To carry on with my thoughts from the other day, Fear to Courage FB Group Post!
It really got me thinking, how common are horse accidents? I did quite a bit of research and there are a lot of different ways to look at it. I like the study from OSU extension office. It was based on 1000 hours of participation in sports versus injury. I actually was a little shocked to see that riding was just ahead of cycling, swimming and golf, and behind everything else! Football was the worst, baseball and downhill skiing were more injuries than horseback riding.
Some of the things that I found really interesting in my research are that the oldest participants in most Olympics are the riders. This means that even at this level of competition, there is a lot of success as we age. When I was young, I had dreams of competing at the Olympics and I remember the Los Angeles games and my trainer got to be ring crew. I was so excited to watch the ground crew! I didn't have enough talent to get to that level of competition, but it sure did look amazing. I love that it is one of the few sports that men and women compete against each other, the horses are the equalizer.
So back to how common are horse accidents. More research showed that with the safety measures that are now in place, the MIPS helmets, vests, etc, the severity of the injuries has been reduced. This is great news. I know I love my MIPS helmet! It fits amazing. This is the one I have and love! Click here to check it out!
What about compared to other things, not sports related? It was a lot harder to find research, so I am just going with my experience. I have had 5 or 6 concussions. None of these were riding. One was horse related when I was picking out feet and stood up under the cross bar in the cross ties and knocked myself out and gave myself a concussion. I have not had any broken bones (knock on wood) but if I had, it would have been from a number of things not horse related. Skiing has been my biggest downfall. I had to have surgery on my knee and had my neck severely damaged from being hit by a snowmobile.
I am going to share more on my thoughts on how all of these ties into our fear and why horses cause us anxiety when the other stuff may or may not have the same impact. I still ski after my accidents. I still pick out feet after my accident (and even learned to trim). I still drive after my accidents that were not my fault.
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