I don’t ride XC, I ride hunters and show the All Around at a breed level, but to weigh in on an Exo-esque type vest – I’d absolutely buy one just to school at home and I imagine I might not be the only other market outside of eventers. Trail riders, people who frequently have to ride alone, exercise riders, etc.
The sad part about this is that I had no ideathat something like this had been on the market or available. It’s not like I’m new to the industry, either - twenty years riding, multiple national titles - and I currently own nine horses that I keep legged up by myself. I basically spend 50% of my time with my horses, and the other 50% working to pay for the horses. JER’s Instagram video was fantastic, because it’s been hard for me to research it now - when you search for more information, it just lots of ads for air vests. If they didn’t make money with it, I’d seriously consider their depth of market penetration.
One of my biggest riding fears has always been somehow ending up underneath my horn in my western saddle, if a horse slips or does something stupid. Our industry had a fairly well known trainer crushed last year; he’s back to riding now thankfully - but it took almost a year to get back in the saddle full time. I don’t know if an EXO-vest solution would’ve solved the entire problem, but crushing your pelvis sounds a lot more survivable that crushing your sternum.
His initial Facebook post after the accident explained the severity:
I know many of you wonder what happened to me. I had a terrible horse accident on January 2nd. It was just a freak accident-as all horse people need to understand can happen at any time. I was lucky enough to be able to call 911 in between blacking out (as I was all alone). I was airlifted 50 miles to Rochester Mayo Clinic. I was unconscious for that ride. I was on life support and ventilator for 5 days. I am told I had 7 surgeries the first few days. The first surgery was 12 hours long and they were working on my stomach as the saddle horn had ripped my small intestine apart and allowed all that stuff into the cavity. 9 hours into surgery they realized my leg artery had been severed and my leg was without blood supply that whole time. They thought they would have to amputate my leg. Luckily they were able to save it, the artery was so damaged they had to use a plastic of some sort to reattach . My femur was shattered and when they went to put it back together 2 inches of bone was crushed, so they inserted the rod and had to guess how long to make my leg. I had brain bleeding , blood clots, blood infection among other things and many many surgeries since. My pancreas is damaged and as of right now my stomach is upside down. They will have to do another surgery in a few months to fix that once the trauma of this accident has settled. I was in icu for 20 or more days. Been in hospital for 41 days but managed to get moved to a hospital closer to home this week. They don’t know if I will be in here for another month,2 or more. They say my case is very complicated and time will tell. I’m sorry this is a long book to read. Just wanted to let all that wondered what happened. Thank you all for the support. I am still in shock how much support and how many friends have reached out, be it cards, text, phone calls, the support for “#rideformonte”. As bad as this is you all have lifted my spirits. Thank you
