Riders falling from horses often catch themselves with theirs hands or arms, leading to significant elbow fractures. A surgeon who looks at elbow fractures in child riders proposes fall training and development of protective equipment. | Photo: iStock

Uh oh, there goes the balance. Suddenly, you’re flying, with your horse and saddle somehow no longer beneath you and the ground getting ever closer. Your reflex, at this point, is to reach out your arms to catch yourself with your hands. And you succeed: You’re alive; you can move; you’re conscious. In particular, though, you’re conscious of what just happened to your elbow and the price it paid when you caught your fall.

Rider falls can lead to severe and complicated elbow injuries—even if the elbow itself never touches the ground, said Franck-Noël Fitoussi, PhD, MD, professor of pediatric orthopedics at Armand Trousseau Children’s Hospital, part of the Sorbonne University, in Paris, France.

Specifically, the elbow gets knocked out of joint from the sheer force of the impact between the hand and the ground. And when it does, it collides with other structures in the joint leading to a fracture of the “radial neck”—the narrow part of the radius bone just under the bone’s knobby “head” in the elbow joint. In horseback riding accidents, it frequently leads to complications such as additional fractures, as Fitoussi said he noted in his study on young riders