Organised by The Irish Field the “AI in Equine” Conference was held on Tuesday 9th September 2025 at the stunning Naas Racecourse and was sponsored by CIRCET and supported by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. 

Founded in 1870 The Irish Field is the leading weekly print publication for Irish racing, bloodstock, and equestrian sport. Long regarded as an authoritative voice in the industry, the meeting brought together stakeholders spanning trainers, breeders, technologists, regulators and veterinarians to enjoy presentations focused on the question of what exactly Artificial Intelligences (AI’s) can do and to explore how technologies can shape the future of the equestrian industry.

The edited videos (with titles, subtitles, and embedded presenter slides) are not yet live. However, if you scroll to the bottom of this page, you can access several hours of unedited videos from the conference.

The conference was expertly MC’ed by Brendan McArdle (Sales & Marketing Manager, The Irish Field) while the opening address was delivered by Mark Costello (Editor The Irish Field) who conceived the event. Delegates were informed that the inspiration for this conferencee came from the recent “AI in Agriculture” conference at the Curragh Racecourse, organized by The Farmers Journal (The Irish Field’s parent publication). The overwhelming demand for tickets — even forcing organisers to close bookings a week in advance — underscored the appetite for thoughtful discussion on technology and proved to be a good idea as the conference was oversubscribed and had standing-room only.

The day’s conversation was framed around racing’s deep-rooted reliance on tradition and the growing unease surrounding AI’s encroachment into nearly every aspect of modern life. Delegates were invited to consider the implications of a world where technological change could render long-established roles obsolete.

A striking insight from the conference research revealed a paradox: trainers who embraced technology often found that the data produced prompted them to second-guess themselves, influencing decisions they weren’t entirely comfortable making. This tension between innovation and instinct highlighted one of the central challenges facing the sport as it navigates a future increasingly shaped by AI and data-driven insights.

Keynote Address: Digital transformation & data in irish racing: priorities for 2025-2030. Shaymus Kennedy, newly appointed Chief Technology Officer at Horse Racing Ireland (HRI), delivered a keynote that set out a bold vision for the sport’s digital future. As the governing body for racing in Ireland, HRI is placing innovation at the heart of its long-term strategy, and Kennedy’s address underscored just how central technology will be to the equine industry over the next decade.

Kennedy emphasised the dual role of artificial intelligence both as a driver of operational efficiency and as a safeguard for integrity in the sport. He pointed to HRI’s continued investment in data infrastructure, describing it as the bedrock for future transformation. Looking ahead, Kennedy argued that the technological leaps of the next five years will far outpace the changes seen in the past three decades, urging the industry to prepare now for a rapidly shifting landscape (which is terrifying if you’re aware of the cyberattack vulnerabilities in the equine industry and super exciting if it brings transparency to the sport so more people have an understanding of where all the income from levy, media rights and other sources is actually going).

One of his most striking insights was the framing of horses as “data-generating creatures” a perspective that opens up both opportunities and risks. Kennedy explored how data could enhance training and performance, but also acknowledged the darker side of innovation, from deepfakes to AI-assisted wagering. His presentation balanced optimism with realism, making clear that the industry must embrace technology while also safeguarding against its potential threats.

Drawing inspiration from beyond Ireland, Kennedy cited the example of Susumu Fujita, owner of Forever Young (JPN)and CEO of Cygames, who has successfully captured the imagination of younger audiences through the smash-hit simulation game and social network Umamusume Pretty Derby and how this is bringing the next generation into racehorse ownership.

Kennedy also encouraged delegates to spend 5 minutes watching Oscar Zhou’s TEDx talk, “Horses and AI Machines”, describing it as essential viewing for anyone interested in the intersection of equine sport and emerging technologies (quite suprised to see it’s only had 35 total views on YouTube).

The keynote closed with a call to action: an invitation to collaborate with HRI and The Irish Field on the forthcoming CyberAwareness and CyberTraining workshops/courses that they’re producing. Designed in response to the growing risk of targeted cyberattacks on trainers (and probably the issues the HRI itself faces with Freedom of Information requests), the initiative will provide a governing body–approved IT proficiency course—a first-of-its-kind effort that it would be great to see eventually expand to reach an international audience.

A keynote that was at once forward-looking, candid, and thought-provoking, Kennedy’s presentation left delegates in no doubt: the future of Irish racing will be defined as much by data and digital innovation as by the sport itself.

