Trainer Annemarie O'Brien set to expand her horse monitoring start-up Equimetrics

The horse trainer set up the company to create a health monitor for horses that measures heart rate, temperature, sweat, respiration, movement and activity

Horse trainer Annemarie O'Brien set up Equimetrics to create a health monitor for horses.

Horse trainer Annemarie O’Brien lost one of her most promising horses to colic a few years ago and since then she has been developing technology to monitor equine health.

She set up the company Equimetrics to create a health monitor for horses that measures heart rate, temperature, sweat, respiration, movement and activity. The monitor can also do a 24-hour ECG and send the results to an app.

“A horse can make a full recovery now even from a significant colic event if veterinary treatment is administered in time so the imperative is to recognise the symptoms at the earliest possible opportunity and act accordingly. The problem with colic and other health complications for horses is that horses can be unsupervised for significant periods of time,” Ms O’Brien said.

The question we asked was could we use machine learning to measure and monitor a variety of data points and flag up ill health and abnormal behaviour events as early as possible so that these events could be optimally managed.” 

Ms O’Brien has worked in horse sport all her life. Her father, Joe Crowley, bred and trained horses. She grew up to become a champion horse trainer and married Aidan O’Brien, a horse racing trainer at Ballydoyle Stables in Tipperary for John Magnier, at his Coolmore Stud.

Since setting up Equimetrics, developing the technology hasn’t been the only fence to jump for Ms O’Brien.

“One of the most difficult things was getting the communication protocols right. A lot of yards can be situated in the middle of nowhere with minimum phone coverage and no access to wifi so it took us a while to find workarounds to solve those problems,” she said.

The monitor has other uses aside from keeping track of illness or injury. It can also be used to review a horse’s training routine and track fertility with its foaling alarm feature.

“A trainer will want to know how a horse is handling their exercise programme, how they are recovering after racing or a performance event, how they are handling travelling and if a horse is showing signs of stress that would indicate that they need a change in their training program or a rest period,” said Ms O’Brien.

Equimetrics has five employees but is looking to hire more people in 2022. The Kilkenny-based company is currently putting together a fundraising round that will fuel growth and the development process and get the device out to customers.

The company has received investment from Yield Lab, Atlantic Bridge, the NDRC and Enterprise Ireland to date. The full amount invested in the company has not yet been disclosed.