I used to live in Newmarket and watch the early morning strings of thoroughbreds walking back to the stables after training sessions on the Heath. These journeys took place amidst normal car traffic and on occasion, a horse and vehicle would collide -causing potentially terminal damage to both. The car might have been worth £20k, the horse might easily have been valued at over £5M.
Riders have been able to buy themselves airbag jackets for some time. Today’s invention is an airbag blanket which is worn by a valuable horse when moving anywhere near vehicles. This would be activated by any collision so that, even if the horse were knocked over, its impact with eg the road surface would be effectively cushioned.
The blanket would of course carry inbuilt electric lights and reflectors (and proximity detectors might be even more useful for pre-emptive deployment of the bag(s) in order to save those spindly legs).
