Equestrian world body looks to helmets and vests to keep riders safe

The world’s equestrian governing body is developing helmets and airbag vests to keep competitors safe, and while not many riders wear them, that’s likely to change.

Mark Hart, who chairs the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI)’s medical committee, says a working group made up of scientists, doctors, and a rider, focuses on improvements to helmets to reduce head injuries, for instance.

Awareness around the symptoms and effects of concussion is improving, he said, but more needs to be done to highlight the issue for athletes in sports that involve contact, collisions or the possibility of falls.

“A lot of this is education, people have to know the signs and the symptoms,” Hart said.

“There’s a whole gradation of concussions, and sometimes the effects are immediate and sometimes they are,” delayed.

Hart estimates one-third of cross-country riders wear airbag vests but jumping riders wear them much less. Some jumpers find them uncomfortable, others don’t want to ride with extra weight.

The airbag vests are designed to reduce force on impact, help protect the neck and head of the rider, and stiffen onto the torso to protect vital organs.

According to FEI statistics on elite-level eventing, 33 serious injuries were reported in 2023. Nine in 10 falls caused no injuries but of the 25 rotational horse falls last year, five resulted in serious injury.

The falls can sometimes be fatal.

In May, British eventing rider Georgie Campbell died after a fall at the international horse trials in Devon, England.

Laura Kraut, a 58-year-old American rider, started using one of the airbag vests three years ago at the suggestion of a doctor following a heavy fall in Belgium.

Now she never rides without one.

“(My doctor) said you lose fluid around your spinal cord, and so when you jolt this way or that way, the older you get the more problems that can cause you,” Kraut told media after placing eighth in the Olympics individual jumping competition.

“I’ve had three or four pretty bad falls, that (when) I hit the ground thinking ‘this is going to be bad.’”