With less than three months to the Grand National, many of the nation’s betting enthusiasts, trainers and jockeys will be doing all they can to predict and ensure their favoured horse’s success in this iconic race.
And much like 2015 was the year where we saw items such as smartwatches and activity trackers go mainstream for humans, it looks like this year could see such innovation being used for racehorses too.
Horse health
One of the more surprising instances of horse-related wearable tech was recently revealed with a piece of kit that allowed a horse to email its trainer when it was feeling unwell. The SeeHorse device records a horse’s pulmonary activity, temperature and a range of other body functions and allows the owner to monitor their animal’s health from afar.
Although such technology might not be able to instantly transform a humble horse into being a Grand National winner, it will undoubtedly provide peace of mind for many trainers who find themselves stretched in the busy racing season.
Performance monitoring
Above all, the technological innovations offer a previously unparalleled amount of information that’s key to giving trainers the edge over their competitors. In fact, Coral Champions Club have taken advantage of the Gmax Trackwork technology to gather live performance data in order to optimise performance and avoid any unnecessary strain.
With an increased pressure upon racehorse owners to make decent returns upon their investments, such technology is key for any horse’s success at big races such as the Grand National. This is because at the starting gate action, it’s a horse’s health that will be critical to proving whether it can beat the odds given at Coral’s coverage of the upcoming big races and continue in what will undoubtedly prove to be yet another exhaustive racing season.
Tracking options
As well as being able to monitor a horse’s health, fitness trackers like the Bailos device can deliver other useful information such as stride length and jump trajectory. And with a range of other features such as course-tracking, it looks to be the Bailos tracker will be perfectly suited for the major race events when it becomes available for purchase in April this year.
But although driverless cars will soon be dominating the world’s highways, it looks like it will be a long time before we see the advent of jockey-less racehorses at prestigious events such as the Grand National!
