KYLE McDONIEL: Good morning, everyone. I’m happy to be here with you at my first Round Table Conference. I joined Equibase on June 1 of this year, and while I’m new to the horse racing industry professionally, I come with extensive experience working across sports data, sports media, and sports betting.

I also have a long-standing interest in horse racing. I plan to use what I’ve learned over the course of my career to help make racing more entertaining for the casual fan, more integrative with the ever-growing population of sports bettors in the United States, and foster a better understanding of the sport through data for the whole of the horse racing industry, including the use of data to enhance safety and training.

I joined ESPN in 1997, where I led the development for the official websites at several of the major U.S. sports leagues and built relationships that have lasted throughout my career.

I launched some of the first fantasy games, video content, and subscription products, and data products for sports such as the NFL, NBA, and college football. I also worked extensively with NASCAR, where we implemented the first electronic timing and scoring system, and used that data to develop consumer products for digital and television graphics programs.

Most recently I headed U.S. partnerships for Sportradar, the leading company in the world when it comes to powering sports data collection and distribution for sports betting and integrity services.

There we monitored and collected data from over 90,000 sporting events every year across almost 100 different sports, and served the vast majority of regulated sports betting operators across the world.

In that role I worked closely with the NBA and Hawk-Eye to develop a long-term partnership for optical tracking across the league. This included using the raw data collected to better define statistical categories like steals and blocks, and be able to better utilize changes in ball rotation and individual players tracked down to the fingertip to help with replay reviews.

Beyond officiating and automated collection of statistics, U.S. professional sports leagues are most interested in this data to enhance storytelling and drive more interest and ultimately increase television ratings and fan engagement, including wagering.

These are the concepts we must consider when we think about how data can be used to grow or sport. As I started to get to know the highly dedicated and experienced Equibase team, as well as our hardware and technology partners, I’m excited by both the current depth and the future potential of E-GPS tracking.

At tracks across the U.S. and Canada, I see a tremendous opportunity to build upon our existing infrastructure with emerging technologies that will unlock more data that we can make available to the fan, the handicapper, the media, and the horsemen.

With installations our team completed here at Saratoga at the beginning of this meet, we are now providing E-GPS services at 28 tracks across the U.S. and Canada. This represents over 75 percent of North American handle. We continue to work to expand that footprint.

I do want to take a moment to acknowledge the hard work of our track services team who in many instances worked to complete installations on short notice to help support our partner racetracks.

Given the size of these venues, the speed of the Thoroughbreds, and the myriad other variables at the racetrack, including wayward lawn mowers and lightning strikes, it’s a much more difficult environment than most sports to collect data.

While the positioning of a starting gate and turf rails differ from race to race and day to day, home plate at an MLB game is always in the same place. It’s not at the discretion of the umpire.

Given those variables and some of the inherent limitations with GPS technology on its own, we are working on multiple fronts to refine our system by using a variety of different inputs, and by using multiple data inputs in concert, including wireless beam timing, wireless eyes, optical tracking, global positioning systems, and combining those with local positioning systems and our Equibase chartcallers and track operation staff, we will be able to continue to increase the depth and quality of data that ultimately gets delivered.

As an example of the technology we were exploring, here is a short clip that illustrates how we are working with our partners at Total Performance Data to refine our existing E-GPS data with use of machine learning and computer vision.

What you’re seeing here is not a user-facing product, but instead a new set of data created from existing cameras at the track to enhance and refine our own GPS data. This optical tracking will allow us to key in on individual silks, helmets, horses, saddle towel colors, and numbers to ensure the in-running order is properly displayed on-screen, and enables us to make corrections in real time, which can also better enable in-running wagering and more advanced handicapping products.

Additionally, we are continuing to invest in several areas to better visualize the data we collect, including new graphical representations to past performances to augment information that traditionally has been a part of our charts.

We are experimenting with graphics generated by Total Performance Data to illustrate stride frequency and length averages for a given field, and they can be displayed at the track or in digital products. We have worked with Pramana Labs this year to launch an artificial intelligence-powered product to deliver race insights to handicappers, and we’ve recently worked with FanDuel TV to supply in-race E-GPS data for use on their broadcast.

We believe this is just the beginning of what we can accomplish. I look forward to working with all of Equibase’s partners and customers as we work together to improve the depth and accuracy of data collection, and leverage that data to grow the sport.

Thank you.