High profile dressage rider Silva Martin's recent head injury could have been much worse, but luckily, she was wearing protective headgear. Also: A celebration of the life of influential trainer Bill Cooney, who died last week, will be held Wednesday.
Silva Martin on Rosa Cha W while riding for the winning U.S. Nations' Cup team in Florida last month As U.S. equestrian team physician Mark Hart pointed out, however, "If you're wearing a seatbelt, you can still get injured in a car accident. I think that's a good analogy."
So helmets approved for competition can and have saved lives, but they are no guarantee against some degree of injury. Hart noted, however, that without the protection of a helmet, Martin's outcome "would have been worse; tremendously worse.
The helmet can protect (from) some of the blunt force, but it does not change the acceleration and deceleration that causes a lot of contusions. When you immediately change direction, that's where the brain is injured in the contusion."
He added, "Helmets are purposely made with padding and material that has a little bit of give...there is a little bit of cushioning that can help that sudden deceleration."
Martin was moved last week from her hospital room to a rehabilitation facility in Delray Beach, Fla., where she undergoes hours of speech, occupational and physiotherapy daily. As soon as her neurosurgeon permits, she will be sent home to Pennsylvania for a stay in a rehab hospital there.
"Her health care team in Florida has been very impressed with her progress to date and they are very optimistic for her recovery," Hart said.
Her husband, eventer Boyd Martin, called her, "mentally sharp as a tack." He has been told by her neurosurgeon "that as time goes on and the blood is reabsorbed into her body, her balance, sight and speech will improve. There’s no question it’s a pretty serious injury and will take time to heal, but if you give this kind of thing enough time, things usually come back to 100 percent."
A native of Germany who met her husband in Australia, Martin, 33, became a U.S. citizen several years ago. Before the accident, she had been on a roll, riding with the USA 1 winning Nations' Cup team in Wellington last month and getting attention for her work with homebred Rosa Cha W after winning the Prix St. Georges at the Palm Beach Dressage Derby a week later.
Silva Martin on the podium at the Nations' Cup with her teammates, Tina Konyot, Adrienne Lyle and Shawna Harding Hart, who is acting as a facilitator on Martin's case, said it appears when Martin's horse tripped, "she probably collided with the horse's head at some point, and she also hit the ground, so there were two instances where the helmet was incredibly important."
He noted the horse must have hit her helmet, because there was no trauma to her face.
Martin was wearing a Charles Owen & Co. helmet. A regular with that brand, she changes helmets every two to three years, according to Roy Burek, the firm's managing director.
Helmet manufacturers advise buying a new helmet every five years, since the interior can begin to disintegrate, and to replace headgear immediately if it has been involved in a fall. Another reason for a change is improvement in technology, which Burek noted comes along regularly, as it does with laptops and other devices.
"We need to really understand how helmets can be developed to protect against all injuries. There is no doubt from many research projects that helmets will protect you against skull fracture and major subdural bleeds. But obviously, we know the job's not done, because there are people every day who fall off and have a concussion or a headache or something like that. That's what we're working on," Burek said.
It has been a long road to convince dressage riders they should wear helmets during training and at the Grand Prix level, despite publicity surrounding helmet-wearing Charlotte Dujardin of Great Britain, the 2012 Olympic double gold medalist in dressage.
The turning point for many, however, including Martin, involved the near-fatal head injury sustained in 2010 by Olympic dressage rider Courtney King Dye. She was not wearing a helmet when she was training a horse in Florida and suffered traumatic brain injury in a fall.
Four years and much intensive rehabilitation later, Dye has just become a mother for the first time but still must cope with the lasting effects of her accident in terms of her movement and speech.
Dye, who is in the process of telling her story in a book, "Courtney’s Quest," believes some good can come out of accidents such as hers and Martin's in terms of calling attention to the need for protective headgear. However, there are still top riders, especially in Europe, who prefer to compete in the traditional non-protective top hats.
"I'm certainly not one to criticize, as I rode without a helmet for years, but it saddens me that people can't learn from my mistake," Dye said. She hopes what Martin is going through sends another wake-up call to those who continue to resist wearing a helmet.
In the meantime, Burek and Hart offered safety advice.
Burek noted dehydrated people are more likely to be concussed than those who are not, so it's important to stay hydrated.
The safest helmet, he said, is the one that best fits your head. He explained sweating can break down the foam inside the helmet to affect the fit, so if the helmet is wobbling on your head, it should be replaced. It is crucial that the chin strap is tight, or the helmet can slip forward or back, making it ineffective.
Before the advent of modern helmets, people died on impact, so there weren't as many concussions because they didn't survive the fall, Burek observed.
"Now people are surviving and therefore we have to move on and say, `What can we do to improve the protection even more to allow people to survive even more types of injury.' "
Burek commented that there will be a big focus on the National Football League studies.
