For 5,000 years, humans have trained horses based on a mix of intuition, sight and horsemanship. Now, wearable horse technology and artificial intelligence are changing a sport that has long shied away from the digital age.
Data analytics is rapidly becoming popular as the world’s top riders begin deploying GPS-enabled tail straps, AI-driven gait sensors, and software that analyzes bio-mechanical markers such as the horse’s frame, stride length or the rider’s seat position.
“There are different ideas and concepts coming in, which is great,” Scott Brash, a double Olympic show jumping champion from Britain, said. “We are still a little bit behind in our sport on having the accuracy of the data in the horses. I’m constantly working with different ideas, and we are still exploring some avenues to try and get the best reliable data.”
With the global market for smart wearables for horses forecast to more than double to $1.65 billion by 2031, according to a report by Clearview Market Insights, it’s no wonder some of the world’s biggest smartwatch makers are betting the farm on horse tech.
Finland-based Polar has produced a range of heart rate monitors for horses that can be fit underneath the saddle, while Garmin, the world’s third-biggest wearable tech maker by revenue, last year introduced the Garmin Blaze, which features a small sensor inside a neoprene tail wrap that monitors a horse’s health and motion. A tracker made by Czech horse tech firm Equimo, which can be clipped to the saddle, measures speed, jumps, elevation and balance as well as heart rate.
The Garmin Blaze is currently being used by some of the world’s most successful equestrians, including Australian show jumper Edwina Tops-Alexander, an Australian show jumper, and Yasmin Ingham, a world champion eventer from Britain.
For competitors such as Ingham, who rides up to seven horses per day, devices that monitor and analyze health and fitness can provide valuable insight into the level of training each animal needs. Ingham recently started trialing the Garmin Blaze.
“We very much work off the fact that each horse is an individual, and you can’t go by the book on every horse,” Ingham said. “There are so many factors that come into training a horse and fitting a horse for a competition. Obviously, their breed has a lot to do with it, their age, where they are in their careers. So getting to know the horse as an individual is a really important part of training and fitness.”
Ingham is currently preparing two horses for the same event.
“One is a lot more naturally athletic and agile, whereas the other horse isn’t quite as gifted, so he requires quite a lot of extra training and extra work to keep up with the one that is gifted in that department,” she said. “So knowing your horse is a really important part of that.”
Sensors in a horse tail strap monitors a horse’s health and motion. (Photo via Garmin)
In a sport where winning or losing can be decided by fractions of a second, an extra layer of data can give competitors the edge.
“From a performance aspect, what we are looking for is marginal gains,” John McEwen, national head veterinarian at the British Equestrian Federation, told The Athletic.
In the run-up to the London Olympics in 2012, McEwen ran a data project involving 10 elite horses and five riders.
“We monitored absolutely everything, because we needed to know where we could get the marginal gains that we needed. So using technology to help with that was very valuable” he said.
While British show jumper William Whitaker has experimented with horse tech in the past, he currently isn’t using it much, he told The Athletic. One of the devices Whitaker said he tried was the Trojan Track app, which monitors a horse’s normal movement, based on seven daily walking steps captured on video.
Whitaker, 36, honed his riding skills at the yard of his famous show jumping uncle, Michael, in Yorkshire, northern England. “None of this was around then,” he said. “We were on Nokia phones, and this stuff didn’t exist. But the sport is evolving all the time.”
McEwen has worked with the world’s top horses since 1978. During that time, he has seen technological advances delivering benefits to horses and their owners or caretakers, he said.
Technology that monitors gait, physical performance or physiology of the horse can be valuable tools to vets, physios, farriers, riders and coaches, but McEwen warns against relying too much on it.
Some physical traits may flash red on modern tracking data apps, according to McEwen. He recalled a former British show jumping champion’s horse that had suffered a pelvic fracture early in life.
“When you trotted up and down, it always looked a little bit unsymmetrical. But it never was lame in any way at all,” McEwen said.
The tech should be just one several assessment tools for riders.
“For us, a lot of the value is long-term assessment of movement and performance so we can monitor horses over their careers,” McEwen said. “Because the one thing we want is longevity of competition careers.”
Brash noted his legendary show jumper, Hello Sanctos, had one foot bigger than the other, a trait that may have been picked up by some devices.
“This is a common thing in horses,” Brash said. “Many human beings will have one foot bigger than the other. Mo Farah’s probably got one foot bigger than the other. It doesn’t stop them running fast.”
Sanctos and Brash formed one of the most successful horse-rider combinations of all time, with the pair winning team gold at the London Games, clinching the No. 1 ranking and winning three show jumping majors in a row to become the first combination to clinch the Rolex Grand Slam of Show Jumping in 2015.
While AI-driven tracking apps and other horse tech can help horses stay fitter and healthier for longer, the world’s top riders are finding that the most valuable data point is still the one felt through the reins.
“It still comes down to us being horsemen and really understanding our horse and our feeling at the end of the day,” said Brash.
