Virtual Reality and Horse Racing

Technology allows us to do many great things. The first thing that comes to mind is use the internet and browse it to find information about almost everything. People often use it to visit social media platforms and see whether anybody liked their posts. Others use it to find business opportunities. 

And you have to, customers keep the business alive. But not only because of that, but rather because horse racing is about to get even more exciting. How is that possible for such a fast-paced and adrenaline-filled sport? Simply put, more technology.

Virtual reality has been here for a while but it has also faced plenty of challenges and obstacles on its way to mainstream. The cost and nuisance of using headsets and having the right hardware are the first of many. But, VR can also be used to stream a certain media, like a horse race, for example, or a basketball match. Horse racing is about to get more exciting with VR and here is how. 

VR Horse Racing – Video Games

The first and obvious way of experiencing horse racing and VR is a video game. Video games make it easy. You need a computer or a console and a VR headset. Fast-forward the download time and setup time and you can be a jockey and ride your horse to victory. Video games which implement are scarce but that is because the sport is not as popular as football, for example. Regardless, there are a couple of games which you can download and play in VR.

VR Broadcasting – A Simple Method

The simplest method of experiencing a horse race in VR is a camera on the horse itself, pointing ahead, seeing in turn, whatever the jockey and horse are seeing. With that, you can feel like you are part of the race, with all the excitement being streamed through the audio portion, while you also pick up the horse’s and jockey’s breathing. This is probably the easiest way of making sure that the viewers can watch a horse race in VR.

AR Horse Racing – Projects in Progress

With how technology is getting better, broadcasting companies are creating new ways of using that technology to bring viewers closer to the action. Augmented reality is where you use your keyboard or device to view the reality with more information. Imagine a horse race where you can turn your head and a 360 camera would give you all the video, just you would normally be able to see. Not only that, but you could also see statistics such as speed and heart rate. 

Horse racing has a couple of companies which are working on virtual reality and bringing it closer to the viewers, really close. Virtual reality and augmented reality are just a couple of methods which can be used to solve this.