Back in the dark ages when I started riding at hunter shows we were told to put our hair up because we wanted to make the ride look smooth and easy. Loose hair bopping around makes the ride look bouncy and uncomfortable. Then that turned into - since you are putting it up, put it up this way.
(This is just me explaining the reason why we were told to put our hair up.)
How are you proposing that this rule is enforced? Do you think the judge can tell if a person has short hair with a net over it or longer hair with a net and ponytail tucked up? Will stewards be assigned to check helmet hair? Will hairnets or skull caps be against the rules too?
I don’t know if the actual rule from the USEF rule book has already been posted and then deleted, but when anyone starts talking about rules, it seems simple enough to just post the specific rule for those who might be trying to follow the conversation.
I remember very clearly all the discussion at the USHJA annual meeting a few years ago regarding the rule about coat colors. The current wording was a result of that rather lengthy discussion.
From the current USEF rule book:
HU 107.2 Conventional attire following the tradition of fox hunting is encouraged and preferred. It is further recommended that the rider’s attire does not distract from the performance of the horse and rider. Judges shall not eliminate a rider for inappropriate attire except for safety (see GR801). Shirts must have a choker, similar collar or tie. Breeches may be buff, canary, tan, rust or white.
Thank you and I apologize for my laziness. I should have included the rule.
Well a lot are do whatever they “should” or “shouldn’t” be doing is irrelevant.
I think it’s pretty simple. We require helmets be ASTM certified don’t we? We can figure that out from far away, I think we can figure out where somebody’s 2 foot fo pony tail went. Plus I don’t think we would need to. This trend would die fast which would be the point.
It wasn’t long ago that the norm in upper level dressage was to wear top hats instead of helmets. But recently governing bodies realized that the top hat style was actually pretty dangerous so they made a rule.
I feel you.
I went a couple rounds a couple months back and then kind of checked out on it until the whole Pulling Shoes For The Hack topic came up and we all (euphemistically speaking) started arguing over the potential slog that would be enforcing rules related to that. “You want to check every horse going into the hack…?” And I was reminded of There Needs To Be A Rule Outlawing Hunter Hair.
I find it unaccountably sad that really, what seems to drive the most strident arguments over hairstyle and desire for a rule, is insecurity. There’s no rule about hair. It’s just a convention that some people hate.
It’s like a lot of things, the actual impact is probably a matter of degrees.
You can radically affect fit with your hair, or maybe, if you have hair like mine and take care in selecting and fitting a helmet, you might’ve reduced its efficacy by a fraction, or a fraction of a fraction. I suspect that’s the sum of it since, we’ve not established a link and numbers related to a reduction in injuries based on hair down.
I’m not hearing verified accounts or even anecdotal ones about discrimination in the show ring. Brianne Goutal and others have been seen wearing their hair down – I’m wading through old posts because I’m pretty sure I remember seeing a BN-somebody wearing her hair down in a hunter class, too, at Traverse City.
So actually, I don’t know if I’m sad or frustrated that people who can basically Joan of Arc themselves on a flaming soapbox on an internet forum are uncomfortable exercising a choice at a horseshow. A bunch of old ladies ‘make me feel bad. I can wage war, replying to others with claws out but I can’t internally say f’em and hold my head up, hair down, in the show ring.’ And that’s actually what comes across to me here more strongly than any passion for safety.
I’m not hearing accounts of bullying or abuse or being mocked. If there are, that needs to be part of the conversation. It’s curious that it’s not in the whole of this thread.
I still believe the logical starting point is proper helmet fit and if the helmet is fitted properly with how one consistently wears their hair, then you’re wading into degrees of efficacy. It’s important to understand it. But it’s still a matter of degrees. Like deciding whether or not you want to risk the occasional glass of wine when pregnant. What are the degrees and odds and your personal comfort level?
I wrote back on September 10 about ASTM testing being done with steel headforms and the football stuff Helmet struggles (still can’t find my Traverse City hunter rider, though) - There was a 2016 article about all the factors that can compromise football helmet fit and function over the course of a season.
People would rather evangelize against what they think is a DUMB UGLY hairstyle than also ask if sweating through a summer might’ve compromised fit, too (see 2016 football thing in my 9/10 post).
But I really want to revisit the Laura Kraut video I mention in that post.
We hear a lot about Charles Owen and what they have to say about hair. If their expert opinion - like Dr Chambless - is that helmets are optimally effective with hair down, Fair Enough. I don’t argue with that. But again, again, again, the research is about how helmets are designed to function (that’s the expert opinion). Not specifically a hairstyle.
Anyway, nonetheless, here’s Laura Kraut, on the Charles Owen website, talking about how a helmet saved her life but … drumroll … she commonly seems to wear her hair up … rimshot. To be fair, the horse stepped on her with studs. So there’s a lot of different ways to get hurt and a lot of different ways for your helmet to protect you. So start with the baseline of a properly fitting helmet and then decide the rest of the degrees.
I feel like this is just another round of the debate that’s been evolving in the H/J world ever since the first harnesses were put on helmets. First everyone balked at that, then when “approved” helmets came out that met actual safety standards, everyone balked at that. It wasn’t until the top levels embraced them (and perhaps the styles were a little less like wearing a bowl on your head) that it took off everywhere.
