I think I mentioned in my very first post on this blog that I like me some good retail therapy. Let me clarify:

I love retail therapy.

I’ve done the traditional talk therapy gig before, and while it was helpful for sorting out emotional tangles and Complex Young Adult Feelings™, that’s not what I need in this moment in time. Right now I know exactly why I’m craving that serotonin hit of “Your Order Has Shipped!” and slitting the tape to open a box of goodies: my horse is a thousand miles away and I won’t see or touch him for at least another nineteen days.

“But Amy,” you might say, “you knew this was going to happen when you bought a horse that needed OCD removal before it shipped home, and still went through with it!” Why yes, Gentle Reader, I did – but I also knew in advance that a.) retail therapy would get me through and b.) dear god look at him he is so worth the wait:

Anyway, this post is supposed to be about me soothing my anxious raccoon brain with material goods, not drooling over my pony – so lets talk helmets. More specifically, why on god’s green earth they’re so ridiculously expensive.

I started out riding in the same helmet I think everyone who rode in the early 00’s had at one point – the shiny bulbous Troxel with the little bump at the top and the teardrop vents that were always dusty. It did the job – kept my noggin safe through a few years of up-down lessons through the crosspoles until I eventually stopped riding. We found it up in my childhood closet at some point when I was in college visiting home and finally pitched it, but there were certainly a lot of good memories attached.

When I came back to riding after college, I picked myself up a cheap dial-back Ovation simply because all of the helmets in the riding school’s tack room were too small for my (weirdly large) skull.

The Ovation worked just fine – until I graduated briefly to an old (probably expired) Charles Owen discovered at a tack store dispersal for $50, and then on to a OneK as my first show helmet. The OneK was fantastic, and even saved me from worse scrapes and a concussion in my worst-ever fall, but I always, always coveted Samshields.

I finally bit the bullet a few years back and bought myself a Shadowmatt – assuring myself that I had definitely earned the right to splurge on a helmet that cost more than my tall boots. What I didn’t know at the time was the best of all bougie-on-a-budget hacks: buying Samshields from the UK saves $300+ on USA retail prices.

So this is a very long-winded way of leading into the point that I did my first bit of “Pining for Pierce” retail therapy by way of Jolly Old England, and will be happily rocking a nice sleek new Miss Shield if/when we make it to a show this season – even if it’s just to bop around some flat classes or the Future Hunters.

If you want to try your hand at getting a screaming deal on a Samshield, check out Equiport – they ship quickly to the US and have some other high-end brands in stock in addition to Samshield helmets and attire. Whenever I need to replace my schooling helmet, I know where I’ll be shopping!