United States Eventing Association

The increasingly popular Inflatable air jackets have caught the interest of the Thoroughbred racing community, as they seek to increase the safety initiatives in their sport. Check out this interesting article in the Daily Racing Forum as author Marcus Hersh explores some of the reasons why air jackets could be as common as eye goggles or helmets in a short time, as well as some of the obstacles that must be overcome before they hit the mainstream racing world.

Excerpt from the article:

“A horse in the starting gate can rear up and bounce you off unforgiving metal. That’s what killed jockey Alvaro Pineda at Santa Anita in 1975. Some horses get fired up in the post parade and flip over. Getting a horse to “whoa” after a race has ended can lead to trouble, too. In 1961, Sidney Cole died at Aqueduct when his mount propped while being pulled up, throwing Cole headfirst into the rail. And this does not even begin to account for the multitudinous dangers inherent in the actual running of a race.

What’s surprising, really, is that accidents that paralyze riders or kill them don’t happen more often. In horse racing, few technological features exist that can improve the safety of a jockey. You can count the major safety advances of the last 100 years on one hand: goggles, helmets, safety vests, safer rails, and starting gates. But something that might cut back on rare tragic outcomes has hit the sport’s horizon. The inflatable safety jacket, a jockey’s airbag, has taken off among riders in equestrian events and is in the process of making the jump to racing.”

Read the rest of this article here.