28 | WHOA! Winter 2013

Safety First

Protective riding vests were once sported only by Jockeys and Eventers, but more and more equestrians from other disciplines are discovering the benefits of wearing a vest when riding, driving and working around horses.

“You can never predict what’s going to happen,” says Leslie Newton, sales and marketing manager of Tipperary Equestrian, the largest manufacturer of protective riding vests in the world. “You think you might be on a bomb-proof horse and they spook. You could be working around your horse in the stall and something goes wrong. A friend of mine was kicked in the stomach by a horse she had for years. Things happen and if you are around horses you know that to be true. Everybody’s got a story.”Newton is quick to point out the most common misconception about protective vests though. Despite what you might think, there is still a risk of being injured, even if you wear a vest.

“Vests are designed to protect your most important internal organs, but you can’t protect against everything and there is some impact,” says Newton. “Riding is a dangerous sport. We don’t want to scare people, but at the end of the day the potential for injury is there.”

That being said, wearing protective equipment such as a riding helmet and vest can reduce the risk of serious injury when riding and working around horses. Made from a variety of different materials, primarily high density foams, protective vests are designed to reduce trauma to the body caused by impact with the ground or an object.

“The whole idea is you are trying to dissipate that energy level,” Newton says. “You are trying to spread out that energy instead of putting it one spot and that’s what the foam is designed to do.”

Karl Slezak, a short-listed member of the Canadian Eventing Team who rides out of Wolf Run Farm in Caledon East, has seen first-hand the protection vests offer.

“It’s definitely a benefit to anybody. It’s added protection,” he says of protective riding vests. “There’s no down side to it, really. I would definitely encourage anyone who wanted to use one to use it all the time.”

Waterloo resident April Wurr credits her protective riding vest with saving her life. She was tacking up her Quarter Horse, who was tied to a hitching post, when a cat spooked the mare, causing her to pull back. Although the horse was tied with a quick release, Wurr struggled to free the panicked horse.

“It took me about a minute to get her loose and when I did she jumped straight up in the air and then back. Her head and hoof caught me,” says Wurr, who was wearing a helmet, but only had her vest partially zipped up. “I went flying backwards. I remember waking up and I was spitting up blood.”

In a matter of seconds she suffered a broken jaw and broken facial bones, as well as cuts to her mouth, face and parts of her chest that weren’t protected by her vest. It took 30 stitches to close up her wounds, her jaw was wired shut for a month and she had to take six months off riding. But she lived to tell the tale and encourage others to wear a vest.

“The vest being only half done up was the reason I was cut open on my chest. If it was done up I wouldn’t have sustained any injuries below my jaw. The doctor had said without the vest who knows what would have happened,” Wurr says. “I know that without it, on that September evening I very easily could have died.”

But in order to do their job, vests must fit correctly, which is why they must be fitted by someone knowledgeable about protective vests.

“You need to be fit by someone who knows what they are doing,” says Newton. “I see a lot of women trying to fit into a smaller size and they can’t breathe and obviously you can’t ride then. Every

By Melissa KosowanVests Offer Protection For All Riders

Photo Courtesty Of: Karl Slezak

www.horse.on.ca | 29

Safety First

vest fits differently and requires somebody to actually outfit you.”She says parents are often guilty of buying a vest that they think their child will “grow into.”

“We see that all the time,” says Newton, who recommends young riders starting out look for a vest that can be adjusted to allow them to ride in it longer before they outgrow it.

For people with special size requirements, custom fitting is also an option when trying to find a vest.

“I had a woman with a spine issue,” says Newton. “She had been in an accident and had a degenerative spine disease. She was shrinking and she had a very small torso. I didn’t have a vest to fit her, so we designed a vest for her.”

In addition to properly fitting the rider, the protective vest chosen must also be suitable for the discipline it will be used for.

“There are so many times people buy the wrong thing. They will buy an Eventing vest and they will ride in it all the time and try to do their flat work and they don’t understand why it’s hitting the back of their saddle,” Newton says, explaining that Eventing vests come down further on the back than other models. “First of all it doesn’t fit properly and second of all, it’s designed for Cross-Country.”

While most riders now understand the importance or wearing a riding helmet, protective vests have been slower to catch on, particularly in North America. In Europe and the UK, they are commonly worn by riders of all disciplines and levels.

“Not as many people wear a vest. It really started with Eventing and then the rodeo stuff and now it’s trickling down. In the past few years people are becoming more aware that it’s probably a good idea,” says Newton. “It’s realistic to expect that it’s going to take a long time for people to change their minds about that.”

While most riders know to look for the ASTM/SEI certification logo when purchasing a riding helmet, it’s not as clear cut when it comes to vests. Because the demand for protective vests is higher overseas, particularly the UK and Europe, some vests are certified with the British Equestrian Trade Association (BETA). There are few on the market, however, that are ASTM/SEI certified.

But just because a vest isn’t SEI certified doesn’t necessarily mean it’s inferior.

“It’s a very confusing conversation for a lot of people,” says Newton. “Remember that ASTM is the group that writes the standard. As a manufacturer we take those requirements and go make the product to their specifications. SEI adopts certain standards and then can certify them through an independent test lab.”

She explains that the SEI doesn’t automatically go through the process to certify a product made to a particular ASTM standard. First there needs to be enough products made to the same standard to warrant the certification process.

“It has to be viable that there is more than one product on the market. For example, the ASTM standard on our Competitor – we’re the only one in North America making a vest to that

standard, so it’s difficult for SEI to find the value in certifying that product.”

In the case of Tipperary’s best-selling Eventer model, it was made before there were ASTM standards.

“The Eventer was created to an old BETA standard,” says Newton. “We didn’t have ASTM standards at the time. That certification didn’t mean anything in North America way back when and, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

No matter what type of protective vest you end up choosing, the experts are quick to remind riders to make sure it’s something that they will wear!

“Don’t buy something because someone else said it’s comfortable,” Newton says. “You need to feel comfortable in it and find the right model that’s designed for your discipline.” T

Pho

to C

ourt

esty

Of:

Tip

pera

ry E

ques

tria

n