IF you’re thinking of buying a new helmet, it may pay to wait till the end of the year.

Equestrian Australia has announced helmets with a safety standard EN1384 will not be permitted for competition from 

January 2017.

There has been a lot of confusion from riders about what

the new helmet safety standards mean – and whether they

will need to purchase new helmets for the coming season.

Basically, this means that any helmet that is SOLEY

certified with this standard (there should be a clear marking

on your helmet) should not be purchased from 2016.

Equestrian Australia recommends the use of helmets that

conform to Australian Standard AS/NZS 3838; this standard

provides for more stringent independent testing as well as

further periodic retesting.

The statement issued by the EA expressed that helmets

must currently satisfy at least one of the following

standards:

-AS/NZS 3838 (current Australian Standard)

-VG1 (interim European Standard)

-EN/1384 (current outgoing European Standard).

Luckily, this means that many of the popular brands of

European helmet will still be fine for use in Australia.

In a statement on EA’s website, they wrote: as per the EA

General Regulations, Equestrian Australia highly

recommends the use of helmets that conform to Australian

Standard AS/NZS 3838, as this standard provides for more

stringent testing and further periodic retesting.