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Horse and Hound magazine has reported this week that an equine safety armour company is cutting its losses and closing after sales suffered from whiplash fears and what the company owner called "antagonism", despite recent stories of the equipment having saved riders from death.
A director said, "Too many people opposed it too strongly - and no one has had the guts to stand up and say everyone should wear it. Untrue rumours have spread that it wasn't safe, that you can't roll in it and, as a result, it has sold very few." The patent is being donated to the Riding for the Disabled Association.
One of the oppositional voices was a spokesperson for Doctors at Events, who expressed fears that hyperextension neck injuries could result from an accident that occurs while wearing the armour, and argued that it was too difficult to remove from a rider who had suffered personal injury.
Riders who have benefited from the armour, however, have praised it. The eventer Lisa Bray, after surviving a rotational fall, said that she would "never ride cross-country without an Exo again".
Internet discussion of the story seems evenly balanced between those in favour of its life-saving properties and those against, usually on grounds of an adverse affect to weight, flexibility and the likelihood of receiving a neck injury. One commenter, however, suggests "a whiplash injury has to be better than being crushed to death."