Then we had the debates over safety vests, which are also gaining an increasing amount of traction. Over time, maybe once upper level riders start wearing their hair outside of their helmets, everyone eventually will be, and we’ll look back and wonder why it took so long. Especially since it has zero impact on the actual riding, which is the most important thing.
Tradition first for sure - unless tradition is unsafe - in that case, safety first tradition second.
I agree, this will happen gradually, even if it might appear to have an easy solution. The link of medicine and politics in the United States, from COVID to abortion, tells us otherwise. Hopefully I’m wrong!
Can you link to these studies? The video in your post does not even come close to saying that hair up in helmet is bad under all circumstances. The man states that women with ponytails down to their butts who wrap the ponytail around their heads and cram a helmet on top so that the helmet is three inches above their ears are at a high risk; I think we all know that. He then said that sometimes based on head shape, you need the hair in the back to help keep the helmet on. Additionally, he mentioned that during a fall, a little movement of the helmet can be a good thing. One last thing; he said if it becomes a rule that everyone has to wear their hair out of the helmet, everyone will have to get a new helmet because they will no longer fit. Never did he state that the helmets don’t fit with the hair inside (with the exception of the example of the woman with hair down to her butt). I have to mention that I skipped through most of the video, stopping periodically to see if the discussion was related to hair, and I did not find anything until the Q&A at the end. If I missed anything prior to that, I’ll be happy to go to that time stamp to listen.
Again, I am very interested in seeing the links to the studies showing the effects of hair being up in a helmet relative to a concussion. Several people continue to mention these exist, but as far as I know, no one has ever produced a link to one.
I’ve ridden for very nearly six decades, on five continents, on multiple breeds of horses, doing many different horse sports and, so far, the only people that I have ever met that conventionally put their hair up into their helmets are Americans in the hunter show ring.
I’ve seen turbans, berets, felt hats, tricorns, jockey skulls, peaked military caps, plain helmets or ones covered in crystals but only the Americans do “hunter hair”. OK, on thinking, no hair is visible under the turban, LOL.
I’m constantly surprised at how much heat this topic generates.
Given that the path of least resistance is just to ask… I have sent Dr. Chambless a FB friend request.
On Monday I will try to send her an email to her office as well. But she’s more likely than me to be able to reference the correct studies. But I do know that something exists. Just no clue where.
Em
If you get a response, please tag me. I’d like to see the study too, but I have a feeling that since I’m sure she’s very busy it may take a while to get a response back
If they want to invoke “tradition”, it should be a top hat with a veil, and hair in a bun.
This thread takes me back to the days of yore, when COTH posters vehemently argued about how awful show bows are, then gave elaborate instructions for how to put pantyhose on your head in order to fake “hunter hair” if your own hair was too short.
And none of them thought putting undergarments on one’s head was at all absurd.
@RND, These studies do not need to be public. This work was likely done in-house at CO and other helmet manufacturers. Boeing doesn’t publish publicly all of their safety efforts, neither do automobile manufacturers, or even insurance company.
At some point you need to trust that these very dedicated and blrilliant people are actually working for the betterment of our safety. I know Dr. Chambliss as we discussed safety in eventing TBIs. My time with Roy Burek was fascinating as he showed me tons of CO data on how their helmets function as well and all the materials testing they do to make the most effective safety device as possible.
How did I miss this?
Darn… maybe I have never noticed because I have never had hair that short.
Surely one or two of these hundreds of studies are available to the public? As for Roy Burek, isn’t he the one in the video with Dr. Chambless that was posted above? If so, he was asked specifically about hair in the helmet and I summarized what he said (and didn’t say) in my last post. If he is 100% sure that hair in the helmet is unsafe, he certainly did a poor job of expressing it in that video.
Not necessarily. I work in a completely different field, but it is almost unheard of in my field for studies of certain types to ever be made available in any kind of public (e.g. peer reviewed journal) publication. Companies that generate the data simply see no need for it be made public. The people (e.g. regulators) who need to see the studies see the studies and that’s it.
These studies may involve trade secrets in terms of helmet design or materials that can not be made public due to risk of competitors stealing that. I’m sure you understand the capitalistic motivation there. Or, they may simply be studies dictated using ASTM/ISO standards that preclude the necessity of public disclosure as the public can actually run their own equivalent studies.
I don’t publish work I do under ASTM/ISO standards as most large corporations never do either.
As noted there is no real economic benefit to the companies in making these studies public.
@RAyers I am very well aware of trade secrets and confidentiality; I work in the pharmaceutical industry. But I’m still calling BS on the notion that there are hundreds of studies that have been completed on helmet safety comparing hair in and out of the helmet, and EVERY SINGLE ONE of them is subject to some kind of confidentiality agreement that keeps them out of the public eye.
Public interest in safety in equine sports is at an all time high; there are benefits besides economics that should compel the companies to make the studies (or summaries of the studies) public. Heck, Roy Burek from Charles Owen spoke publicly about this very topic. Trade secrets involving helmet design and materials can always be removed. Safety information for drugs and vaccines is available to the public without revealing trade secrets and manufacturing information; it can be done with helmet safety too.
In other words, me thinks thou doth protest too much.
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