Statement by the Hurlingham Polo Association:

“The HPA had a lengthy telephone conference to discuss the HPA’s rule on helmets with Diego Bucking from BA and Stefano Macchi di Cellere from London, lawyers representing Adolfo Cambiaso, Andrew Barlow, Chairman of the HPA’s Disciplinary Committee, Dr Victor Chua, Chairman of the HPA’s Safety Committee, Patrick Russell, Legal Adviser to the HPA, and David Woodd, CEO of the HPA.

All agreed that safety for players was everybody’s aim but it was not possible to establish what testing if any had been carried out on the helmet that Adolfo Cambiaso wishes to play in and it is our intention to obtain a Cavalier helmet for examination. However, the HPA is not in a position to be able to allow any player to play in a helmet that does not meet a standard recognised by the HPA or indeed by any independent body. Consequently, the rule stands that no player will be allowed on the ground unless they are wearing a helmet which is acceptable to the HPA.

There is plenty of scientific evidence to show that falling off a horse at speed can cause serious injury or concussion, and although injuries sustained playing polo are not well recorded, we all know players who have suffered injuries regardless of the helmet worn. To establish whether the injury might have been less serious or worse if a different helmet had been worn is impossible to establish with a live person in a live situation. Crash tests in cars are not carried out on live drivers. This has to be done in laboratory conditions where identical tests are conducted against each make of helmet so that the different helmets can be measured against the same tests. No helmet will provide full protection, so it is all about improving the protection and reducing the risk.

The standards set by the HPA are based on those of the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) which was judged to present the most similar risk. Although no polo balls or sticks are involved, the tests cover a spike and impact test as from a horse’s hoof. We met in person with Dr Jerry Hill, chief medical officer of the BHA, and Dr Adrian McGoldrick, chief medical officer of the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Body to explain the risks involved in polo and both agreed that the BHA standard of PAS015:2011 was the most appropriate for polo. This is not to say that the adopted helmets cannot be improved and any feed-back from players should be provided direct to the different manufacturers.

In Europe, a governing body does not set what can or cannot be used by make. It sets the standard that must be met. The testing is carried out by independent EU approved ‘notified bodies’ which also test helmets for other sports such as F1, cycling, ice hockey and cricket and it is they who decide whether a certain standard has been met or not; for example cricket helmets have to meet BS7928:2013. We did start off by requiring the standard to include the ‘kite mark’ which is UK specific and more rigorous. There was extensive liaison with La Martina, Casablanca and Falcon and we removed this requirement during the summer of 2017 to make it easier and cheaper for Argentine manufacturers to meet the standard as we were led to believe that both would then have helmets that met one of the standards required available for players for the 2018 season. We are very disappointed that they have not been able to achieve this, especially given that we agreed to delay

the introduction of a mandatory standard from 1 Jan 2017 to 1 Jan 2018 at their request, as we realised that it was important to have as wide a choice as possible. It has been pointed out to us by Stefano that the rule as written in the 2017 rule book had not been amended in the 2018 rule book to reflect the removal of the need for a ‘kite mark’ which requires type approval to be performed by a UK headquartered Notified Body for Personal Protection Equipment’. Casablanca, La Martina and Falcon were aware of the change and this will be amended. Cavalier did not contact us until early February 2018 which was very late. The time for consultation was between mid-2016 and 31 December 2017. It was well publicised in the polo press that these regulations were coming up and we consulted extensively with manufacturers. Because of the new rule we felt that it would be helpful to those having to buy new helmets to list those that had met the standards.

It is our firm view that a helmet that has been certified to one of the standards mandated by the HPA is going to stand a much increased chance of providing better protection than a helmet that has not been certified and this is supported by every British equestrian regulatory body which has had helmet standards since the mid-1990s: British Horseracing, British Eventing, British Dressage, British Show Jumping, Pony Club. International regulatory bodies such as the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI) also require certified protective headgear. Since doing so the number of serious head injuries has reduced significantly.”

INSTINCT
“I made cricket helmets for 28 years. There was always a standard. I wouldn’t consider making a helmet without one. How do you know what you’re trying to achieve? You would have no leg to stand on if there was litigation. The first thing I did when I started on the polo helmet was to read the standard. Without them, helmets will never improve. The standard should be constantly updated. The HPA were actually very slow in my opinion in bringing this in! The players will benefit…”

CAVALIER
“Cavalier as a company always invest for improvement and technology on its products. We believe that evolution in terms of security it’s always positive and necessary for the sport. We started with the typical helmets made of fiberglass and today we have carbon fiberglass helmets with interiors which absorb the impacts and always are there for improvements with the use of 4 points harness. It’s been a while since the best players in the world are using our helmets and always alongside them we were trying and improving the security of the helmets. We keep on developing helmets which improve the security of the players and that is our main goal since the day that Cavalier was born. The certificates required by the HPA are hard to get and take lot of time, even more for a foreign company. We believe that a global communication between helmet producers, associations and players, asking and discussing ways and times, would have been the best way of getting a solution for a rule that favors the sport.”