Question:
I actually found the details of the time of injury, the location of injury, etc. to be interesting. Basically, my view is that horse back riding is much more dangerous than most people realize. And I think that precautions should be taken when the situation warrants. Brain injury is nothing to risk when there is a safety precaution readily available. As low as say....alien abduction??

Answer: Among the 23 TBIs attributable to horses not identified as riding-associated, 21 (91%) resulted from a direct kick to the head by a horse; one person died, and two others required cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Thirteen (57%) of these occurred among children aged ѕ10 years. Of the 19 cases for which place of injury was specified, 15 occurred on a farm.

Even though only 1% of the TBIs in Oklahoma were associated with horseback riding, the medical burden of these injuries is substantial as reflected by the adverse neurologic outcomes and number of hospitalization days. In addition, the horseback-riding-associated TBIs described in this report probably underestimate the total number of all such injuries receiving medical care. For example, during 1991, 66% of persons in the United States who received medical care for TBIs were not hospitalized (4), and 79% of regular (i.e., six or more times per year) horseback riders who incurred a concussion or other nonfacial head injury were not hospitalized (6; CDC, unpublished date, 1995). In Oklahoma, only persons with TBIs who are hospitalized are identified by the surveillance system.

In Oklahoma, during 1992-1994, bicycle riding accounted for more than twice the number of TBIs as horseback riding (234 versus 109). However, the risk for injury during horseback riding probably was substantially greater than for bicycle riding: during 1989-1991, the rate of horseback-riding injury sufficiently severe to require hospital-based emergency care was an estimated 28 per 100,000 riding hours (6), while the rate for bicycle-associated injuries was 3.7 per 100,000 riding hours