How can I convince my dad that horses are safe?
I love my dad and he’s great, but horses are what I realy love. My dad is realy into motorcycles. His aunt died in a horse accident, but his best friend died driving a motorcycle. He always says that horses are 20 times more dangerous than motorcycles, from the imaginary statistics in his head. I ride once a week, but would realy love to part-lease a horse at my barn. I always show my dad how sweet they are, but when I stroke my favorite pony’s nose, he says “Stop it! It’ll bite you!” Horses are what I love, and my mom is the one who convincved my dad to let my sister and I have lessons, and my dad says we already ride once a week, and we should be happy with what we have. I am, but I’ve been riding once a week for 3 years, and I’d realy love to progress to leasing. By the way, I’m a B+/A- student and 13 years old. Please help me.
What type of riding do you do? Cross country? Western Pleasure? It makes a huge difference.
I’ll try to find you some real statistics.
EDIT — Okay, so I gave up on the statistics because they were so conflicting.
Here’s my input…
1. When you ride a motorcycle, you will be going at LEAST 60mph on the highway. A horse’s canter is about 10mph.
2. When riding a horse, the only danger is YOUR horse. It’s highly unlikely that someone else’s horse will come crashing into you. When riding a motorcycle, the biggest danger is other people… whom you have no control over.
3. An average horse weighs 1,000lbs. An average sedan weighs 5,000lbs and an average truck weighs 10,000lbs.
4. Horses don’t WANT to hurt themselves, and most horses don’t WANT to hurt you. Motorcycles don’t care about you or themselves.
5. You ride motorcycles on pavement. You ride horses on dirt, sand, or grass.
I think you should tell him those things. It might be even more convincing than some statistics you pulled off of the internet.
Horseback Riding Accident
