WHEN Horse Sense spotted eventer Casey Webb and Nelgara Lucy Lockett loading after placing second in the EI110 at The Clare in Co Armagh this week, we had just one question - what’s with the crash helmet?

“My name is Casey Webb, I’m an event rider and am based with Steven and Trevor Smith at Smith Brothers Eventing in Banbridge. I compete some horses for them and also for various owners throughout the levels from young horse up to 4*.

“The horse in the helmet is Nelgara Lucy Lockett and it is her and I’s third season together. I ride her for her owner and breeder, Sean Moher. Lucy and I have competed successfully over in Blair, where we were top 10 in the 1* there, we’ve been second in the 1* in Ballindenisk and she has won and been placed at 1.10m nationally.

Cut her face

“Recently when travelling, she has started hitting her head in the lorry, we were sitting in second place in Hazeldene and when we took her out in the lorry for the cross-country, she cut her head. We had to get her face stitched. That was all healed up and so we went to Ballindenisk for the one-day and again she had cut her face and had to be stitched up. We were asking ourselves, ‘what are we going to do with this horse?’

“Dr Louise Samuel Napier, the vet who stitched her up at Hazeldene, suggested the Equivizor to us, which is a transport mask designed a bit like a body protector for the horse’s head. It’s a helmet that goes on with a head collar that goes through it.

“So we said we’d give it a go because we have this really nice horse that we need to be able to get safely to the shows. We contacted Equivizor and their UK agent is based here in Northern Ireland, Penny Sangster. Penny used to event and is now a dressage judge and does quite a lot of training around us, so that was fantastic. We chatted to Penny and she guided us.

“Lucy didn’t seem to mind us putting it on at all, she just looked a bit odd! She looks like she’s going to space, but she’s really content in it and had been perfectly happy travelling in and out of the lorry all day. She just got a few very odd looks, but hopefully it should let us continue our season and let us take her nice and safely!”

The Transport Equivizor is just one of a suite of headgear by Equivizor, which also includes the Anesthesia Equivizor providing full-head protection post anesthesia, the Stability Equivizor which enables stable and secure endoscopic measuring and the Racing Equivizor, which provides the horse with the same eye protection as their rider, during training and on race day.