Ranger spooked at a deer on a gravel road in mid-March and I came off sideways into the ditch grass. I bruised my left shoulder and I bruised my hip. I did not hit my head. My friend Bonnie stood over me in the weeds and said the plain thing nobody wants to hear, which was that it could have been my head.
I am 61 and I have ridden since I was a girl, and for most of those years I rode in a felt cowboy hat. In early April I bought a Troxel Spirit Duratec. I measured my head with my sewing tape measure, held it against the Troxel size chart, ordered, and I have worn it on every ride since. Seven months and roughly eighty rides later, here is the honest list of why I keep reaching for it. None of this is theory. It is what happened to me on the trails and gravel roads outside Harrison, Arkansas, on one horse I have owned for six years.
The helmet that lives on a hook by my tack room door
I measured my head, followed the size chart, and it has gone on every ride since early April. Adjustable fit, airflow vents, 1.1 pounds. That is the whole of it.
Amazon See the Troxel Spirit Duratec on Amazon →Trail ground is not arena footing
The arena at a barn is graded, dragged and soft, and you know every inch of it. A gravel road in the Ozarks is chert and washboard, and the Forest Service trails near us are worse than that. Ranger and I go out three or four times a week in good weather, about an hour and a half a ride. The ditch I landed in last March was soft grass, so I got off easy. Fifty feet earlier the shoulder was rock, and I think about that more than I would like to admit.
A spook is over before your hands can move
A deer came out of the brush on Ranger's left and he went sideways. He is 14 years old, 15.1 hands and about 1,050 pounds, and he is calm as a horse gets. None of that mattered for the half second it took. I had both hands on the reins. I still went off over his shoulder. There is no version of that where you decide in time, and I have quit pretending otherwise.
Low branches come at you at head height
On the trails the brush crowds in from both sides, and the limbs you duck under in July are the ones you forget about in November when the leaves are down and the light is different. I have had a branch catch my hat brim more than once and I have been lucky each time. A cowboy hat comes off. It is not attached to anything and it is not made of anything that helps.
Your horse is only half of what is out there
There are side by sides on the gravel roads, mountain bikes on the trails, loose dogs in the yards you pass, and other riders coming the other way who did not expect to meet you around that bend any more than you expected them. You can ride the quietest horse in Boone County and still be the one on the ground because of somebody else's day. Ranger is that quiet horse, and I still wear the helmet.
You cannot brace for a fall you never saw
Every fall I have taken came without notice. You do not tuck and roll, whatever people say at the feed store. You go down however the horse and gravity arrange it, and where your head lands is not up to you. That is the entire case for putting something on it, and it is a plain case that does not need dressing up or a scare story attached to it.
The fit adjusts, so the old complaint is gone
The Troxel Spirit Duratec is built with an adjustable fit and an adjustable strap, and the low profile design is meant to sit on a range of head shapes. That was my one worry, because I had borrowed a helmet once years ago that rode up and gave me a headache in twenty minutes. I measured my head with my sewing tape measure, checked the Troxel chart and ordered. It sits down over my head the way it should and it stays put. Eighty rides in, that has not been a problem.
The vents earn their keep in an Arkansas summer
Ranger sweats heavy in July and so do I. The helmet has airflow vents set across the top and it makes a difference in still air, which is most of August here. I wear a thin cotton skull cap under it when the weather turns cold and nothing under it the rest of the year. I am not going to tell you it is cool. I will tell you it is not the reason I take it off.
Just over a pound does not wear on your neck
The listed weight is 1.1 pounds. I notice it for the first mile and then I do not notice it at all. It hangs on a hook in the tack room and goes on the same way my gloves do, in the same order, every time I saddle up. Gear you have to think about is gear you stop using, and I have quit buying things that need a reminder note on the door.
The two parts that matter are the two you can name
Polycarbonate on the outside, expanded polystyrene on the inside. That is the shell and the liner, and it is the reason the thing exists. The Troxel listing also carries a limited one year warranty and gives the dimensions as 13 by 9.25 by 8.25 inches. I have not tested mine in a fall and I am not going to claim I have. I am telling you what it is made of and where it hangs in my barn.
It protects the one thing you cannot tape up
I have wrapped a knee, iced a shoulder and soaked a bruised hip in Epsom salts. You cannot do that with your head. Bonnie told me flat out that my fall could have been my head, and she was right, and it was the shortest argument anyone has ever won with me. Twenty minutes of grumbling and then I went in the house and looked up how to measure.
What I'd Skip
I would skip the felt cowboy hat on the trail. I wore one for thirty years and I loved it and it did nothing for me in a ditch. I would skip buying a helmet without measuring your head first, because a loose one is not doing the job it was made for, and the Troxel size chart is right there on the listing if you take two minutes with a tape measure. I would skip the idea that a calm horse makes any of this unnecessary, since Ranger is the calmest horse I have ever owned and he still put me in the grass over a deer.
And I would skip the notion that any helmet makes you safe. It does not. It is one thing you control on a day when most things you do not, and that is a smaller claim than the catalogs make. What I will say for the Troxel is that it fit on the first order, it has not come loose, and it is light enough that I stopped noticing it by the second week. I am not a trainer, a farrier or a vet. If your horse comes up lame or your head has been rung, that is a call for our vet, not for me.
Ranger is 14, calm as a horse gets, and he still put me in the ditch grass over one deer. That is the whole argument, and it does not need a second one.
Put it on before you mount, not after something happens
Mine went on the hook in the tack room in April and has not missed a ride since. Measure your head, follow the chart, and buy once.
Amazon See the Troxel Spirit Duratec on Amazon →