Why don't vaulters........?

[Yosemite]

I was wondering why vaulters don't have to where protective headgear (in competition) in this age of 'health and safety' and with other disciplines having such stringent safety rules?

It seems to me that you could do yourself a nasty injury, especially if you fell amongst the horses' legs.

As I said just wondering not trying to incite hat/no hat debate.

 

[Kokopelli]

I think its because it would un balance them, tbh I have never thought of this but its probably just as dangerous to do the gymnastics without the horses so they probably figured they don't need a hat to do it on the horse. I think also they can easily just jump off the horse as they are not sat down and can get off quicker in an emergency.

 

[Thelwell_Girl]

I wondered the same thing! Have to say, attempted a bit of vaulting on an 18.2 Percheron fatty, in jeggings, crocs and a hoodie. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't even think about wearing a helmet

 

[tas55]

We have a team of vaulters at work and it's my understanding that the wearing of helmets throws their balance off quite significantly.
Also the helmets could get stuck on the roller, side/draw reins etc.

For one reason or another the vaulters don't seem to ever land on their head anyway, most of injuries are tailbones or wrists.

 

[gillianfleming]

I think another of the reasons is that there is not a lot of space when there is 3 on the horse, can imagine someone headbutting you while wearing a hat would be pretty painful.

Most of the time vaulting is done on a soft surface so as someone said above it does tend to be wrists/arms and ankles/knees from landing that suffer most.