Renowned cross country course designer Captain Mark Phillips tries out the Oculus headset to view his Gatcombe course from a different perspective
Whilst enjoying the Land Rover Experience at this year’s Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials we noticed a few people wearing some rather strangely shaped goggles. These were of course the Oculus headsets and Burghley was the first time that the virtual reality headsets were being used to view an equestrian sport from a rider’s perspective
The technology of the Oculus headsets enable visitors to the Land Rover Experience to experience the sensation of riding the famous British Open Course at Gatcombe with a 360 degree view through the eyes of one of Britain’s leading event riders, Harry Meade.
We talked to Harry, one of Land Rover’s equestrian ambassadors, about creating the footage for this new virtual reality film and how he feels it attracts the interest of a new audience to the sport of eventing, especially the children who became engrossed by what they were seeing through the headsets
“It was very rewarding seeing some of the children putting the headsets on. They would be quite shy and slow to come forward but once you put the headset on them they would immediately say ‘Wow, this is amazing!’ and they would start jumping up and down, forgetting that anyone was around them and pretending they were riding the fences. Then as soon as you took the headset off them they went back to being coy, shy and slightly embarrassed that they had been making such a loud din!”
Harry Meade talks about the Land Rover Oculus
Not the easiest equipment to wear on cross country (above) and jumping into the water after descending the hill from the Land Rover Folly at Gatcombe (below)
The Oculus headset will be available at future Land Rover sponsored events and we hope to bring you some footage from the video filmed by Harry in the future so stay tuned ........
