Choosing a Freejump Compatible Show Jacket

I’ve always been a safety girl. I never minded wearing a seat belt in the car.  I didn’t complain when ASTM/SEI certified helmets became a requirement. I started riding at 7 and now 44 years later I’ve had my share of falls...sometimes more than one fall in the same day at the same horse show. Ahhh, the Adult Amateur riding life...it feels like I’m either winning or picking dirt out of my pants and nothing in between. 

I compete primarily in the Adult Equitation and Adult Hunters.  I’ll add in an occasional Hunter Derby if I’m feeling particularly brave.   I live and train in Massachusetts where very conservative and traditional riding apparel is the expectation.  Over the past few years, we’ve seen more and more safety vests in the Hunter and Jumper rings.  While safety vests are required in the Cross-Country phase of Eventing, they certainly were not traditional attire in the Hunter/Jumper world.   As I started seeing more of them at horse shows, the safety girl in me got curious about whether it would be a good option for protecting my aging body. Here is where we will take a little detour for a public service announcement...

There are many options for safety vests. There are traditional “hard shell” vests and now we also have the option of the inflatable airbag vests. The airbag vests are the style we see most frequently in the Hunter/Jumper world.  Choosing the correct type of safety vest and the correct size of safety vest is incredibly important. If you are considering adding a safety vest to your riding wardrobe, I cannot stress enough the importance of going to a tack shop that specializes in fitting safety vests and has a wide range of options for you try on. I very highly recommend Ride EquiSafe as one of the most reputable sources for safety vest education and fitting. Really, do yourself a favor, follow them on social media and you’ll get lots of fantastic information about all things safety. 

Back to the story about my safety vest journey...After a couple of gnarly and uncharacteristic falls last Spring which resulted in a concussion and a broken tailbone, I decided to get serious about adding a safety vest to my wardrobe.  As a Hunter/Jumper girl who wants to be more traditional and conservative, the airbag vest was my choice.  Wearing it after I recovered from my falls and started riding again made me feel like I was giving myself just a little bit more protection.  It was the right choice for me and my horse in my situation.    Now, I know, there are lots of concerns about what happens if you fall off and the vest inflates because there is a pretty loud popping noise when that happens.  Lots of people (understandably so) worry that the noise will spook their horse.  I have unicorniest of all unicorns and have tested his tolerance of that sound 3 times now (yup, my falling off streak continues). He could care less about the sound but does give me a bit of side eye when I walk towards him wearing the inflated vest because it does look a little ridiculous.  But I’ll take side eye at my inflated, ridiculous self who can walk towards him because the vest cushioned my fall! Again, this is my unicorn, and yours might not like the popping sound. Every horse, every rider, and every situation is different.  You have to make decisions based on what works for you and your horse.

Kerrits became the first, affordable brand to be FreeJump Airbag Compatible. 

One of the things that I noticed when I started shopping for an airbag vest was that the equestrian airbag-compatible show jackets available at the time were really expensive.  What does compatible mean?  It means the airbag vest can be worn under the show jacket and still inflate properly in the case of a fall.  You can wear the airbag vest on top of any style or brand of show jacket but can only wear them under styles that are tested to be compatible.    The airbag vests themselves are an investment so having to spend hundreds and hundreds and hundreds (I could keep going) more dollars for a compatible coat just was not in the cards for me.  And... Of course, I only wear Kerrits which had not been tested for compatibility at that point, so I chose to wear the airbag vest on top of my Kerrits Affinity Aero Mesh Jacket.

Then an e-mail from FreeJump landed in my inbox.  They asked if they could test our Competitor Show Koat and Affinity Aero Mesh Show Jacket for compatibility with the FreeJump Airbags.  Wow, how exciting!  And guess what, they passed the test in both adults and kid's sizes! And just like that, Kerrits became the first, affordable brand to be FreeJump Airbag Compatible. 

Being able to offer our customers two different styles of affordable show jackets that are compatible with FreeJump Airbags is so important.  Customers who want to add that extra layer of protection and wear the airbag vest under their show coat so that it is more discreet can now do that in a much more budget friendly way.  In addition to our show coats being FreeJump Airbag compatible, our Softshell Riding Vest and Softshell Riding Jacket are also compatible. That means you can wear your FreeJump Airbag Vest under those styles when schooling in chillier weather. What could be better than showing and schooling in FreeJump Airbag Vest compatible styles that don’t break the bank!

 Shop Kerrits FreeJump Airbag Compatible Jackets and Vests