In the competitive world of sports, millions of dollars are invested into new technologies to protect athletes and help them perform better. Like the automated ball strike system implemented by MLB this season, or the development of safer helmets for NFL players.
That’s no different in the equine industry.
Last year, the Argentinian company Kheiron Biotech made waves when it announced it had bred the first genetically edited horses specifically for polo.
“Equine agriculture and regulators in equine sport are aware and thinking about the potential of this to be abused. And you know, there is some concern about that,” said Jamie McLeod, a professor at the University of Kentucky’s Department of Veterinary Science.
Though gene editing theoretically could create an army of super race horses, McLeod said they aren’t likely to make it onto the track due to current regulations. Instead, he thinks it’s more likely to be used for veterinary purposes.
“You could potentially use a gene editing approach in a therapeutic application,” he said. “That has happened on some level in human health, with cancers or really serious metabolic diseases, inherited diseases.”
Genetically engineered horses won’t be winning the Triple Crown anytime soon, but other technologies are being implemented for their health and safety benefits.
One example is the use of 3D motion sensors to measure movement. They can show how horses react during races, when their bodies are put under a lot of stress. Last month, the company StrideSAFE made a deal to manufacture all of those sensors in Lexington, Kentucky. They’ve been used at Churchill Downs since 2023, along with other racetracks across the state.
Those sensors have been touted as a significant medical advancement by George Mundy, the chief medical officer for the regulatory Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Corporation.
“It's very subtle that you can't see by the eye, or the horse doesn't show it, but the sensor can pick up changes in force,” Mundy said. “Just like a rock in your right shoe, you're going to put more force on your left foot going down.”
Analyzing a horse’s gait is paramount to how it performs. If a horse is moving differently, that can indicate a fracture or another type of injury.
“We're looking for changes,” Mundy said. “We're saying, ‘Hey, what's normal, what's normal for all horses, and what's normal for this horse?’ And then when something isn't normal, it gets kicked out, gets red flagged and says, ‘Hey, something's going on here.’”
The recent proliferation of artificial intelligence has also come into play in horse racing.
Jamie Textor works for Sleip, a smartphone app where trainers upload videos of their horses for AI gait analysis. Sleip’s algorithm analyzes points on the horse’s body to make sure everything’s moving properly.
“We travel in sort of an up-and-down motion as we walk, as we propel ourselves forward,” Textor said. “Same thing for the horse at the trot, and that up-and-down motion produces a sine wave kind of curve, if you were to trace its head in space as he's traveling over time.”
On the national level, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority is developing tools to help catalog huge amounts of data on individual horses before race day. Their HISA Check database uses machine learning to input factors like past performances, treatments and trainers.
“Just like any doctor isn't going to walk into a patient's room and never looked at the patient's chart, you want a little bit of history there prior to examining a horse on race day,” said Shari Silverman, the agency’s veterinary liaison.
Despite advancements in AI and other once-futuristic tech, Silverman said human vets are still vital to a horse’s well-being.
“The private practitioners have very good job security, because I don't think we're going to get a machine to replace the human factor anytime soon,” Silverman said. “I think the machine can very much help us in gathering the data and cutting down the amount of time that's necessary to look up this information.”
Fatal horse racing injuries have been cut nearly in half since 2009, and experts hope emerging tech can continue bringing those numbers down.
This story was produced by the Appalachia + Mid-South Newsroom, a collaboration between West Virginia Public Broadcasting, WPLN and WUOT in Tennessee, LPM, WEKU, WKMS and WKU Public Radio in Kentucky, and NPR. Sign up for the weekly Porch light newsletter here for news from around the region.