"We're learning so much more; I think over the next 10 years, we will see quite a different type of helmet."
Hart's suggestion was succinct: "Any time anybody is mounted for anything, they should wear a helmet properly. That means that the chin strap is fastened tight. There's some inherent risk, but if we can reduce the risk, we need to keep working on that."
ON THE RAIL -- A celebration of the life of Bill Cooney, an influential trainer of national equitation champions, will be held next week in Wellington, Fla.
Cooney, 61, died last week in California after he slipped and fell in the shower.
In the 1970s, he teamed up with Frank Madden when both were involved with horses in Massachusetts. They worked together from 1977-1983 at Hunterdon Inc. in Pittstown with George Morris, who later became the U.S. show jumping coach.
Cooney and Madden went on to open Beacon Hill, one of the country's most celebrated training establishments, and ran it together until 1991. Among the many equitation champions they trained were Francesca Mazzella and Scott Hofstetter.
After he left Beacon Hill, Cooney -- a familiar presence at equitation finals -- worked on his own and with other trainers.
"He sparked an incredible amount of interest in my personal career, and he did that for many, many people throughout the generations he was involved with the sport," said Madden.
"Bill was a never-take-no-for-an answer kind of guy. He was always figuring out how to make happen what he wanted to happen. He kind of took pride in the fact that people looked on him as a perfectionist."
Cooney had lived with Anne Speiser and her family in Westchester County, N.Y., and Wellington. He trained her and her daughter, Jennifer, who was third in the 2005 Maclay finals.
"I learned an enormous amount from him," said Speiser. "What an amazing teacher he was, and a wonderful animal lover and a great friend to so many people."
Speiser said Cooney had planned to return to Wellington this month. Instead, his celebration will be there from 5-7 p.m. Wednesday in the international pavilion at the Palm Beach Internationa Equestrian Center. She noted tables will be decked with plenty of lilacs, his favorite flowers, and the music will be by Barry White, a reminder of disco days.
"He would not want anybody to stand around crying. He wanted everyone to have a party in honor of him, and just celebrate life. Everybody's invited," said Speiser.
Those who wish to make a donation in his memory are asked to send it to the horse rescue of their choice, since rescues were among his interests.
"He'd be so upset if everything wasn't perfect for the horses," explained Speiser...
A seminar on horse boarding and the New Jersey sales tax will be held March 24 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Northstar Vets, 315 Robbinsville-Allentown Road, Robbinsville. Speakers are attorney Dana Bowling and accountant Stacey Yalenti.
Assemblyman Stanley Dancer will make a special appearance to discuss his bill, A1301, written to alleviate the burden of collecting sales tax for facilities that board horses. The speakers will discuss the legislative process and what citizens can do to help move along Dancer's legislation. Other topics include common triggers for audits and what to do when audited...
Ben Maher did it again. On his way to being ranked number one in the world, Maher won his fifth major grand prix at the FTI Winter Equestrian Festival last night, topping the $125,000 Horseware Grand Prix with Jane Clark's Urico.
Having the advantage of being last to go in a six-horse jump-off over Richard Jeffery's course, he turned in a clean round in 41.01 seconds, just enough to nip the mark of the previous rider, Lauren Hough on Ohlala. All the riders in the tie-breaker were fault-free...
Olympic team gold and individual silver eventing medalist Karen Stives has donated $1 million to the U.S. Equestrian Team Foundation, enabling awarding of an annual grant for a high performance eventing activity to have a direct impact on the country's ability to win medals at international competitions.
Explaining why she is making the gift, Stives said, "The team was my life for 20 years: the first 10 as a competitor and the second 10 as chairman of selectors. I wanted to give back to the organization that had given me so much, as well as inspire our young riders to excel and bring back the gold."
ACTIVITIES SCHEDULE
Today: Hunter Farms Winter Series, 1315 The Great Road, Princeton; Palermo Winter Festival, Palermo Show Stables, 1555A Burnt Mills Road, Bedminster; Lord Stirling Stable Dressage Show, 256 S. Maple Ave., Basking Ridge; CJL Farm Show, Baymar Farms, 38 Harbor Road, Morganville.
Friday: Somerset County 4-H Equestrian Consignment Sale, Ted Blum 4-H Center, 310 Milltown Road, Bridgewater (6-10 p.m.) and 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday.
Saturday: Tewksbury Farms Stable Show, Hidden River Farm, 745 Amwell Road, Neshanic Station (through next Sunday); 4H Tack Sale, Independence Firehouse, 24 Cemetery Road, Great Meadows (10 a.m. -2 p.m., call 908-459-5812 for information).
Next Sunday: Changewater Stables Show, 483 Route 519, Stewartsville.
Nancy Jaffer may be reached at nancyjaffer@comcast.net.