BONUS VIDEO: Off My High Horse

FYI, about 30 million Americans ride a horse in a year (Wikipedia / Equestrianism) and a little over 5 million play tackle football (https://www.statista.com/statistics/191658/participants-in-tackle-football-in-the-us-since-2006/). Maybe because a lot of people ride a horse as a one-off, vacation activity.

Heather E

If the average horseback rider wore as much protective gear as the average organized football player, there would probably not be as many serious horse related injuries. The takeaway here is when around massive animals moving at high speeds, it's probably a good idea to wear a helmet.

Thomas Calton

"Requestrian" 😆

Jordan Cohen

Yeah I'm on team Wear a Helmet. It's an interesting and novel experience to have, and there's no reason to not do it safely. I know my nephew and niece have been tricked into wearing helmets for things because they got to pick out cool helmets that they like so it is as much of a fashion item as it is for safety, basically a fun costume as far as they are concerned.

Joy René

Always. Wear. a. Helmet. On. Horseback (even if it's a spiked rohirrim-horselord helmet). I guess I would let the kids try and discover what they're interested in and then do my best to protect them against all hazards, futile as it may seem.

Very interesting! I definitely would not have thought it was that often an occurrence. I wonder if it's also just years of westerns with people wearing just cowboy hats and having control of a horse, or medieval films where the armor is for battle, not head safety specifically that has made it seem like helmets aren't really required for riding a horse, but i mean falling from 5-6ft in the air onto hard ground even at a slow speed is dangerous. People wear helmets on bikes and those are much closer to the ground, although usually in use on harder surfaces but still.

Jacob Chimilar