Can Wearable Tech Help Horse Riding Schools Ride To Victory?
By now, it’s no secret that wearable tech is turning the tides on horse riding as we’ve always known it. Professional riders, in particular, have long recognized the benefits of using technology. Now, however, even horse riding schools are starting to see the value of this investment.
After all, horse riding schools that continually face legal and safety restrictions have more incentive than ever to oversee the best possible conditions for their riders. While this still includes traditional elements like properly-kept equipment, all-weather riding thanks to the addition of steel horse riding arenas, and proper training for all staff, wearable tech is providing an entirely new availability and scope. In this post, we consider three ways that horse riding schools most stand to benefit from implementing wearable tech right now.
Ensuring horse performance
While the challenges they face may be different to those on the racetrack, horseback riding school horses that are required to work hard and perform consistently for even nervous riders always need to be in peak performance. Luckily, there’s now a wide range of wearable tech that brings reliable, continued digital horse management within reach. In particular, additions like the Estride tracker are being heralded as the ‘Fitbit’ for horses and make it possible to remotely track leg movements to judge everything from gait to stride analysis that ensures horse health and performance. Equally, additions like the Trackener Life can be used between rides to monitor stress levels, sleep, and even heart rate for much-needed oversight of every single horse’s condition, and performance potential, at any time.
Simplifying barn management
Barn management is perhaps the most timely undertaking of any riding school that needs to stay up-to-date for a continual stream of riders. Luckily, wearable tech can help here too, with additions like Horsepal not only providing much of the performance tracking already mentioned but also enabling an all-around stable management database that’s accessible by members. This then makes it possible to track and log routine activities including vet and farrier records across all horses, as well as better recording of grooming schedules to general health routines (e.g. vaccinations, etc.) and beyond.
Generally improving safety
Increasing pressure to meet stringent health and safety regulations is perhaps the largest challenge facing any riding school, but wearable tech that can be given to learner riders is helping to address even this. In particular, the ICE-Scan is transforming even safety during lessons by storing the medical and personal data of every rider for immediate access in case of emergencies. Equally, sensor caps that make it possible to better measure the fit and efficiency of riding helmets in moments are well underway and could ensure the best safety equipment to reduce costly and damaging serious riding school accidents by some margin.
Wearable technology is wonderful news for the equestrian world overall, but riding schools, in particular, should look to benefit from bringing tech on board to tackle a range of outstanding challenges that have often felt impossible before now.