Introduction
This is the area that we feel is most important to all in the horse industry.
The general public, in most cases, has no concept of safety around horses. As leaders in the horse community we believe that Horse Safety Australia, through its members, set standards of safe handling and management of horses and horse related events, ensuring the safety of the handlers, the general public and the horses.
With this in mind, we spend much of the four days and evenings of the Horse Safety Australia clinics looking at most aspects of working with people and horses, constantly relating the activities at the clinic to risk management concepts.
Resources
We have a number of written resources that are available to our members (and the general public on request) covering risk management at events, a special guide to understanding the AHIC Code of Practice, HorseSafe (in plain English), and many other documents that cover different aspect of horse safety, plus some general issues that relate to small businesses in the horse industry.
We also have access to the ‘DeTafed’ version of the NSW TAFE’s Manual for the Delivery of Horse Industry Training, which they have made available to the wider horse industry. The section which is especially useful is the “Example Standard Operating Procedures and Templates”. This is available on request to the HSA office (admin@horsesafetyaustralia.com.au)
Horse Safety Australia acts as a clearing house of useful information, passing on helpful hints, price reductions for bulk buying horse related equipment (for commercial establishments), and information on the latest products and safety issues.
HSA fully endorses the Safe Work Australia “Guide to managing risks when new and inexperienced persons interact with horses”. This is an authoritative and useful document which helps any business introducing people to horses in any way, with their WHS requirements and responsibilities in keeping their people safe. This can be found at:
Documents which help with risk management for a riding organisation / establishment:
Writing a risk management plan; horse assessments; rider assessments; site assessments; accident reports; and more. These are available through Horse Safety Australia and automatically provided to participants at our clinics: