Equestrian safety and welfare, as the bodies and studies publish them.

This section is a reference to what has been published about injury, risk and welfare in equestrian sport. It is not a safety course. Riding, handling, leading, loading, falling and first aid are learned in person from a qualified coach or riding school, and horse health belongs with a vet; nothing on these pages replaces either. Falls are the leading cause of injury in every review of the medical literature in our research, and neurological trauma the leading cause of death, as the 2018 Chalmers University review and others report. The British Horse Society, for its part, states that no riding hat can protect every rider in every situation.

How these pages are written

• Every figure has an owner and a year. Injury and fatality figures are each study's or body's published finding, given with its authors or body, the period it covers and its date.
• Rules carry their body and date. Helmet, concussion, whip, blood and noseband rules are given as each body published them. Where the FEI's own rulebook site refused our requests, the page says which copy or report was used instead.
• Nothing here certifies gear. No page says a helmet or protector is safe, certified or allowed at a competition; the body's current rules, its hat tag and its officials decide that.
• Injuries and illnesses are named, not treated. A suspected rider injury needs medical care, and a horse that may be ill needs a vet. The pages name conditions from medical and veterinary sources and say so.
• Welfare disputes show each side. Where the FEI, national federations, riders' groups and scientists disagree, each position is given with its source and date.
• Gaps are admitted. Where a document could not be read or a figure could not be confirmed, the page says so.

What is in this section

Start with what the injury data shows, which sets the US trauma and emergency-department studies beside the Swedish and French reviews and the Canadian and Australian work. Eventing safety and frangible devices covers the FEI's fall statistics for 2016 to 2025, the peer-reviewed fall studies, and how frangible fences entered the rules after the deaths of 1999 and 2007 to 2008.

Three pages cover rules that protect riders. Helmet rules and history traces how the US and European helmet standards came about and when the FEI and national bodies made headgear compulsory. Concussion protocols summarises each body's concussion rules with their dates. Riding on roads sets out UK law, the Highway Code and the British Horse Society's road incident figures, with Florida's 2009 helmet law.

Three pages cover horse welfare in sport. Horse welfare and the FEI reports the FEI's ethics commission, its recommendations and the hyperflexion dispute. Whips, blood and nosebands gives the 2025 and 2026 rule changes and who argued each side. Heat and competition explains the FEI's heat index and the 2018 Tryon endurance cancellation.

Horse health named names colic, laminitis, strangles, equine influenza and EHV-1 from veterinary and government sources. Learning from qualified instruction reports what the Highway Code, the BHS, English licensing law, US Equestrian and Equestrian Canada each say about riding instruction.

Related reading

For what each standard tests and which body accepts it, see the equipment section, including helmet standards and body protectors, and the helmet standards checker. For how the disciplines are run, see Learn, and for how safety rules changed over time, see the history section. Terms are explained in the glossary.