0306 Albany, OR Newspaper article

Northwest fair not just horsing around

By Jennifer Moody
Albany Democrat-Herald

March 19. 2006

ALBANY — Paula Lenz has been wearing a helmet on horseback ever since she learned to ride 25 years ago.

Back then, said the Reno native, now 55, helmets were almost unknown. But she’d suffered head injuries in a car accident and wasn’t eager to put her skull in jeopardy again.

So when clinician Scot Hansen urged riders to wear helmets during a presentation Saturday at the Northwest Horse Fair and Expo, Lenz came to his booth to extend her thanks.

“I just loved that he’d been promoting that,” she said. “Once you see how vulnerable your skull really is, you wear a helmet.”

Lenz, Hansen and other riders attending this weekend’s horse fair at the Linn County Fair & Expo Center agree: Helmets are a growing trend, even among traditional Western riders.

Traditionally, equestrians who prefer English-style riding have been more apt to wear a helmet because the style already includes a round black hat similar to a brimless bowler.

“The Western rider would look at it and say, ‘Well, I’m not an English rider, I don’t want to wear a helmet,’” said Hansen, who spoke on helmets as part of his presentation, “Self Defense for Trail Riders.”

“But over time, we’ve realized there’s a lot of head injuries through horsemanship.”

Head injuries account for about 60 percent of deaths resulting from equestrian accidents, according to the American Medical Equestrian Association. The association also notes that a human skull can be shattered by an impact of 4 to 6 mph.

Hansen, a former Seattle police officer, said he began wearing a riding helmet after he retired from the force four years ago because he’d seen enough injuries on the job to recognize the need.

Other riders didn’t understand, he said. “People would say, ‘Oh, what do you need that thing for?’ ‘Those things look silly.’ ‘Those are for English riders.’”

Manufacturers are starting to make helmets that don’t mimic the English look, Hansen said, but more importantly, people are starting to recognize the benefits of protection.

“One day, you say, you know what, it doesn’t matter what everyone else is doing,” he said.

Not everyone wants to wear one, however. Ruth and Warren Good of Scio, who raise and sell Tennessee Walkers, feel they should be required for inexperienced riders or children under 16 but don’t wear any themselves.

“I’ve been riding all my life. Nobody wore a helmet when I was a kid. I’ve just never started wearing a helmet,” said Ruth Good, who was spending the weekend at the expo with the Northwest Pleasure Tennessee Walking Horse Association. “I know statistics are that you should have one.”

The Goods wear helmets for motorcycles, which they say are necessary because of the amount of forward speed.

Horses are more unpredictable than machines, argued fellow association member Jeff Hunter of Scio — although, he acknowledged, he doesn’t wear a helmet, either.

“But that doesn’t make me smart, though,” he added with a grin.

Cassie Thomas, 16, of Veneta said she won’t go riding without a helmet and has convinced her father, Roger, to wear one also.

“I feel much safer with a helmet,” said Thomas, who rode a Tennessee Walker named Star during a drill Saturday. “I like my brains in my head. It’s kind of a security blanket, actually. I don’t want to get hurt.”