The session “Smart Data, Safer Horses: Reducing Injury Risk Through Analytics” was expertly moderated by Lynn Hillyer, Chief Veterinary Officer at the Irish Horse Racing Regulatory Board. Hillyer candidly acknowledged that she had never considered herself an early adopter of technology. Yet, in her work as a regulatory veterinarian, she is witnessing revolutionary changes in how data can support horse welfare.

While recognising that no system can eliminate all risks, Hillyer highlighted the transformative potential of treating horses as “data-generating creatures”. The very data the animals produce, she explained, can be harnessed to anticipate and mitigate injury risk, turning the data into a powerful tool to protect the horses themselves.

In the short term it’s likely that regulatory organisations like the IHRB are themselves going to be transformed by data (eg. auditing AI’s that will require them to become a lot more accountable) and this should be a positive way to root out corruption and stop them waging personal vendettas and over-regulating the industry.

Rob Sheppard, Ellipse Data was the first panelist on the Smart Data, Safer Horses: Reducing Injury Risk Through Analytics session. Rob explained how Ellipse Data is a sports data business that works across a variety of sports including cricket, football, rugby and tennis. In horseracing they’ve partnered with Racecourse Media Group on the RaceIQ project. This involves placing two trackers on each horse that collect accurate position and speed data 18 times/second that are then processed to produce live metrics and insights for the media. The key aims of the project are to deepen fan understandings, making the sport more accessible to new audiences and to tell racing stories with new narratives.

Machine learning is used to process data and create visuals for things like jump trajectory metrics etc. that are used by presenters to tell stories. This data is also opening opportunities in the welfare space. The company has recruited former professional jump jockey Page Fuller as a Race Analyst to help explore these possibilities.

Marcus Swail, Equine Veterinary Surgeon at EquiVET Ireland, brought his 27 years of local experience to the panel, offering expert insight into how technology is reshaping equine veterinary practice. Specialising in orthopedics and lameness, Swail detailed how advances in digital imaging including radiography, ultrasound, MRI, and CT have revolutionised diagnosis and treatment.

Looking to the future, he sees artificial intelligence playing a major role in Equine Gait Analysis, particularly in detecting asymmetries in a horse’s movement. Swail highlighted how video analysis applications, such as Sleip, could overcome the practical challenges of attaching hardware sensors to horses’ legs, offering a more seamless and accurate approach to monitoring performance and health.

Annemarie O’Brien, Champion Trainer and Breeder and Founder of Equimetrics was the last on the first session panel and explained that ultimately what we’re all trying to achieve is to use technology to provide Equestrians with information to do the best job they possibly can for the horses in their care.

The presentation featured high-quality videos demonstrating their products: V-Pro (designed for veterinarians) and the soon-to-launch S-Pro (tailored for trainers) that I’ve embedded in the above video. What stood out was the production quality. Having these produced by a Champion Trainer and Breeder has led to a significant leap forward from the typical HorseTech demos, which are often produced primarily by technologists. The result is a presentation that is both visually engaging and highly relevant to the end user, setting a new standard for showcasing innovation in the equine industry.

Great to see pricing information being shared with an upfront purchase offer (€2,000 + data) and rental offers (€50/week) for a transferrable device that can be used on any of your horses which is going to make this tech very accessible for Equine Vets, Breeders and Trainers.

Mark Boylan, Chief Racing Report, The Irish Field passionately moderated the second session on Performance Optimisation Using AI And Data Analytics. Mark has a great grasp of the need for more data transparency on basic things like goingreports, weights, weather stations, heights, etc to help build the narrative to modernise horseracing here in Ireland.

Will Duff Gordon, Founder, Total Performance Data discussed the incredible work he’s been able to do to get tracking tech adopted by racecourses around the world (from Churchill Downs to Venezuela!). Will explained the secret to his successful approach and it would be great to see this inspiring other HorseTech innovators: “we’re not trying to be another company that’s trying to take money out of the game with another service that has to be paid for. We actually provide a solution that’s bringing new money into racing. it’s not taking money away but bringing new engagement, new insights, and our business model is very much funded by the success of what we sell as opposed to charging a fee for what we do. We’re completely motivated to provide racing bookmakers with products they can use to make more money”

TPD uses AI to summarize key metrics on horses and make insights from them available immediately after the horses pass the finish line. This helps introduce fans to new concepts (e.g. stride length, speed, respiratory rates, etc) that can deepen their understanding of how races are won/lost.

Patrick Harty, Racehorse trainer, Harty Racing is the 5th generation of his family to train winners on the Curragh and while he still uses traditional ways to train his horses he has an active interest in using tech and nie years ago he trialled heart monitors with integrated GPS stride monitors for a couple of years but found it to be just a pastime rather than getting a return on the time that would otherwise be invested in training the horses with your eyes.

