With the Cheltenham Festival grabbing the majority of the sporting headlines this week, it's great to also see TrojanTrack making the final of the One-Zero start-up competition, the final of which is to be held at One-Zero Dublin 2024.

While wearable technologies for humans may be a rapidly advancing market that is ever increasing in popularity, traditional wearable technologies for equine motion tracking may be seen as being invasive, time-consuming and expensive. Interestingly, TrojanTrack have devised an innovative solution negating the need to for such wearables, with a system that can analyse a horse's wellbeing utilising just a camera and a tripod.

The innovative system is configured to capture and analyse 52 data points on a horse, in real-time, as they walk past the camera. The data is then transformed into actionable biomechanical insights, highlighting any imbalances or changes in the horse's gait (compared to the horse's health gait). This ultimately provides trainers with quick and accurate feedback on the horse's wellbeing, in a very short period of time.

Such a system may help to avoid training a horse through injury, preventing any further harm. The system may also be used to help optimise performance, and to prevent injury in the first place. TrojanTrack's system also includes an innovative database, storing data on the condition of each horse, and providing reports for both trainers and vets.

It's great to see fitness/performance technology also being developed and applied in equine sports, making much greater insights into the welfare of competing horses available. With the Cheltenham festival bringing more focussed public attention to horse racing, hopefully technologies such as TrojanTrack's will be highlighted in showing how trainers and technology companies alike are prioritising animal wellbeing, as well as performance.

I'm looking forward to the final of the start-up competition at One-Zero Dublin 2024 next week, and keen to see how TrojanTrack get on in a cohort full of brilliantly innovative sports technologies.

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