This year we will add videos explaining the difference between air vests and body protectors, it will be similar to our helmet safety section with plenty of content and information.

In In short, air vests and body protectors use very different types of protective technology.

Air vests can provide excellent cushioning in broad, blunt impacts, such as when a rider falls flat onto the ground or arena surface. Body protectors, by comparison, are designed to provide protection across a wider range of impact types, including narrower and more concentrated impacts, such as falling onto a fence, jump, pole, rock or other hard object.

A simple way to think about the difference is to imagine an air mattress compared with a layer of protective foam.

If you fall flat onto an air mattress, it can provide excellent cushioning because your weight and the impact are spread across a large area. But if you were to kneel on the same air mattress, the force is concentrated into a much smaller area and the mattress compresses very differently. This is where protective foam can have an important advantage — it is designed to help manage concentrated loads and localised impacts.

Neither technology should therefore be viewed as simply replacing the other. Air vests and body protectors offer different types of protection, and when worn together they can provide complementary protection for the rider.

If you look at the helmet safety video section, the flat impacts are better for air vests. Penetration, hemi, spike etc are better with a body protector.

Why the two systems are different

A simple way to think about the difference is:

Body Protector:
Provides continuous, passive protection and can perform particularly well against narrower or more concentrated impacts.

Air Vest:
Provides a much deeper inflatable cushion after activation and can perform particularly well during larger, broader impacts.

Research into protective equipment, including studies involving motorcycle airbags and passive back protectors, supports this general principle: inflatable protection can provide significant energy absorption during broad impacts, while passive protectors can provide additional benefits during more concentrated impact conditions.

Can they be worn together?

Yes. We do not view air vests and body protectors as competing technologies. They can at times provide different and potentially complementary forms of protection.

For riders wanting a broader level of protection, an appropriately fitted air vest can be worn together with a suitable body protector, provided the products are designed and fitted for combined use. In this configuration, the body protector provides continuous passive protection, while the air vest provides additional cushioning when it activates.

At ARRO, our approach is to understand the strengths and limitations of each technology rather than suggesting that one type of protection is best for every possible fall or impact.

No protective equipment can prevent all injuries, and riders should always ensure that protective equipment is correctly fitted, maintained and used in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions

Should the air vest be on the inside or outside of the body protector?

We recommend wearing the air vest on the outside of the body protector.

The main reason is simple: we need to be realistic and practical about how body shape can change over time. As horse riders ourselves, we have experienced this first-hand. There are definitely days when we place an enormous amount of faith in the zip of our body protector — much like the occasional battle with the zip on a pair of riding boots!

A few extra pounds/kilos, different clothing layers or simply changes in body shape can make a once-perfectly-fitted body protector considerably tighter than it used to be. We can’t design safety equipment on the assumption that every rider will remain catalogue-model slim forever — or that everyone is going to be on Ozempic!

When an air vest activates, it inflates extremely quickly and needs sufficient room to expand. If it is worn underneath a body protector that has become too tight, that expansion may be restricted and additional pressure could potentially be directed towards the rider’s body, particularly around the chest and ribs.

We recognise that there may be protective benefits to wearing an air vest underneath a body protector in certain types of falls. However, we do not believe the safe operation of an air vest should depend on that body protector continuing to fit perfectly months or years after it was purchased.

Bodies change. Equipment fit changes. And sometimes that zip is already working hard enough.

For this reason, ARRO has taken the practical approach and recommends wearing the air vest over the body protector, where it has greater freedom to inflate and operate as intended.

Just goes to show, sometimes you need horse riders to design products, not engineers.