I wouldn’t be too worried about the rings getting banged up, but actually losing your finger! If the ring got caught in anything, and the horse takes off…
A friend of mine who is a nurse and runs her own barn has seen several broken fingers, warning, gory!, skinned fingers, sliced off fingers from accidents that had to do with people wearing rings while working at the barn.
If you don’t want to take your rings off, wear a glove.
If you board, no matter how much you like your other boarders/etc., I would find a safe place in the car to keep them, or leave them at home.
You really don’t want to loose a finger when you bang your hand or something (or your horse does) and it swells…
With respects to my wife’s engagement ring, the ring and riding go hand in hand: http://thelaughinggypsy.smugmug.com/photos/562936019_5k3qk-S.jpg
My engagement ring is a good sized stone but the setting it is in is incredibly study and it would really take a lot to get it dislodged from the setting. Both my engagement ring and wedding band have smaller diamonds inlaid in the band (but not pave, I would worry about pave stones)
I wear both my rings all the time at the barn, because I get wicked blisters if I wear just my wedding band. I wear gloves all the time when I ride and if I’m doing heavy chores like unloading a ton of hay, etc.
I would never want a wedding band with stones on it. Little stones are a massive dirt trap. And I would definitely want to take a ring with a large stone off at the barn, as besides getting dirty I’d be scared of damaging the setting.
Plus, if I had to do anything in surgical gloves (I wear them for sheath cleaning and applying stinky or dangerous meds) I wouldn’t want to have to take it off and risk losing it. So I’d leave a large engagement or right-hand ring at home.
I wouldn’t worry so much about the rings as I would my fingers. “Degloving” ain’t pretty. It’s too easy to get a ring caught on something. When I worked at a factory I was surprised they allowed people to wear a wedding band and/or engagement ring around all kinds of moving machinery, even though 99% of us wore gloves. When I worked as an electrician, rings of any kind were prohibited- my boss wore his on a necklace.
I don’t wear any jewelry to the barn and that includes my wedding ring. I have heard the stories of people losing fingers or at least a lot of skin plus I don’t like how the reins feel when i have rings on. I keep everything in a coin a purse if I go straight from work, otherwise it all stays home.
Most of the time I leave my engagement ring in the house. My wedding band was chosen with the barn in mind and is a plain platinum band.
Not a wedding / engagement ring, but I regularly wear a small sapphire ring that holds special meaning to me. The only place I don’t wear it is to the barn or when up to my elbows in computer guts. The few times I have worn it riding (with gloves or without), it rubbed my finger raw where the reins were in contact with it. After a few blisters under the band, I decided to skip wearing it to the barn.
However, I have been known to follow a solution I picked up from some married guitar players I know: when not wearing the ring due to some activity that the ring might interfere with, I thread it onto a necklace and wear it around my neck.
I have a 10k band with tiny diamond chips recessed in it. I picked it out because I ride and drive horses, and also am an RN. My fiancee wanted to give me a fancier ring, but I declined. I don’t want a giant “rock” that could tear through latex gloves and pose an infection risk. Since I spend 99% of my time working or at the barn, I figure if I had a fancy ring, I’d never wear it anyway, so what’s the point? It was also not that expensive, under $300: worst case scenario, we replace it. 
When I worked as an electrician, rings of any kind were prohibited- my boss wore his on a necklace.
OSHA can and will fine you for wearing a ring on a jobsite.
I take mine off. I have a marquis that stands far out, and channel set diamonds on the band of both. They are big diamonds but HUGE dirt suckers.
I can’t ride with them on either. I get calluses.
[QUOTE=dixiedolphin;5783751]
However, I have been known to follow a solution I picked up from some married guitar players I know: when not wearing the ring due to some activity that the ring might interfere with, I thread it onto a necklace and wear it around my neck.[/QUOTE]
Yep. My friend who’s an OB/GYN did this when she was married and used to wear her engagement ring–it just doesn’t work pulling gloves on and off over stones, so she’d wear it on a necklace.
Pre-March 2011: I was in the band only camp. I didn’t like the idea of damaging my engagement ring or losing stones. The stones in my band are channel set, so it wasn’t really a concern. And it wasn’t uncommon to have my college ring on my other hand.
Post-March 2011: The totally freak mishap that resulted in the spiral-fracture-through-the-knuckle of my right ring finger brought the revelation that, had my ring been on it, the damage would have been worse, and I’d have had to kiss the ring goodbye when they cut to pieces to remove it. My Aggie ring is less replaceable to me than my wedding band, so that’s an awful thought. :lol: The finger is still too swollen and damaged to get a ring on, in spite of surgery and pins to fix it. Getting back to the point, that injury thoroughly convinced me that rings of any sort should not be worn when handling horses.
I am a cop. I didn’t want to risk losing, or damaging, my rings while working. Soon after my engagement I got a cheaper gold eternity band that has several small diamonds. This has become my “duty ring.” When riding, I always wear gloves. It was annoying to me to have the rings under the gloves, so I just kept my “duty ring” on. I used to switch it out more, but now I rarely wear the “real” rings and just wear them for special occasions.
I don’t wear any jewelry when I go to the barn and ride except for a cheap watch.
Besides worrying about something happening to my rings (dinged, damaged, etc)… I’m also worried about safety.
And for me, the very few times that I happened to have a ring on when I rode… it was very uncomfortable for me! Since the rein is right against it and I found that when I closed my fingers, it would push into my ring finger.
So nope… don’t wear them there. If going to the barn after work, I have a small little cosmetic bag that I put them in (along w/ any hair things I wore at work that day and my security badge). And that goes into my napsack that I put my riding clothes in to change into. And that’s locked in my car.
On weekends, I just leave them at home.
I used to wear my rings all the time, but the barn made them filthy. So when I lost a small diamond out of my wedding ring, that was it. We found a plain gold band that is very low profile that I now wear all the time. The wedding and engagement rings come out for special occasions and the anniversary ring comes out for very special occasions.
My good rings are safe and my everyday band is easy to wear all the time without getting it dirty. It fits very well and is very comfortable, but if I lose it, it isn’t the disaster my other rings would be! DH would forgive me. 
SCFarm
Depends on the ring…my wedding ring is a recessed setting with no prongs to grab anything…and I’ve worn it almost 24/7 for the last 9 years. But I recently inherited a gorgeous ring with 6 stones and an impressive mounting…and ain’t no way it’s going to the barn LOL it’s a wreck waiting for a place to happen.
I do wear gloves to ride, every time.
I have a center diamond (low set) with marquis on the side, and also an anniversary band with channel set diamonds. I wear both all the time. Period. When we bought hte wedding band, I did deliberatly look for a low set diamond because of riding, if channel set had been more available then I would have gotten that for sure! Anyway, I have mine inspected every six months, and keep the tips up, and haven’t had any problems. I am more afraid of losing them if I keep taking them off:)
After my rings came off while throwing hay to horses one cold winter night, all rings stay safe in the jewelry box! I did find the rings, but it took a good hour or two of grief and tears going through the hay in the dark with a flashlight.
I bough (beautiful) sturdy platinum rings (stronger than gold) and insured them. I never take them off. I wear them to the barn but I almost always wear gloves when I’m actually handling the horses.
I bought them a 1/2 size too small so I wouldn’t take them off to play with, so I have no worried about them flying off my fingers. Also, I am very forgetful about things sometimes so I would worry about losing them if I took them off frequently. But I would rather take them off and put them somewhere else than wear them on a chain. Nothing breaks easier than a necklace, and you don’t notice until it’s too late.
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