Cheaper brands tend not to have big marketing budgets and lots of sponsored riders.
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Thanks for keeping us updated!
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i had a nice long visit on the phone with a person from Tipperary. She said all that Enjoytheride posted. I also asked her about the difference between the plain Sportage (8500) and the Sportage Hybrid.She said the structural components were the same but that the Hybrid has a removable liner to wash and that was the main difference. I also asked about time to replace a helmet that has never been in a wreck. She said that the industry wide guideline is 5 years (not just a Tipp guideline). Some of this is related to the fact that ASTM revises/reviews/updates their testing every 5 years. Also it is a guideline not set in stone as so much is dependent on use, storage etc that will vary from person to person. Replacement guidelines are NOT based on manufacture date (found inside the helmet, sometimes after you remove the liner or MIPS liner) but based on date of start of use.
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This test by no means is complete or comprehensive. If you look at the explanation of rating information you will see they used a pendulum impact on a head that moves away after the blow. https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/equestrian-helmet-ratings.html I would say that is a good simulation of a kick to the head not a fall to the ground. This document shows how they developed their test. https://www.chronofhorse.com/article/helmet-ratings-are-on-the-horizon-step-inside-the-lab-creating-them They had one person observe videos of people falling off horses to determine the kinds of forces the rider experiences in a fall. Well videos are generally done in more controlled situations. They aren’t going to cover the less controlled situation like a runaway on a trail, or the monster buck when refusing to cross a road. Also only one person observing the videos means you only get that person’s perspective. A second person might have seen other factors. The determination was made that the speed of the horse was not a factor (tell that to an eventor sailing over the head of their horse on a refusal )nor were there any shear forces (the skid marks I’ve collected on my helmets over the years beg to differ).
The surfaces they considered were the ones they found at a local riding center (“sand footing, harder high-clay-content footing, grass and artificial footing”) and used those for determining the boundaries of the forces to be tested. This testing excludes gravel, concrete, asphalt, rocky trail and other surfaces that horses may be navigating. And totally neglects that statistically most horse injuries occur on a trail where the footing is not so consistent.
Personally I love this statement. “If you’re on a trail ride, walking, and your horse bucks you off, that’s not probably not going to be high impact for it to break” Uh I was leading my horse on a trail slipped and cracked my tipperary open on a rock. I’m pretty sure if my horse had bucked me off onto the rock it would have been damaged then too.
There there is this https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/112802/Equestrian%20STAR%20Protocol.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Which shows “This setup allowed for linear and rotational motion to be generated during an impact and representative of the head, neck and torso of a 50th percentile male.” okay that would be nice if most of the equestrians were male but that’s not the case. Google male vs female concussion rates and you will see the musculature of women does (even in active fit women) results in a higher concussion rate than men.
Also there seems to be some question on the shape of the head form they used for the tests and that helmets that were mean for a more oval shape did poorly because of that.
I really wish they had used the cycling test apparatus that duplicates impact with the ground in testing the helmets.
I feel they did the best they could with the money they had but so much more needs to be looked at than the 12 impacts they studied (vs the 24 they studies for cycling and 36 for flag football) Guess we need to pay more attention to the next gofundme they do for this.
The TLDR:
Geeky equestrian engineer feels more comprehensive studies are needed before this test is used as criteria for buying a helmet.
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I have had some time to think about it and I just want to add that the wide ranging interest across the disciplines is so encouraging to me. I grew up in an Every Time, Every Ride video household & my mom was an RN who ran an ICU with plenty of exposure to TBI.
I’m a dressage rider but the attention to both detail and results is heartening to me. Even a few year ago there was so much argument about wearing a helmet AT ALL. But now here we are dissecting the intricacies of a study when it comes to brain bucket security. And that means a lot to me.
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See Webinar details here.
Going to be held 12/12/22 at 7pm EST.
Em
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Yes! The harness sits weird under my chin.
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Completely agree with all of this.
It’s a great start, but I hope people aren’t going to jump to conclusions and use this solely to choose what to buy. It’s a pretty limited study, super interesting re: repeated low impacts but also not suuuuper representative of what impacts helmets will see. I think this will potentially be most relevant to people that have minor falls a lot but can’t replace helmets every time so they fall with the same helmet over and over for years 
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I am TRYING to understand the methods (Test conditions included three impact locations (Table 1) and two impact speeds (4.0 and 6.3 m/s). Helmet position on the headform was set according to fitting guidelines provided by the manufacturer. Four samples of each helmet model were subjected to one impact per location and speed. Two trials were performed at each of the six test configurations, producing a total of 12 impacts per helmet model.) but…2 impact speeds with 3 types of impact is 6 then you do two rounds of tests which is 12 but are you testing each helmet 12 times or are you testing 4 helmets 3 times for a total of 12?
