EQUIPRO - Equine Quantifiers: User-Interactive Performance Rating for Operators (RESUBMISSION)

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The £8bn/yr equine sport and recreation sector, providing employment for over 200,000 people, is extremely well established. UK expertise in horse well-being and management is recognised worldwide, and this is reflected in UK exports of over £400m/yr. There are over 1 million horses in the UK at present. In a sector where the value of single horses can be estimated in millions, and even tens of millions of pounds, the physiological characteristics, performance, and well-being, of such horses is therefore of huge importance to owners, breeders, investors, buyers, and the sport-leisure industry.EQUIPRO will develop a combination of specialised bespoke sensors, and an advanced software analytics computer software package, the EQUIPRO system. This will be engineered to deliver an equine performance/health assessment capability which significantly exceeds the methods and techniques employed at the present time.Use of the EQUIPRO system will permit end users (for example, owners or potential purchasers/investors of horses, veterinarian practitioners) to be given detailed and objective health and performance assessments. Furthermore, performance traits can be identified and monitored in such a way as to assist with training strategies, to correct or improve parameters relating to the horse behaviour, or even to correlate with genetic/breeding data.Because of the high value of individual horses, and their value as components of a quite significant recreational business sector, this project will enable substantial business opportunities both as a UK based service sector, and in terms of franchising/licensing of the technology and expertise in home and overseas markets.In the veterinary field, professional equine evaluations can be expensive, with £1k fees not unusual. The ability for these services to be significantly enhanced by EQUIPRO, and the potential then for such systems to be sold to, and have impact in, veterinary practices, has obvious potential to create business opportunities both for Equiprofile Ltd, and for those end-users.This is an industry-academic collaboration, bringing together equine physiology experts at Equiprofile Ltd, and technical expertise in sensors, systems, and analytics, at the University of York. Such a combination of skills is essential to achieve a step-change in equine assessment and evaluation technology.