Equine professionals at the forefront of health and performance technology delivered insightful presentations regarding objective equine-monitoring data during the June 30 Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit at Keeneland.
The summit, presented by the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation, highlighted the equine athlete as the centerpiece of ongoing research and development in technology platforms, shaping a new age of veterinary expertise and decision-making in horse management.
Tuesday's session, held on the closing day of the two-day 12th annual summit, featured representatives from Hagyard Equine Medical Institute, Stable Analytics, StrideSAFE, Sleip, Arioneo, Equinosis Q with Lameness Locator, and Equimetrics.
Before the discussion shifted to data tracking, the opening session, led by veterinarians Dr. Evan Becker and Dr. Laura Werner of Hagyard Equine Medical Institute, explored the role of advances in diagnostic technology in injury detection and evaluation. Their presentation further emphasized how modern veterinary imaging and diagnostic equipment is improving the accuracy of injury assessment, enabling communication of severity, treatment options, and recovery expectations to trainers and owners.
Stable Analytics CEO Ben Bernhard, whose family runs horses at Pin Oak Stud, spoke next and showcased the Stable Analytics wearable devices, which track how horses move using advanced metrics while positioned in the girth. Previously an engineer at the aerospace company SpaceX, Bernhard now uses his expertise in data analytics and algorithms to track horses' movements.
"It turned out that watching your horse win a grade 1 is more fun than sitting in mission control landing a rocket," Bernhard said.
The end goal of Stable Analytics is to detect changes in equine movement patterns that could indicate a potential risk of injury or a safety concern.
"It starts with looking at the horse in the ways that it moves, but in ways that have not been looked at before," Bernhard said.
The accessible smartphone-to-charging-dock feature allows trainers to receive data on their cellular device simply by charging the sensor.
"It could be the greatest thing ever, but if they're not easy to use, people won't use them, and you won't get anything good out of it, so that was our main goal in developing the hardware," Bernhard said.
The company plans to be commercially available by the end of the year, according to Bernhard.
Following Bernhard was Dr. David Lambert, CEO of StrideSAFE, who discussed the company's equine devices that sense accelerations at various speeds, generating data available to trainers and owners to improve horse welfare and health outcomes.
StrideSAFE has a database containing billions of data points, enabling algorithms to identify patterns. These findings have the potential to integrate with veterinary diagnostics to help identify horses that require closer examination.
In contrast to sensor products such as Stable Analytics and StrideSAFE, Sleip is a markerless objective analysis system that uses smartphone video to capture horses' gaits at a trot. It detects asymmetry, improving decision-making for trainers and veterinarians.
"We know that the human eye has limitations," said Sleip's Dr. Jamie Textor, emphasizing that Sleip can spot even minor deviations in a horse's gait.
She noted that Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse uses Sleip to monitor his horses, as does trainer David Donk, and that two-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer Brad Cox "just came on board."
Already in 50 countries, "I'm pleased to report that we've reached a milestone recently of over 1 million recordings using Sleip, and that means that this continues to get better and better," Textor said.
Valentin Rapin, CEO and co-founder of Arioneo, next described a variety of advanced products that specialize in monitoring racing and training data from multiple angles, offering in-depth insights into fitness.
"You have the evolution of the data over time to make sure the horse is always as fit as it was before," Rapin said.
Dr. Kevin Keegan, founder and chief science officer of Equinosis Q with Lameness Locator, discussed the company's three vital sensors, placed along the head, hip, and right forelimb to detect lameness.
"You have to make it easy to look many times, and I think you can do that with body-mounted inertial sensors," Keegan said.
The repetitive measurements discussed in Lameness Locator's data-analytic technology further reflect Keegan's confidence in having as many measurements as possible when assessing lameness.
The Tuesday summit concluded with a video presentation by Everett Irvine, a co-founder of the Irish equine sensor company Equimetrics. Its devices, like other sensor tools on the market, gather various data points, including heart rate and movement, designed to create a digital fingerprint for each horse. One product for Equimetrics has been on the market only since February.
Equimetrics is primarily used in Ireland, including by legendary Irish trainer Aidan O'Brien and his family. His wife, Anne-Marie, is the founder and CEO of the company.
