ENGLISH TEXTS
tain owners now addicted to racing data. Heart rate, stride length, trajectory analysis... horses have gone digital. Compared to powerhouse regions like the U. S., Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, and now South Africa, France didn’ t exactly burst out of the gates. In the U. S., for example, the Jockey Club’ s website already offers around 30,000 name suggestions for breeders and owners to name their foals, thanks to a system called Naming AI- short for Artificial Inspiration.
The myth of the perfect horse In healthcare, projects are numerous and highly sophisticated.“ In medical imaging and infectious disease research, we’ re really at the forefront at the Normandy Equine Valley Campus,” says Guillaume Fortier, head of the Labéo lab in Normandy.“ We’ re behind on other fronts in France, but genomics should help us catch up in two or three years.” In breeding, several trains have already left the station. But startups like Fairway AI, which specializes in big data and AI, are already winning over insurers, breeders, owners, and brokers with reports compiled from thousands of races and auctions. Many stables are now equipped with video surveillance triggered by unusual movements or temperature changes. Still, we’ re far from playing genetic wiz-
ard. No tool yet exists that can create the perfect horse through selective breeding. Some professionals are nevertheless keeping an eye on a certain Bob Wilson, who claims to have developed an algorithm that identifies future champions from sales. His app, Racing2, even maps the movements of every yearling and two-year-old ready to race. Like betting odds, it uses a scoring system up to 100.“ Perfection is unattainable, no one will ever achieve a 100 % elite conversion rate,” he admits,“ but using data science and machine learning can boost our chances of finding the right horse.” There’ s also plenty going on behind the scenes. Amid the metaverse boom, PMU invested in the virtual world, aiming to build racetracks and host futuristic races. The project didn’ t go much further, but betting is becoming increasingly connected. Projects like Jockiz or Eqwin— recently sold to a U. S. company, are prime examples. Meanwhile, AI has helped the historic French betting operator optimize Quinté + scheduling. This led to prime races being shifted to 6 p. m. on summer days, while“ live betting” is now on the horizon. As for predictions, the dream is being sold at every IP address. A quick scroll on social media reveals plenty of bold claims:“ 350,000 races analyzed, 60 filters,” says one.“ Real-time odds analysis,” boasts another. Many am- ateur data jockeys abound, but so far, AI still makes the best picks. That said, rare exceptions like Billy Walters, the legendary Las Vegas gambler widely regarded as the greatest sports bettor of all time, prove there’ s still room for intuition and expertise.
Lagging behind leading sports Compared to other sports, racing is getting connected, but still far behind the curves seen in Formula 1, tennis, basketball, or the NFL. In the U. S., American football players wear RFID chips and are tracked by over 30 cameras around the field. These capture 100 million data points to help prevent injuries( via the Digital Athlete program). In the UK, Liverpool uses AI to optimize corner kicks- the only area where they recently outplayed PSG. In rugby, French coach Fabien Galthié’ s staff includes a data scientist whose analysis has dissected all of France’ s opponents over the last five years. A key part of the national team’ s recent resurgence. Not to mention the Toulouse football club, which recruits players solely based on data from 70 different leagues around the world. Whether you’ re a believer or not, the AI train has left the station. The Matrix is here, and nothing will stop progress. So long as it’ s well supervised, one of the aims of February’ s major summit, AI is already becoming a spar-
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