I believe Patrick’s remarks underscore a key point: trainers should first adopt technology that helps document their observations, before layering in advanced sensor tools. For example, using TalkaToo speech-to-text on their phones to record their real-time insights during training makes more detailed documentation of what he sees and feels much easier and creates opportunities for later analysis. I’m sure Patrick could also get invaluable help on projects like this from some of the successful tech investors that he trains horses for eg. Dan Kiely (founder of VoxPro – a pioneer in call centre tech that was acquired by Telus – and is now on the board of a rapdily expanding AI Startup Momntum). Can you imagine how many other trainers would want to buy a customer service AI that had been developed by Patrick Harty and the team of technologists at momntum ai?).

Valentin Rapin, Founder & CEO, Arioneo was last on the panel and he was perfectly placed to present after Patrick Harty as Arioneo are all about change management and have packaged their wearable sensor tech with training courses, online portals for trainers, data scientists on demand and AI assistant tools (which help trainers get over the major hurdle theey typically encounter when they first try to use sensors to make new decisions).

Arioneo have more than 1,000 trainers as customers and sell two products the Equimetre (a girth mounted sensor that collects your horses heart rate, ECG, GPS and locomotive data) and the Equisense (a tool to help record the assymetry of your horses) that are also being used in research projects etc across 32 different countries. The company is developing sensors that are setting new benchmarks in the industry and Valentin described the new science that’s developing as AI’s make it possible to study things that weren’t available before such as ECG at full galloping race speeds, A/B testing of the effect of feeds on performance, etc.

Arioneo are currently using AI’s to produce PDF reports containing data science derived insights into performance, recovery, fitness, veterinary concerns, etc that are available immediately to trainers after training sessions.

Kevin Blake, Racing & Bloodstock Analyst moderated the third session on “AI and Data Analytics In Equine Breeding Programmes” but he’s a great depth of experience, has done incredible work communicating the value of technological innovation in the sport (eg. he opened the eyes of millions when on live TV he used the TPD data to successfully make a ‘borderline ridiculous’ Epsom Derby prediction) and it would be fantastic to see Kevin leading an innovation workshop for the industry.

Kevin explained a belief that the thoroughbred is ‘maxed out’ and he articulates it very well: “when you’re looking at the thoroughbred you’re looking at thirty generations of selective breeding for one very specific thing and I always feel that where we are with the thoroughbred right now it is very close to maxed out and when you look at the anecdotal examples of race records & time records and their progress over decades they’ve actually plateaued a few decades ago despite the huge advances in technology and nutrition and everything else the absolute maximum hasn’t really moved that much”.

Might have to add a discussion panel to the next HorseTech Conference to debate this as I think this a widely accepted but fundamentally flawed understanding of what’s happening as while people are getting more technologically advanced they’re not necessarily getting smarter or growing up with more equestrian experience than our ancestors.

Tom Wilson, Founder &. CTO, Racing², shared the work he’s doing providing tech platforms and data analysis at bloodstock sales around the world. With a goal of providing generating data sets on every single yearling and two year old thoroughbred that is sold at a public auction using three AI products: 1) a machine learning pedigree analysis data set that goes through 5 generations and provides a pedigree score 2) a rating system that evaluates breeders and consignors 3) computer vision models to generate data on the shapes of horses and analysis of their walks.

Tom’s library database now runs to 25,000 horses and it’s hard to imagine how valuable his data and insights will grow to become as racing data gets added to the mix.

Dr Sonja Egan, Head of Breeding, Innovation & Development at Horse Sport Ireland discussed the work that the organisation is doing to help breeders make better breeding decisions. With the use of a back catalogue of hair samples they’ve been able to spin out heritability advisory services. Very interesting that Dr Egan knows about CRISPR sets but isn’t overly concerned about Gene Doping as it’s nefarious use in the thoroughbred (without trying to reveal anything that might help anyone with malicious/criminal intentions) it looks like the most obvious and biggest existential threat to the industry.

Anna McKenzie, Bloodstock Data Scientist, Pythia Sports has an engineering background in mathematical modelling and works to build machine learning models to try and predict the outcomes of sports events with clients including large wagering businesses and a partnership with RMG where they provide models for in-running data. The company has extensive worldwide databases on racehorses and a video analytics team and is focused on analysing any data they can get their hands on. In 2023 they started using the tech they had to spot ability and potential to buy horses at breeze up sales and this is going well and expanding after some great success buying for the companie’s Director and now they’re commercialising that service.

