{Photo Courtesy of – Nico Morgan}
We’ve been getting loads of emails during our lock-down. One of our followers emailed us with this question, “Why do some people have the ribbon on their helmet up and others wear the ribbon hanging down and why is there a ribbon on my helmet in the first place?” Well, we’re happy to tell you why.
Because everything we wear should have a purpose, we’ll start there. The bow with tails hanging down was designed to deflect rain over the collar of the coat, rather than having it drip down the back of the neck. The professional staff wears their hat ribbons down while amateur staff and members of the field should wear their ribbons up. The traditional reason given for these differences is that the professional staff has no option but to remain out in inclement weather, whereas the amateur or field member may go home whenever they wish. Another reason for the tails hanging down was so members of the field could tell the difference between the amateur and professional staff.
Now that we have this little nugget of knowledge lets make sure we wear our ribbons up. All it takes is a quick dot with the glue gun. By wearing our ribbons in the appropriate position it shows the respect that we have for the sport and our professional staff. Cause let’s be clear, without our professional staff we wouldn’t be out there at all.
Keep the questions coming, we love answering them for you!
Kick on, and stay safe!
Hunt staff usually wear white boot straps and their whip is dyed white too
Rarely do we see ribbons up now 🙁 Mother sewed mine up on my hunting hat, now I wear a scull cap so no ribbons anyway.