From Here On: 'It's great to see what the possibilities are, if not a little frightening'

Written by Oz Wedmore

Cover image courtesy of Breedr

Racing and breeding is an industry renowned for its historic roots. It’s a centuries old pastime in which today’s stakeholders find passion and joy in an animal that hasn’t changed much in all those years.

But, argues Tom Seymour of Breedr - an all-in-one mare-booking platform, if the industry doesn’t get its head around the advancing technologies which are fast impacting so many other aspects of our lives, we’ll soon be in trouble.

To gather momentum on the issue, Seymour organised a conference to bring together some of the industry’s keenest innovators for a day of presentations and discussions at the Hunter Valley Equine Research Centre, adjacent to Scone Racecourse.

‘From Here On’ sought to generate discussion around the use of technology in racing and breeding, and saw a host of leading innovators offer their thoughts and experiences.

Senior representatives from G1 Goldmine, Prism, Workplace Digital, HorseFitness, BTX Racing and Dr Catherine Chicken, Chair of The Thoroughbred Horses Advisory Panel at AgriFutures, all contributed to the conference on Monday.

However, it was special guest Neal French, a director at Google, whose talk seemed to resonate the most amongst the audience.

“Firstly, to have a speaker of Neal French's calibre from Google and to watch people's reactions and eyes lighting up to where future technology is going to be was amazing,” Seymour told TTR AusNZ.

“Especially AI’s influence in modern day society… you could see people’s minds trying to join the dots, figuring out, ‘How is this going to affect me and my day-to-day work?’”

Joining the conference remotely, Matthew Ennis of G1 Goldmine and Prism’s Allan Bennetto both provide widely used software services to the industry that have been successfully adopted into day-to-day practices.

They noted that data access within the thoroughbred industry isn’t as open as they’d like, but urged their fellow innovators to lead the change.

“I think a lot of the change will have to come from those in this room, industry service providers, rather than the governing bodies themselves,” Bennetto said.

Similarly, Emma Wyvil from HorseFitness, a yet-to-launch education and training company, urged a bottom-up approach to education in the industry, as she explained how trainers and farms could cope better with the staffing crisis by starting with basic horse-handling lessons.

Andrew Jarvis of Workplace Digital explained how automated systems can help in the recruiting and onboarding of staff and clients, which includes verifying identities, which can help with anti-money laundering obligations for the likes of syndicates.

A shared vision

Some of the businesses represented might overlap, but there was no sense of competition in the room, and collaboration was the overriding theme. Seymour was pleased with both the turnout and contributions from attendees, having headed into the day with three main objectives.

“We wanted to showcase the amazing people and technology that are already existing in the industry,” he said.

“Secondly, it was the first step in trying to change the narrative in and around innovation and change… We spoke about data and we looked at new technologies that are really going to benefit the industry going forward.

“The third driver behind today was to start the momentum about why funding and why innovation needs a seat at the table in our strategic planning going forward - without it, we're going to get left behind.”

Google’s Neal French may have inspired, and even shocked, Monday’s audience, with his high-level vision on technology’s likely influence, but Dr Catherine Chicken offered a thought-provoking take on a key point of difference for our industry.

“I think what's different about the thoroughbred sector is that these individual animals are all worth a significant amount in their own right,” she told TTR AusNZ.

In her role at AgriFutures, Chicken is given an insight into other agricultural industries. Like them, funding distributed by AgriFutures for research and development in the thoroughbred sector is ultimately sourced from our breeding activity.

A levy of $10 taken from each mare and stallion owner at the point of covering is largely government-matched. With the number of horses bred each year in Australia relatively stable in recent years, it brings a total of around $1 million per year; however, our industry is unique, argued Chicken.

“We have a very different system,” she added. “We've got an agricultural system in breeding, which then feeds into an industry that's used for entertainment and wagering.

“(It’s) an important part of the culture of a country and, really interestingly for us in Australia, it's been part of that culture for a very long time.”

The welfare thread

Many of the technologies discussed, both current and proposed, also have significant externalities in the welfare sphere, which wasn’t lost on those in the room.

Anthony Jones’ presentation on BTX Racing included how blockchain technology can more easily facilitate a cradle to grave approach to welfare, whereby BTX can create a self-managed super fund for every single horse.

“The technology is easy, it’s who is going to pay for it,” he said. “They’re solvable problems, but they’re not technology problems; they’re industry problems.”

“We all have to be very mindful of the welfare of all of the animals that we're using, whatever the pursuit is,” Dr Catherine Chicken told TTR AusNZ after the conference. “Certainly, in thoroughbred breeding and racing we have to keep that front and centre.

“The most important participant in this industry is the horse, and without that, we have nothing. And, without a social licence to operate, we have nothing.”

Chicken emphasised that the bond between human and horse is “a really prominent feature of our industry,” and said the importance of that bond shouldn’t be underestimated.

“How lucky are we to have a director of Google standing in the room, talking to us about AI, in an industry that he knows nothing about?” Chicken asked.

“We can see how much scope there is and what can potentially happen to help our day-to-day practices with the advent of AI and data collection, and it's the future.

“Whether we feel comfortable with that or not… it's great to see what the possibilities are, if not a little frightening.”