Either way, we are supposed to get rid of a helmet after the first head strike, not the third (or 12th). I would additionally assume that if one part of the helmet was compromised from a fall, the other areas of the helmet would also be compromised. That would lead to subsequent falls having a higher likelihood of injury regardless.
Edit to add more ranting: I would be extremely interested to see this study as one strike per helmet in each of the scenarios (speed and location). I feel like that gives us the most accurate data. I also need to look into how MIPS was studied now…
This lab seems to be one that started with studying things like football helmets, are they required to replace their helmets with the same regularity that’s encouraged to horseback riders? Are there equestrians on the research team? Just food for thought.
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If you watch this video, also linked above, they are clear they purchased 4 helmets of each model. and subject each to 3 tests. (1 test per location) Each of the 3 locations is tested at 2 speeds.
Emily
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Interesting article
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The article from Ride EquiSafe is touching briefly on the highlights of what we will discuss at length on the webinar.
I know, because I have seen the questions from the nearly 600 people registered for the event. There is a TON of pushback on the use of male head forms. It’s kind of interesting that that is the biggest issue, but it is what it is.
Worth noting, the folks who are behind MIPS are also wanting to do a webinar soon. VERY soon.
So I will have that coming shortly. we are finalizing dates now. But this is slightly more of a big deal since their perspective is very interesting given how many sports the device has been adjusted to work in helmets for. Additionally they’re agreeing to do a webinar around 2 am in the morning their time to get to talk to an American Audience about MIPS and this study in particular.
MIPS came out with a press release about this study yesterday and they’re pointing to some issues in the testing that could be better.
Emily
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I had a Protege too (also an oval head). I had a moderate crash in it. It cracked horribly to the left of the impact point, but I had a squeaky clean head CT.
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Wow! Incredible to see the inside as just foam and tape, isn’t it? I bounced a Protege off a painted, rough wooden fence last year, with my head in it, hard enough to leave impact marks on both the fence and the helmet, and I was ok too.
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Did they account for the fact that each time we have an impact, we tend to replace helmets, though? My concern is that these results are less generalizable based off of industry standard practice as I would assume any previous impacts would leave the helmet compromised? (I will watch that video! Just replying very quickly between work meetings. Thank you for that!)
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It really is!
Glad you were unscathed! Hooray for helmets doing their job!
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I don’t understand the argument in this article that helmet shape didn’t matter because all the helmets fit the headform. I don’t understand how every helmet could fit the same headform equally well. I wish my head fit every helmet equally well. This headform must be like those magical saddles that fit every horse.
“ Does the shape of the helmet tested matter? NO. There was a lot of conversation about if the helmets tested were long oval or round. For the purposes of the test, it doesn’t matter. It matters that the helmet fit the headform.”
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So here’s my layperson understanding.
ASTM allows 4 impacts per helmet. (front, side, side, back)
We replace a helmet because once it is impacted the foam where the impact occurred has done it’s job and has been compromised for the SAFETY OF A HUMAN.
During these tests the focal areas of impact are quite small, relatively, and able to be controlled in the testing environment. That said… because it’s a head form, and not a live brain, the helmet can be focally impacted in multiple spots to ascertain the forces and such at each location.
Also this is where those science, math and physics classes come in. You’re testing reactive pressures and forces and such. The impact on the front with the pendulum doesn’t affect the ability to do the same test on the back. With a human head you cannot (or should not) hit a brain twice. But you can carefully in a controlled way, hit helmets more than once.
Since the helmets are procured (and paid for) by the lab from regular online sellers, it’s accounted for ahead of time and they bought the numbers that they needed to meet all the testing needs. This also accounts for part of why some helmets were not tested yet. Supply chain issues have hampered the helmet market regularly since 2019. Ask any Trauma Void lover like myself, and as such it wasn’t always possible to find and purchase 4 or more of all the models that are needing to be tested. There is more testing coming and for sure there is a mountain of more helmets to test.
40 actually is an impressive number if you consider that this means they had almost 500 helmets to work with. I know when I was at the lab in August it felt like there were helmets EVERYWHERE I went.
Em
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Here is the VT table comparing the various standards.
After reading the documents in the VT Helmet Lab publications list…And specifically the Equestrian STAR Protocol, I still have lots of questions about the statistical rigor of this work.
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Then I would assume you would sign up for the webinar so you can ask him pertinent questions to get the answers these docs are not yet giving you to satisfy your curiosity.
Em
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