Tag: equine

Garmin unveils the Blaze equine wellness system

Garmin have announced the Blaze equine wellness system, a tail wrap and sensor specifically designed to help riders, horse owners and trainers monitor their horse’s health and fitness so they can make more informed decisions about their well-being and training.

Garmin is a world leader in the health and fitness industry, and we are excited to bring our advanced sensor data and technology to the equine market with the introduction of Blaze. Whether you’re eventing, racing, jumping or anything in between, this new system will help you monitor your horse’s health to keep them performing at their best.” — Susan Lyman, Garmin Vice President of Consumer Sales and Marketing

Designed for horses

The Blaze equine wellness system features a durable and washable neoprene wrap with easily adjustable straps, while the removable, rechargeable and lightweight sensor monitors the horse’s health and motion using advanced algorithms. The wrap easily attaches and holds the sensor to the underside of the horse’s tail—no special skin preparation needed.

See what they can’t tell you

 Riders can better track their horse’s health and fitness when using both the Blaze equine wellness system and the Blaze app.

 

  • Real-time insights: View heart rate, strides, gait, distance and more. In addition to seeing these insights in the Blaze app on a smartphone, they can be viewed using the Blaze Connect IQ™ app on a compatible Garmin smartwatch.
  • Skin temperature: View average skin temperature changes, which can be related to activity, environment or potential illness.
  • Post-activity data: Review post-activity details, including recovery rate, time in heart rate zones, skin temperature and activity highlights.
  • Track multiple horses: Create individual horse profiles so the wrap and sensor can be used on multiple horses.
  • Heat Score: Receive guidance on how safe it is to ride at any time with a heat score that takes into account the current air temperature and humidity.
  • Data on the wrist: Track training, recovery and transport activities at a glance when using the Blaze Connect IQ app on a compatible Garmin smartwatch.

Featuring up to 25 hours of battery life, the sensor can be easily removed from the wrap for cleaning and charging. The Blaze equine wellness system is available now for €599.99.

See our Garmin Reviews

Datapac’s technology supports horse health and wellbeing for the Irish Equine Centre

Datapac, Ireland’s leading technology solutions and services provider, is today announcing that its technology is helping to drive equine disease diagnosis and research for the Irish Equine Centre (IEC). Founded in 1983, the Kildare-based IEC is a leading scientific and diagnostic service provider dedicated to the health and wellbeing of horses.

The IEC’s existing IT infrastructure was no longer able to keep pace with the growing technology demands of the equine diagnostics field. Following a competitive tender, Datapac delivered a complete refresh of the centre’s IT ecosystem to support the rollout of a wide range of services, including laboratory diagnostics, disease surveillance, and research on equine health and biosecurity.

The solution is underpinning continued growth and success for the IEC, which has just launched the Pet Vet Lab, a new service dedicated to advancing the health of household pets. It offers a ground-breaking screening service directly to pet owners, producing a personalised probiotic which is unique to each pet.

Datapac’s fully managed solution includes a comprehensive overhaul and integration of the IEC’s networking, compute, and storage infrastructure, built on Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) hardware and software. As the leading diagnostic service provider to the Irish equine industry, infrastructure uptime and resilience is vital for the IEC. The technology provides robust cloud data backup and recovery, with the ability to restore data in minutes in the event of an incident.

Advanced de-duplication vastly reduces the size of data storage, with up to 90% data capacity savings, and has significantly reduced cloud hosting costs for the centre. It also ensures speedy access to applications and data, boosting productivity for the IEC’s 69 employees.

Meanwhile, in an ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape, Datapac’s Managed Threat Ops service provides round-the-clock monitoring, response, and neutralisation of cybersecurity threats. The IEC also serves as a teaching centre for third-level veterinary students and Microsoft Office 365 software with individual accounts and storage space provides a seamless user experience.

In addition, Datapac has enhanced connectivity across the IEC campus, implementing a wireless network solution and upgrade to next-generation Wi-Fi 6. The consolidation of technologies coupled with support from Datapac engineers for day-to-day technical queries has reduced the burden on in-house IT resources, freeing up time to focus on driving innovation for the centre.

Michael Mahady, IT Manager, Irish Equine Centre, said: “We had worked with Datapac in the past, and knew that its skilled team was best placed to deliver on our key objectives as technologies continue to advance. The flexibility and high level of data protection provided by the HPE Simplivity platform is of the utmost importance, as secure backup and business continuity is crucial to enable us to continue to roll out our services and resources. Furthermore, Datapac’s solution provides the benefits of a smaller storage footprint while retaining the operational horsepower of a much larger system to support the early detection and management of diseases. Reliable access to Datapac’s experts is invaluable and gives us the peace of mind to focus on delivering value-adding projects for the centre.”

Colin Chapman, Business Relationship Manager, Datapac, said: “The Irish Equine Centre does such important work to promote horse health in Ireland, and our technology infrastructure overhaul is providing the proactive support and increased capabilities to continue to advance these vital services. Our solution has future proofed the IEC’s IT systems which will help the centre to grow and innovate in line with evolving industry demands. We are looking forward to building on our relationship with the centre as it continues to develop its cutting-edge resources.”