June 10, 2019 | by Shauna Thomson, BBRM Equine Management student

nightwatch kiss As horse people, we spend hours at the barn taking care of our equine friends, but we cannot always be there to monitor them. That is until now with NIGHTWATCH®, the world’s first smart halter™, designed to alert you to early signs of distress in your horse. This all-natural leather breakaway halter monitors your horse’s heart rate, respiration, motor activity, location, and posture, and alerts via text, voice, and email when a possible problem is suspected.

Jeffrey Schab-nightwatch photo — Jeffrey R. Schab, Founder and CEO of Protequus

Jeffrey R. Schab, an accomplished equestrian and engineer, founded Protequus®, the company behind NIGHTWATCH®, in 2013 after the sudden and personal loss of one of his show horses to a rare colic event overnight. Nearly six years later, this smart halter™ does more than alert you to early signs of colic. It’s an early-warning system for any form of equine distress, such as colic, pregnancy complications, being cast, and more. Built on the backbone of artificial intelligence, this system looks for deviation in your horse’s normal physiology using biometric and behaviour sensor inputs, adapts to your horse over time as it learns their normal parameters, and flags possible distress events that cannot be suppressed even by the most stoic of horses. This kind of technology can help improve horse care by catching problems before they become life threatening.

nightwatch app NIGHTWATCH® also features GPS that allows users to geolocate their horse anywhere within the US and Canada. This can be especially useful for horses that travel and in search and recovery efforts for those horses who tend to lose their halter playing in the field. This product accesses and transmits information to any mobile device, computer, or tablet using either WiFi or cellular networks to view the status of your horse at any time.

Jeffrey R. Schab and colleagues will be on hand to demonstrate the NIGHTWATCH® system during the practical day at the upcoming 2019 International Equitation Science conference from August 19-21 at University of Guelph.