As one of the oldest forms of competition still enjoyed all over the world today, horse racing involves a considerable amount of tradition. This is most often the case for the fans, who take their place in the stands as they watch their picks chase the gold. Given the age of racing, it was only relatively recently that radio, TV, and the internet started to change the way we watch, reshaping what had once been standard practice for more than a thousand years. The generation who can remember races without commentary is only now disappearing, remarkably.
With all this modern rapid evolution, it’s natural to wonder what will come next. Looking at some examples from the world of technology, we can make some educated guesses about what to expect in the years to come. None of these are guaranteed, but we’d be shocked if at least a few of them didn’t become standard.
Improved availability of viewing
The most widespread and inevitable change we can expect from the landscape of horse racing is a simple improvement in access to different courses and races. This is a reflection of constantly lowering barriers to recording and streaming, which once required tracks and businesses to leap over considerable technological hurdles. Today, live-streaming high-quality video and audio from all over the world is easier than ever, providing fans increasingly streamlined ways to drop in and out of races no matter where they find themselves.
A revolution in AR & VR
Most likely to stand as the complete game changers for how we engage with watching horse racing are augmented and virtual reality systems. These have shown immense potential in other sports, and while not fully embraced in any form of media, have demonstrated too many advantages to be ignored.
The simplest way this could be implemented is through better browser support on both AR and VR systems. Since you have control over the viewable area with this tech, it’s easy to reshape and resize anything available in a browser to a way you prefer. Many players already use this in cases like casino UK games. Here, titles like Fire Tale and Vampy Party can be extended to look the size of virtual movie screens, and the same could be true for horse racing streams. Since systems like these are equally available on computers and mobiles, they’d be the easiest way to engage with headset tech.
Virtual reality could take racing a step further by letting you stream as if you were seated directly in a front-row seat to the action. Meta has explored this technology in NBA, and Apple is furthering what’s possible with more investments yet to come.
Augmented reality could take a different tack, letting you digitally project a racetrack into an open space like a coffee table. Here’s you’d get a birds-eye view of the action, letting you focus on exactly what you wanted, and maybe pick up some patterns with the horses that you might miss otherwise.
As advanced as some of these ideas are, every one has existing precedents in some kind of sports. Their more complex integration into other sports like horse racing is just a matter of when, not if. The only questions are of how the audience will accept these new leaps forward, and what implications they might have for racing as a whole. If you’re interested, keep an eye out, and by 2030 you could be exploring the sport we all love in ways not conceivable just a few short decades ago.
