Novel digital platforms, fan engagement activations and data pooling softwares are the trend in sports and entertainment across the board nowadays. The influence has stretched globally, integrating itself in professional leagues, teams, premier concerts and now horse racing and equestrian competitions.
In early October, U.K. betting firm, William Hills and technology production company Unit9 launched a virtual reality prototype, enabling horse race fans to saddle up and experience the track as a simulated jockey. A month later, a French startup, Equisense launched Balios, a real time data collecting generated not by the rider, but the horse.
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While the health of the rider is important, the condition and performance capabilities of the horse is even more vital to track. Balios is a device that is fastened alongside the girth of any horse saddle transmitting data during training sessions through Bluetooth 4.0 to a mobile app, both IOS and Android capable. In “human terms,” think of the gadget as a fitness monitor that sinks up to your fitness app, tracking movements and cardiovascular health. Balios tracks the horse’s cadence, stride, speed and any sort of asymmetry or limp as the race horse goes through its paces.
At the end of the session, the application receiving the data from Balios generates a training report that can be analyzed by coaches, riders and even veterinarians. Once the measurements are downloaded and processed, users will be informed of any injury at risk, fatigue and determine areas of improvement.
Wait, what about the elements – water, mud, shock-absorption, battery life? No worries, Balios is resistant to all and with a charge, the gadget will operate for up to eight hours. While the idea was fresh on the market early November, Equisense had minimum manufacturing funding. On a hunch, Equisense launched a Kickstarter campaign to generate capital for production. “We believe it can change the world of horseback riding.” Says Equisense’s Co-Founder Benoît Blancher. Within four hours of the announcement, Equisense reached its funding goal of 50,000 euros (about $55,000) through pre-ordering and are currently well past their original goal with over $157,000 dollars raised with three days left.
With such early success in this niche market, it will be interesting to see how the device improves the level of riding in equestrian competitions. Correspondingly, Balios may be the next gadget that influences tech companies to invest more in small niche markets for more specific data analysis applications.