From Lexington to Churchill Downs: GPS trackers bring races to life in real time

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - The numbers that flash across TV screens during a horse race — split times, speed and running order, come from a piece of technology tucked inside the saddle cloth.

Lexington-based Equibase equips each horse racing in the United States and Canada with a pair of GPS tracking devices placed inside the saddle towel. The devices are logged to a specific horse before it takes the track, allowing officials to follow each runner in real time.

To collect the data, Equibase deploys what it calls “tracking eyes” — sensors positioned at key points including the starting gate, the start line and the finish line. A team of about a dozen employees travels from track to track to install and remove the equipment as racing meets begin and end throughout the year. The same technology used at Churchill Downs for Kentucky Derby weekend is also used at Keeneland and other racetracks across North America.

During races, the trackers let staff monitor horses moving around the oval much like location-sharing apps on a smartphone, providing a constant stream of positioning data.

“The next evolution of that is really trying to get us on par with other sports and prospective player tracking, how they know everything that is happening every moment,” said Kyle McDoniel, Equibase’s President and Chief Operating Officer.

Sports have become increasingly data-driven, and horse racing is no exception. Beyond informing television graphics, the tracking data can answer detailed questions about how races unfold, including whether a horse lost ground during a move.

“It really creates a much richer data set that we’re starting to find other uses for,” McDoniel said. “I actually had an owner of one of the Kentucky Derby horses call the other day asking about a path that a horse had taken when they made an aggressive move toward the finish line and they were wondering, hey, did that cost us any ground? And we were able to answer those types of questions.”

Equibase employees said Derby week brings added pressure, with millions watching and little room for error.

“You sweat watching it,” said Ben Atkinson, an Equibase account manager. “You trust that the equipment is going to work right, but with just how crazy it is and how many people, you never know what could go wrong. But last year was my first year there and it went really well, so hoping for that again.”

The company says the growing database could help attract new fans, support handicappers and bettors, and deepen understanding of the sport. Beyond times and position, the GPS trackers can also measure stride length, stride count and average speed.