Judith Faherty, Editor, Irish Horse World, The Irish Field moderated the final Session of the day on the subject of: How You And Your Business Can Start Your AI Journey.

Stephen O’Dwyer, Founder, Trojan Track shared how his startup provides remote analyses to clients who send them 60 frame/second videos that they capture by placing their mobiles on a tripod that their horses walk past. Tom cautioned those with AI startup plans that they could end up spending years in their bedrooms entering data into computers.

Diarmuid Byrne, CoFounder, Equiratings shared his inspiring moneyball-style startup story and how he fell in love with the sport of event horses through it. His twitter marketing hack to get the attention of the celebrities in the commentary box and his use of AI’s to write scripts for commentators should be taught in business schools and highlighted the lack of a presentation at the Conference on the use of AI’s to do gather feedback, engage fans and new audiences for the support on social media.

Diarmuid’s quick exchange to Prof Tomás Ward following his advice to “do not use AI’s for accounting” highlighted to me how easy it is for even those working in AI industry to overlook the simple productivity gains: “we use it for accounting. THAT IS A BRAVE DECISION SIR no human in the loop, but all the documentation and receipts and everything gets uploaded and that just matches off and you’ve got auditable accounts as opposed to what it was, end of the year go and try to find receipts. there’s none of that and so every month it’s just a match and an ai that checks between the two it’s a company called www.outmin.io“

Prof Tomás Ward, Director of the Insight SFI Research Centre, Dublin City University opened by candid ly stating that he knows nothing about horses which didn’t for me bode well for his appreciation of the potential to use AI. I wonder why he didn’t just ask an AI to make him a list detailing the basic things it might be helpful for him to have known about horses and what audiences might’ve found interesting eg. it took me 30 seconds to ask Grok AI this and it’s not had a bad stab at answering it:

David Doherty, HorseTech Consultant, provides a review of the conference and shares his key takeaways:

The conference made it clear that AI will shape every part of equine industry from training and performance to welfare, breeding, integrity, and fan engagement. The challenges lie in balancing innovation with tradition, ensuring technology serves the horse, riders, the sport, and its community.

David was fascinated by the way speakers were referring to horses as “data generating creatures” and in the video David discusses how this perspective could be expanded to help data scientists better understand the scale of the opportunities because the most talented and experienced Equestrians have been doing A/B testing their entire careers going back to times before the internet was even invented. Can you imagine the opportunities if the tech industry engages with racehorses as mankind’s “most complex data GATHERING noble creatures” and the trust and confidence that would give society in tech developed and spun out of the thoroughbred industry?

Where now? Well The Irish Field concluded that they need to ask their readers what they wanted them to do next and I personally think this highlights the most basic fundamental misunderstandings that the Equine industry has about data. Everyone’s so busy looking over the fence to see what’s coming that they don’t realise they already have the ability to calculate what customers want. The Irish Field just need to look at their website analytics because that will show them who and where their customers are, when they’re engaging with their publication, what they’re spending time reading about, what they’re clicking on & sharing, when and where they’re using this content, etc, etc. They would also benefit from a look at their subscription model as it’s making their readership very vulnerable to scams (I don’t want to give ideas to anyone but you don’t need to look far for these eg. the sales of fake conference tickets).

For me the take away is that everyone in the Equine Industry needs to take a data science course because otherwise they will be unable to capture the opportunities, manage the risks & avoid the threats, understand how to best navigate the data-driven evolution that is upon us and learn how they can as a team effectively make evidence-based decisions that drive success.

Cancel Culture: A Major Challenge Facing AI in Racing

A major barrier to innovation in the equine world can be the entrenched corporate structures in leading organizations, which sometimes favor controlling narratives and limiting transparency or critique. We saw a classic example of this at the AI in Equine conference when the conference opening informed everyone that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine had supported the meeting on the stipulation that there would not be any mention or discussion of gambling. Horseracing in Ireland receives more than €60Million/year from betting levies and the industry is at the forefront of technological innovation and has already been transformed by tech (and AI) eg. the Court of Appeal in London has for years been making decisions on the importance of data in horseracing, smartphones have transformed on course betting, illegal unregulated gambling on horses (that doesn’t give anything back to racing by contribution to the Levy) has been one of the biggest drivers of crypto adoption in Ireland and the ways bookmakers are using tech around the world (CAWs, Means Testing, cancelling winning betters, using data science to convert horseracing betting account holders into highly profitable casino punters, etc) is threatening the viability and future of the sport eg. Ballydoyle would’ve never been founded by Dr Vincent O’Brien if bookmakers had been able to refuse to pay out in the way that today’s powerful bookmaker corporations managed to hold out on Dylan Phelan.

