Vests Offer Protection For All Riders

Safety First
Photo Courtesty Of: Karl Slezak
Vests Offer Protection For All Riders
By Melissa Kosowan
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.
“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.”
“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.
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.
“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.”
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.
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 firsthand the protection vests offer.
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“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.”
“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
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.
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
“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.
“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
Photo Courtesty Of: Tipperary Equestrian
But just because a vest isn’t SEI certified doesn’t necessarily
mean it’s inferior.
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