In 2017, something appeared in Lambourn that looked more at home in Alton Towers than the Valley of the Racehorse.
Built at Kingwood Stud, the Kurtsystem was a 1.5km mechanical training track capable of exercising ten racehorses at once, without a jockey on any of them.
It had been designed with help from rollercoaster engineers, was computer-controlled, and reportedly cost around £20 million to develop. Some reports put Mehmet Kurt’s total investment in the project closer to £40 million.
The idea was to prepare young thoroughbreds before they entered conventional ridden training, building their fitness and strength while reducing the risk of early injuries.
Nearly a decade later, the machine remains in Lambourn.
The revolution it promised never quite followed.
Inside the Kurtsystem
Five connected cars ran around the covered 1.5km track, each carrying two horses side-by-side. An overhead monorail powered the system, matching the horses’ movement rather than pulling them along, while a technician could monitor their exercise.
The concept had already been tested at Kurt’s operation in Turkey. The aim was to give young thoroughbreds a controlled period of conditioning before ridden training began.
Without a jockey, horses could gradually build fitness while their bones, joints and muscles were still developing. It also removed differences in rider weight, balance and judgement from those early workouts.
The hope was simple: send a stronger, better-prepared horse into full training and reduce the risk of problems such as sore shins, tendon strains and other early setbacks.
The Royal Veterinary College also studied horses using the system, including its potential effect on bone development.
AP McCoy Was Impressed. Others Needed Convincing
Sir AP McCoy was among those who saw the Kurtsystem in action.
“I never thought I’d see something like this in my lifetime,” he told ITV News in 2017, describing it as “amazing” while adding: “Whether this works, we’ll have to wait and see.”
Kurt was more certain. He believed conditioning horses before ridden training could reduce the injuries suffered by young thoroughbreds.
“The system will improve the preparation and pre-training of young racehorses before they enter a full training regime,” he said at the time.
But the machine couldn’t replace everything a good work rider provided. Riders can feel how a horse is moving and react when something isn’t right.
There were welfare questions too, although no major accident involving the Lambourn system appears to have been publicly documented.
Ultimately, the real test would come on the racecourse.
Products Of The Kurtsystem
For all the scepticism, the Kurtsystem did produce winners.
Catan, an Oasis Dream colt, spent around nine months in the system before joining Roger Charlton. He reached the track as a two-year-old in 2018 and won twice that season.
Space Talk also came through the programme before winning for Harry Dunlop and later selling for 80,000gns at Tattersalls. Forbidden Planet became another winner, while Kingwood-bred Win O’Clock won twice for Charlton in 2020.
None became a superstar, but that wasn’t really the point. These were horses prepared without riders during their early development before going into established British yards and winning races.
What remained harder to prove was whether they were any sounder for it.
A handful of winners showed the Kurtsystem could prepare a racehorse. Nearly a decade later, there still isn’t enough public data to show whether it actually reduced injuries compared with conventional pre-training.
Why Didn’t Everyone Build One?
For all the attention it received, the Kurtsystem never spread through racing.
Cost was difficult to ignore. The Lambourn project reportedly cost around £20 million to develop and build, with some estimates putting Kurt’s total investment closer to £40 million. That wasn’t necessarily what another yard would have paid for one, but installing a 1.5km covered monorail was never going to be cheap.
A work rider in Britain might earn around £25,000 to £35,000 a year and can exercise several horses each morning. Even ten riders earning £30,000 each would amount to around £300,000 a year in wages.
The Kurtsystem didn’t remove those staffing costs altogether either. It needed technicians to operate and maintain it, while horses still required riders once they progressed beyond pre-training.
Without clear evidence that it produced stronger or sounder horses, the financial case for other yards to follow was difficult to make.
Where Is The Kurksystem Now?
The Kurtsystem hasn’t simply vanished.
Kingwood Stud still describes the facility on its website, while Kurt Systems UK remains an active company.
But public updates about horses going through the programme became much less frequent after its early years.
And there’s now another twist to the story.
Kingwood Stud is currently for sale.
The sales particulars specifically mention the Kurtsystem monorail, meaning one of the most ambitious experiments in modern racehorse training is now effectively part of the fixtures and fittings.
Final Furlong
The Kurtsystem never became the future of racing it was billed to be.
But dismissing it as a £20 million white elephant misses what Mehmet Kurt was trying to find out.
Could you build a stronger racehorse before putting a jockey on its back, and potentially prevent some of the injuries that stop young horses ever reaching the racecourse?
Several horses went through the system and won races. What never emerged was enough evidence to convince the wider industry that the enormous investment was worth it.
Nearly ten years later, work riders are still being legged up every morning in Lambourn, while the Kurtsystem remains one of racing’s more ambitious experiments.
Perhaps the sport had already given Kurt his answer.
If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.
