Rider safety in equestrian an ongoing discussion with focus on helmets and protective airbags

VERSAILLES, France (AP) — When Laura Kraut competed in equestrian at the Paris Olympics she was one of the few showjumpers wearing a protective airbag vest. That's likely to change.

Along with horse welfare, rider safety is an ongoing issue for the sport's international governing body, the FEI, which is working to develop helmets and airbag vests.

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.

“He 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 The Associated Press after placing eighth in the 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.’”

Mark Hart, who chairs the FEI's medical committee, says a working group — including scientists, doctors, helmet representatives and a rider — focuses on improvements to helmets to reduce head injuries.

“We have to use a lot of epidemiological studies, clinically, but also bio-medical engineering,” Hart said. The FEI confers with other federations and sports, including motocross, where competitors also risk concussion.

Awareness around the symptoms and effects of concussion is improving, generally, 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 told the AP. “There's a whole gradation of concussions, and sometimes the effects are immediate and sometimes they are," delayed.

Jumping and cross-country — which forms part of eventing— remain the riskiest equestrian disciplines.

“If you look at the data from an absolute value, jumping is going to have the most reports of concussion because there's more jumpers" competing, Hart said. "If you look at it in relative value, eventing has a little bit more (risk) because they move faster (and) there's cross country.”

Cross-country fences are rigid and don't collapse on a horse's impact, whereas in jumping they do.

“Eventing is kind of unique because the fences are also involved in the injuries," Hart said. “Horse falls are incredibly complicated. When you fall off a horse, you don’t know if you’re going left, right, if the horse is rotating over you, or how you’re going to land. Is the horse going to land on top of you? Is the horse going to step on you?"

The falls can sometimes be fatal. In May, British eventing rider Georgie Campbell died in after a fall at the international horse trials in Devon, England.

Laura Collett won gold with Britain in team eventing at the Paris Games and bronze in the individual category. Eleven years ago she almost died in a horse fall. She was resuscitated five times, fractured a shoulder and sustained two broken ribs, a punctured lung, a lacerated liver and kidney damage.

Kraut has had horses fall on her and, while it's not something she thinks about now, she says it's "another reason for the airbags.”

Hart estimates one third of cross-country riders wear the 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.

Some question the effectiveness of the airbags, which are commonly used in elite motorcycle racing.

Not Kraut. She's convinced the vests, which inflate in a similar way to those in motor vehicle collisions, offer good protection.

“It has definitely kept me from having broken ribs, and I have not had any whiplash," said Kraut, who helped the U.S. team win silver in the team final. “So it has been great.”

Jana Wargers, a reserve on the German team, hasn't ridden without an airbag vest in the last two years. The only drag, she said, is refilling the air cartridge.

Belgian rider Gilles Thomas, who placed 20th in the individual competition, is considering using one.

“The only thing is that it’s quite warm,” Thomas said. “But one day if they (incorporate it) in the jacket straight away, then why not?”

Airbags have to be clipped on, and there is concern the noise if it's deployed frightens the horse.

“The horses don’t even budge," Kraut said. “That was probably my biggest concern and one of the reasons I didn’t wear it when it first came out. I was worried that the noise would frighten the horse.”

Now, it's second nature.

“If anything, you so don't notice it that one or two times you forget to unhook it when you get off," she said, laughing.

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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games