How dangerous is horseback riding, comparatively?

September 12, 2011 7:21 PM

Can someone help me find a some stats about the relative dangerous-ness of horseback riding to other common sports/activities?

I'm not really interested in how many people it kills or seriously injures each year in total. I'd like to know how it compares to the same 'seat time' on a motorcycle, skydiving, driving a car, skateboarding, etc... Something like that. The more info the better. I haven't been able to find anything other than very unofficial looking top ten lists and the like.
Thanks

posted by gummo to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (9 answers total)

At the end of the day it's going to be like any other activity. It's going to depend on how you're doing it. Riding a motorcycle is relatively safe going down the highway. Riding certain bikes are for the advanced rider, etc.

There's a big difference between taking an old mare out for a trollop and playing professional polo.

I've been around horses no one can ride. I've also tried riding one such horse. Not going to repeat that mistake.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:34 PM on September 12, 2011

Wow. I have no stats, but... all of my motorcycle friends, most of which do not own a car and some of which who have been riding for 20+ years, all say that sooner or later you will "drop" your bike. This means you will get into an accident while riding your bike.

I know plenty of folks who ride horses (including moi) who have never been thrown. Although we all know it can happen.

Many many many more people ride motorcycles or skateboards than horses. Please account the statistics accordingly. These sound like comparisons you can only draw mathematically after doing additional calculations beyond given base statistics.
posted by jbenben at 7:52 PM on September 12, 2011

Try scholar.google.com, searching for horse riding injuries. The second hit, reporting on a single survey of 557 folks who ride at least six times per year, says "The overall injury rate was 0.6 per 1000 riding hours."
posted by Monsieur Caution at 7:56 PM on September 12, 2011

I rode for years and years and have thousands of saddle hours under my belt, and I have seen (and experienced myself) some pretty serious injuries to both horses and riders. That being said, it was almost always because someone was doing something really freaking stupid or on a horse they shouldn't have been on (these two categories overlap significantly). There are of course freak accidents where horses trip and fall or get spooked by something totally crazy, but if you are riding a safe horse in a safe manner with the people around you doing the same, I think horseback riding is safer than most contact sports... And certainly safer than crazy stuff like jumping from an airplane. I wish I ad stats to back this up, but I wonder if this type of thing is hard to get truly accurate stats on because of the very high number of backyard/pleasure type riders out there (those that are not participating in an organized activity).
posted by LyndsayMW at 8:02 PM on September 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

This isn't exactly the data you're looking for, but the NIH has a paper: Horseback riding injuries among children and young adults. The abstract mentions odds ratios and hours per month, though doesn't note the same statistics for other sports.
posted by reeddavid at 8:37 PM on September 12, 2011

Also, from this page: A 2002 study, also from overseas, suggested that riders received 1 injury per 100 hours for leisure riding, 1 injury per 5 hours for amateur racing with jumps, and 1 injury per 1 hours riding when participating in cross country eventing. In the adventure and tourism industry it is suggested that the rate is as low as 1 per million participation hours.
posted by reeddavid at 8:41 PM on September 12, 2011

I ride, did it professionally for years, and it is pretty dangerous, statistically speaking. Being a pro is one of the things they often exclude you from private health insurance for so I'd try looking at insurance statistics. Or contact USET, they would have the stats on hand since they offer teaching insurance and group health for professionals.

fwiw, my brothers race cars and see way less injuries than I do riding.
posted by fshgrl at 10:50 PM on September 12, 2011

Best answer: This feels a bit dirty linking here, but the freakonomics people explored this a bit, in their fashion.

Having heard tales told by my-wife-the-horseperson, I have no doubt there is a lot of potential for injury on or around horses, and I wouldn't be shocked if every 1,000 hours spent riding a horse was more dangerous than every 1,000 hours spent riding a motorcycle, on average. However, I would also imagine it's a lot easier to rack up 1,000 hours on the motorcycle, and more people ride motorcycles--so more people are actually injured on their bikes in any given period.
posted by maxwelton at 2:42 AM on September 13, 2011

I blogged this list back in 2006, but unfortunately I didn't link to the source, so I have no idea where it came from. It's reported injuries by sport, for one year. Of course, without some context about injury rates, it's not super meaningful.

The Top 10

1 Basketball: 512,213
2 Bicycling: 485,669
3 Football: 418,260
4 Soccer: 174,686
5 Baseball: 155,898
6 Skateboards: 112,544
7 Trampolines: 108,029
8 Softball: 106,884
9 Swimming/Diving: 82,354
10 Horseback riding: 73,576

The bottom line is that if you spend a lot of time around horses, sooner or later you will get thrown off one, or you foot will get stepped on in the barn, or whatever. Horses are prey animals, and no matter "bomb proof" you think a horse is, it will spook.

My daughter rides, a lot, and has for about 8 years now. The only animal inflicted injury she has sustained so far is a broken toe, from our 30 lb beagle stepping on her foot. Learning how to fall off a horse can do a lot to mitigate the results of the fall. Luckily, it was the first thing my daughter's riding instructor taught her when she started at age 7.
posted by COD at 5:59 AM on September 13, 2011