The Blaze™ Equine Wellness System provides clear insights into your horse’s health and fitness, helping you make more informed decisions about their well-being and training. Image supplied by Garmin.
Trail-riding enthusiast and devoted horse lover Rachel Vercoe is embracing Garmin’s new Blaze™ Equine Wellness System to better understand and support the health and fitness of her beloved partners, Willow and Oakley, on every ride.
“Having a life with horses was always my dream,” shares 31-year-old Rachel Vercoe. “I didn’t grow up with horses but was obsessed with them from as young as I can remember. It wasn’t until I was 21 that I finally got my first horse, Willow. She has shaped my life in so many ways and ultimately helped me live the life I am now.
Rachel Vercoe with her Brumby x Arabian mare, Willow. Image supplied by Garmin.
“I started to share my life with her on Instagram and a few years later my second horse, Oakley, came along. My friends bred him and while he was still cooking in his mum’s belly, something in my gut told me I needed that foal. Having him from birth has been such a unique experience.”
Rachel and her Brumby x Arabian mare – alongside handsome young Palomino Quarter Horse x Arab gelding – have since become social media sensations thanks to their authentic, fun-loving and empathetic footage that celebrates the bond between horses and rider rather than ribbons or accolades.
“Together we’ve created a special life with me riding Willow and Oakley running free beside us from a young foal. Five years later and I’m now riding him as well.”
Their Instagram page, @myhorsewillow, has 423k followers and continues to grow.
“Using the Garmin Blaze™ on
our rides felt like a natural step…”
HEALTH & WELFARE
For Rachel, Willow in particular has been an especially important relationship in her life. “Willow helped me through breast cancer in my 20s and I helped her through a mild kissing spines diagnosis not long after,” she explains. “I couldn’t imagine my life without her and feel my best when out riding on the beach and exploring new trails in the bush.”
Understanding the importance of health for both horse and human and recognising the need for owners to develop empathetic partnerships with their equine friends, Rachel was excited when she first learned that global tech company Garmin was adding an equine smart device to its GPS-enabled sports range.
“Using the Garmin Blaze™ on our rides felt like a natural step,” explains Rachel, who largely partakes in trail and beach riding with her horses. “I love fitness myself and being able to read all the insights into their health during rides is so helpful to get a real understanding of their level of fitness and see it develop.”
THE BLAZE™ EQUINE WELLNESS SYSTEM
The Blaze™ Equine Wellness System provides clear insights into your horse’s health and fitness, helping you make more informed decisions about their well-being and training.
The system begins with an easy-to-use tail wrap and sensor. The durable, washable neoprene wrap features hook-and-loop straps that secure the lightweight sensor to the underside of your horse’s tail, where it gathers key health and fitness metrics.
The Blaze™ Equine Wellness System begins with an easy-to-use tail wrap and sensor. Image supplied by Garmin.
WATCH: Rachel demonstrates how to fit the Blaze™ Equine Wellness System.
Paired with the Blaze™ mobile app on your smartphone, or the Blaze™ app from the Connect IQ™ Store on a compatible Garmin smartwatch, you can review heart rate, recovery rate, time spent in heart-rate zones, skin temperature, strides, gait, speed, distance and GPS location summaries from your training or transport sessions — and more.
In addition to skin temperature data, the Blaze™ Equine Wellness System provides a current heat score that incorporates air temperature and humidity. This removes the guesswork around whether it’s too hot to ride from a welfare perspective. With summer now underway, it’s a daily consideration for most riders.
The tail wrap and sensor can be used on multiple horses, as the Blaze™ app allows users to create individual profiles. The energy-efficient sensor generally runs for 25 hours between charges and can be easily removed from the wrap for straightforward cleaning and charging.
Paired with the Blaze™ mobile app on your smartphone, or the Blaze™ app from the Connect IQ™ Store on a compatible Garmin smartwatch, you can review a wide range of equine health and fitness metrics. Image supplied by Garmin.
With the Garmin Blaze™ providing insights into her horses’ fitness, Rachel is motivated to take Willow and Oakley out for some endurance rides next year! Image supplied by Garmin.
“It makes me motivated to do a
few endurance rides next year.”
“We do lots of trail riding and the Garmin Blaze™ has been so great to use,” says Rachel. “It’s super easy to use and even the set up process is a breeze. Some of my favourite data to look at during the ride is top speed – because who isn’t interested in seeing how fast your horse is – and their heart rates.”
WATCH: How fast can Willow and Oakley gallop?
These insights give Rachel confidence that her horses are handling their time under saddle – or, in Oakley’s case, sometimes at liberty – and they have also proven to be a source of inspiration.
“It makes me motivated to do a few endurance rides next year and use it to monitor their fitness and see them improve,” she explains. “It’s such a great piece of technology and I’m just excited that they’ve brought it to the horse world!”
This article was written in conjunction with Garmin. To find out more about the Blaze™ Equine Wellness System, click here. EQ
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