wearing hats. They only ride in proper footwear and always have safety stirrups, also they wear body protectors when jumping or hacking.
I've known too many freak accidents which would have been catastrophic had the person not been wearing a hat.
 
Totally agree about footwear and safety stirrups. Can't understand anyone letting a child ride without safety stirrups. Body protectors are a bit of a two edged sword to my mind. My daughter was horribly winded by hers, and it put her off for months.
 
As a child we wore hats on the road and mostly didn't bother otherwise.

After a 25 year break I got back into horses by re-breaking a nutter for someone and just got into the habit of wearing it all the time. I'm tempted not to when schooling at home as we are on fen peat BUT after my daughter came off and managed to hit her head on one of the very very few stones and put a hole in her hat the urge to go bare headed is somewhat less. I don't think my daughter has ever even sat on a horse with no hat!

My neighbour is one of the ones who seems to have slightly odd ideas. Her child always wears a body protector and a hat - even when riding in the field. Unless she's riding with just a headcollar and bareback when it seems it's quite permissible to wear shorts and no hat
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Always when hacking or going out.

Think nothing of riding horse over to field bareback in just a headcollar and no hat though, someimes with schooling I havent either.

but I also dont wear a body protector for anything either and not as much fuss is kicked up over those.

There have been numerous times Ive actually forgot to put it on, and then realised 20mins into schooling.
 
Yes, mine wear hats, but even though they have body protectors I don't make them wear them, simply because both children have ended up with sores on their chests from them. The most my eldest does is have a canter round the field, but when he starts jumping I will make him wear a body protector for the short period.

Re hats, I believe it's personal choice. BUT those not wearing hats should stop and seriously consider if they want their relatives wiping their bum for the rest of their days. It's not about wether you doe or not, it's about the serious brain injury which can be caused.
Last time we had this kind of thread here some argued that they're under BUPA and the like, but I'd like to remind them that when you dial 999 it's the NHS who send an ambulance. It's up to the individual to be responsible and decide if they'd rather the NHS spent money sending an ambulance to them and emergency care or spent the money on life saving drugs for someone terminally ill....
 
i always wear a good (undropped, un-fallen-off-onto-head-in) hat on the youngsters, and always when out on the roads and jumping.
if it's a horse i really trust and have ridden for years, i sometimes school without one in the summer, if it's really hot. i know i shouldn't, and i don't if i have an audience or there's any children around, cos i don't want them using me as ammunition in a future argument about whether to wear a hat!
i wear a beagler for dressage competitions, but again, only on horses i trust. if it's the huge spooky warmblood, i wear a crash cap and damn the inelegance of it!
i was concussed a few times as a teenager, and can do without it again, tbh.
also, i saw a program once about crash skull testing where they were using watermelons in place of heads, and the mess when they dropped the watermelon without the skullcap on... hmm. very impressive.
it's just not worth the risk. i'd be a huge burden on my family if i landed on my head and ended up a vegetable, and if i still had some of my marbles in there, i'd be a very very angry and guilty vegetable indeed.
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do you know, I think there is *some* logic to this age old practice! Lets be honest, if your pony spooks, clears off, whatever when you are bareback with only a head collar, you are not even going to put up a fight, you are going to slide right off on your bum there and then. Now I know there is a potential for all sorts of freak accidents, and I can't afford to fund research into this, but I'm ready to bet that the severe injuries tend to happen to people who fall off tacked up, trying to hang on, etc rather than the ones who slither giggling to the floor at walk.
It's not entirely a sensible argument, but I can defend it if I have to LOL
 
Being brought up in the PC, it was always a very strict rule.
Even now I don't see the point in not wearing it as it doesn't bother me at all
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I always wear a body protector when jumping, I never used to but April is still a bit novicy and can occasionally put in ridiculous cat leaps!
 
[ QUOTE ]
There is no point in wearing a hat if you don't have anything worth protecting. Otherwise, it is probably a good idea.

[/ QUOTE ]

LMAO!!
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Yes, I always wear a hat. I value my brains
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but that's kind of what I meant. You'd stay on, and stay on, hang on through the gate, onto the road, maybe? (I'm imagining this is a child, now) you'd hold on and hold on, maybe becoming more and more unbalanced, until the pony ... jumps? swerves? grinds to a halt? .. then you get catapaulted into what? a car? a fence?
My point about bareback across the field is that the pony f*rts and you slide inelegantly to the floor, landing on your bum in a pile of pooh possibly. You're far more likely to fall off, but *I'm guessing* far less likely to injure yourself.
 
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