Air Jackets

[ellijay]

One of our most sensible and trusted riding school horses has been frightened by a customer falling off twice wearing an inflatable body protector. The jacket inflated with a loud bang right near him and he now associates a rider becoming unbalanced on his back with the noise and has become very stressed and anxious. He is almost unridable now even by the instructors as he is running off and panicking.
The customer wore it as he was told by the tack shop that it was the safest for a novice and is reluctant to swap to a conventional protector but obviously we have asked him to in case he has another fall and scares another horse.
Has anyone had any experience of horses being spooked by these jackets and if so any ideas on how we can help him he is such a lovely boy but we just cant trust him to do his job at the moment.
We have done some de sensitising with bangs and he is fine when no one is on his back but its a different story when he is being ridden.

[wills]

Will be interested what others have to say about this. I would like one but i was anxious about how my mare would react to it going off.

[ba]

I've got the point two air jacket and it doesn't make a bang when it goes off.

[annas]

Yeah i have the point two as well and i dont think its too loud. My horse spooked more at me coming off than that.

But maybe a sensitive horse might have problems if it happened quite often. I think the horse has to be desensitised to the noise. There must be a way to replicate the sound??

Sent from my GT-S5690 using proboards

[jill]

Can you contact the manufacturers, tell them the problem (as in, really it is a design fault with the product) and ask if they can supply you with a re usable version of the trigger and air pump, or whatever makes the noise, so that you can desensitise the horse?
Then as usual, begin with it far enough away not to elicit a response and gradually move closer.