We need to be more transparent because an AI in Equine Conference that isn’t allowed to mention the key source of funding for the industry because the meeting is supported by a government department is like trying to productively discuss breathing without being allowed to mention the AIR! It’s quite incredible to think of the level of programming you have to have received to think that it’s worth even trying to productively talk about AI (computers doing the thinking for us!) but civil servants who have some of the most significant misunderstandings of the incredibly complex Equine industry are okay stating that their job is to make an ethical decision to censor everyone in an industry that employs 30,000 citizens and is failing to engage the next generation and facing a multitude of serious threats to it’s future. Maybe we need to get civil servants that are getting to decide the future of racing using AI’s effectively first?

Imagine what might happen if all the key stakeholders gathered to discuss AI’s role in the sport openly. It becomes problematic when an ‘ethical’ argument is used to preclude mention of racing’s primary funding model—such exclusions may inadvertently empower anti-racing groups and unregulated illegal bookmakers to exploit gaps in knowledge and oversight.

Making an ‘ethical’ argument that we can’t have any mention of the primary funding model for the racing industry highlights fundamental issues facing the sport eg. the sport of horseracing is incredibly difficult for fans to watch and share and yet the country’s psychiatrists are overworked dealing with an epidemic of children that have been psychologically scarred by the normalisation of watching sexual abuse videos (the situation is now so bad that it is now included in the national school syllabus where it’s described as ‘pornography’ in an attempt to normalise it’s consumption and sanitise the fact that the vast majority of the ‘actors’ being abused on camera are drugged up runaways who have themselves been abused as children and have already died from drug overdoses). When the most common function people are using AI chatbots like ChatGPT for is emotional support we have to be able to talk about how other sports are innovating with video platforms that use AI’s extensively (eg. sports like soccer are stating publicly that they see YouTube distribution as key to it’s promotion in American market ahead of next years world cup) and how we can get brilliant initiatives like the HRI’s The Road to Racing into schools.

Sadly for me the decision to censor the conference by the Government Department that supported the conference has left the conference organisers unable to do much more that distract everyone with conversations about obscure and quite inconsequential things like cardiac monitoring of respiratory limited racehorses, trying to use video analysis of the strides of horses at sales to compete with the experienced eyes of racehorse buyers rather than computing complex data that can improve the lives of horses and riders, AI scribes or enabling things no one can visually see when observing a horse like HorseIQ scores, eye/brain scan data, blood analysis, genetics data, etc, etc. Imagine the potential these was for this conference to enable the industry to have really productive discussions around the big threat/opportunities for AI. Everyone will have a different view but the most obvious examples for this would in my opinion be creating solutions to the recruitment crisis and modernising broadcasting rights (which are essentially the permissions to stream live races online that are sold for substantial fees to gambling operators – bookmakers and betting apps) because while they clearly need them for their real-time online wagering the sport also needs to be able to share them with the fan bases in exciting new ways if we’re going to build a positive future for the sport.

Data science is transforming every other industry and other sports are fiercely competing for the same audiences so I think the positive take away was for delegates to just get started because there’s no need to become an expert when the threats are so significant already (Can you imagine the scenarios if ChatGPT history of the world’s top racehorse breeders, trainers, board members at the JockeyClub & horseracing regulating authorities etc started showing up on Google!!!) and even a basic understanding will give you an all important competitive edge.

Unfortunately the above edited videos have yet to be uploaded as we’re still waiting for The Irish Field to share the presenters slides (these were to be used to produce edited videos) so please revisit and refresh this page (they’ll be up as soon as we receive the slide decks) or if you can’t wait please make do with the following unedited video clips from the day:

A few photos from the Conference:

Panel (L-R): Patrick Harty, Racehorse trainer, Harty Racing, Will Duff Gordon, Founder, Total Performance Data, Valentin Rapin, Founder & CEO, Arioneo and Mark Boylan, Chief Racing Report, The Irish Field.

Panel (L-R): Annemarie O’Brien, Champion Trainer and Breeder and Founder of Equimetrics, Marcus Swail, Equine Veterinary Surgeon at EquiVET Ireland, Rob Sheppard, Product Director, Ellipse Data and Lynn Hillyer, Chief Veterinary Officer at the Irish Horse Racing Regulatory Board.

Questions from the audience.