A Critical Review of Horse-Related Risk: A Research Agenda for Safer Mounts, Riders and Equestrian Cultures.
Authors: Thompson Kirrilly, McGreevy Paul, McManus Phil
Journal: Animals : an open access journal from MDPI
Summary
# Editorial Summary Horse-related injuries remain a significant but under-researched public health concern, prompting Thompson, McGreevy and McManus (2015) to undertake a critical examination of how risk is conceptualised and managed across four interconnected dimensions: the inherent risk itself, equine behaviour and predictability, rider capability, and the broader cultural attitudes that shape equestrian practice. Through narrative review and thematic analysis, the authors identified that current risk management approaches heavily favour acceptance and avoidance—rooted in widespread perceptions of horses as inherently unpredictable and dangerous—with substantial investment in transference strategies such as protective equipment, whilst the most under-utilised approach, risk mitigation, receives minimal attention in equestrian culture. Their analysis reveals that meaningful injury reduction hinges on two evidence-based interventions: enhancing horse predictability through improved horsemanship and training practices, and developing riders' physical competence and resilience through targeted conditioning and skill development. The findings carry immediate implications for equestrian professionals across disciplines, suggesting that farriers, veterinarians, physiotherapists and coaches should collectively shift focus toward building systemic competence and understanding rather than relying solely on protective gear, and that a coordinated, multidisciplinary research agenda is essential to translate these insights into measurable safety improvements across the industry.
Read the full abstract on PubMed
Practical Takeaways
- •Move beyond reliance on helmets alone—invest in improving your own physical competence and resilience through targeted training to actively mitigate fall injury risk
- •Invest time in understanding equine behavior and improving predictability of horses in your care; this reduces accidents more effectively than accepting risk as inevitable
- •Advocate for industry-wide adoption of evidence-based risk mitigation strategies rather than accepting horse-related injuries as an unavoidable cost of riding
Key Findings
- •Horse-related risk is managed primarily through acceptance and avoidance strategies rather than mitigation, likely due to cultural perception of horses as inherently unpredictable and dangerous
- •Risk transference through protective technologies such as helmets is widely adopted, but this passive approach is insufficient without active mitigation strategies
- •Risk mitigation strategies focused on improving horse predictability and rider physical competence represent the least utilized but potentially most effective intervention pathway
- •A multidisciplinary research agenda is needed to systematically reduce accident, injury and death in equestrian populations