Keeneland summit spotlights data-driven horse welfare and injury prevention
Sensors, lameness tools and injury data took center stage at Keeneland, where a 561-horse AAEP study found flagged runners had 2.2 times the injury odds.
The 12th Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit closed June 30 at the Keeneland Sales Pavilion in Lexington. The two-day meeting, which was livestreamed and free to the public with registration required, put biometric sensors, movement analysis and injury databases at the center of race-day decision-making.
The final session paired Hagyard Equine Medical Institute’s Dr. Evan Becker and Dr. Laura Werner with technology presentations from Stable Analytics, Stride Safe, Sleip, Arioneo, Equinosis Q with Lameness Locator and Equimetrics. Ben Bernhard of Stable Analytics focused on changes in equine movement patterns that can signal injury risk or a wider safety concern before a horse becomes obviously unsound.
The American Association of Equine Practitioners’ Wearable Biometric Sensor Research Project, released in April, followed 561 two-year-old Thoroughbreds through the 2025 season, tracked 4,252 breezes and documented 221 musculoskeletal injuries. Horses that received yellow or red sensor flags carried about 2.2 times the odds of injury compared with green-flag horses. Six companies took part in the project: Alogo Analysis, Arioneo, Stable Analytics, Equimetrics, Garmin and StrideSafe.
Arioneo’s Equimetre system measures speed, locomotion and cardio, while its Vision app uses artificial intelligence to detect lameness. The company’s new Racing System, set to launch in September, uses an ultra-thin race-day girth with ECG electrodes and locomotion sensors to capture cardiac and stride patterns in real time, and its AI detects atrial fibrillation with 99 percent accuracy. The system was being tested in the United Kingdom and France under live racing conditions.
The first Welfare and Safety Summit was held in October 2006, making this year’s meeting the 20th anniversary of the program. The June 29 opening session also revisited the Equine Injury Database, launched by The Jockey Club in July 2008, with Dr. Tim Parkin outlining a 47 percent drop in overall fatality rate since 2009. Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation data show fatalities fell 46.2 percent on dirt, 55.2 percent on turf and 34.9 percent on all-weather surfaces, while the North American fatality rate declined from 2.0 per 1,000 starts in 2009 to 1.07 in 2025.
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