Racing to the cloud: New system to revolutionise racehorse care and training

Racehorse care and management has galloped into the 21st century with a new automated platform created in Australia.

StableWizard is the brainchild of Segenhoe Stud chairman Kevin Maloney, and it has the backing of Australia’s leading trainer Chris Waller, who helped with the development of the system over a two-year period. He says he would never go back to the “old ways” of equine management.

Maloney describes the system as “like the transformation from horse and cart to the automobile for this industry.”

The cloud-based system is simple to use and gives trainers and stable staff instant access to all details of the horses in their care. Service providers such as vets, farriers, physio, and dental technicians can all input information. The solution translates traditional horse management tasks such as recording temperature and feed checks onto an easy-to-use dashboard via a phone or tablet, making the information accessible immediately to those who need it where and when it’s required. It can track, alert, retain, and relay instant vital details to the trainers across multiple remote geographic locations and time zones.

Waller, who trained star racemare Winx and who was named Australia’s leading trainer for the third time in 2020, said the data provided by StableWizard has improved the efficiency of his business and the care provided to the horses.

“Some processes that took 2 hours now take 2 minutes,” he said.

For example, in Waller’s stable, each horse has its temperature taken daily using a Bluetooth thermometer, with the results sent to StableWizard in real-time.

“The benefits to our clients, the owners, are also clear as we can be more effective, timely in our communication to them, elevate our level of care, and provide a full picture data record of their horse. We see the benefits of it through longevity and great performances. The finer details it offers are the difference between winning big races or not,” he said.

Thoroughbred horse welfare has been in the spotlight in Australia and globally and the founders of StableWizard believe the product will modernise equine management, and aims for it to become the new industry standard.

Dr Malcom France, BVSc PhD, from the Board of the ANZ Council for the Care of Animals in Research and Teaching, says the level of data and alert system for anomalies in a horse’s condition provide an exceptional capacity to ensure a horse’s health and welfare which can only improve the well-being of the racehorse and improve results and longevity across the industry.

“I think it’s essential that the horse racing industry adopt new technologies and works with a foundation in animal welfare science that we now have available. That’s important not only for community expectations but also for the performance of the animals themselves as well as the welfare of those animals,” France says.

More components are planned, which will give StableWizard a full suite of solutions for the delivery of equine welfare, Maloney says.