There are a lot of ways to enter horse shows these days. Some local circuits require me to download a PDF form off their website, fill it out and email it in. Then I pay by PayPal or Venmo. Others I still mail in (not kidding) with a paper check.
And then there’s Horse Spot, a company that is trying to bring the horse industry into today’s world. Their software makes entering horse shows, doing adds or scratches, finding live results and following the show schedule so easy, I can’t believe no one else has thought of it already.
I used HorseSpot.net for the first time just this month to enter the inaugural United Dressage and Jumping Club show in Florida. Hosted at the Bob Thomas Equestrian Center in Tampa, I was really excited to check out this new circuit. Entries were accepted on Horse Spot, where I also could casually submit my membership for the UDJC.
It was so easy to create an account. Horse Spot has this ingenious search bar where it linked all my organization memberships – USEF, USDF, USHJA and USEA – all into my Horse Spot account with a real-time number look-up. So to create rider and horse accounts literally took me just seconds.
I could use the search bar to find my specific classes among the collection all of them offered at the horse show. It’s easy to log in and see if my entry was accepted, but also to add my Coggins and vaccination records, which are now stored in my account for the next possible entry.
Horse Spot is easy to use on my laptop at home or even in the browser on my phone when I am on the go. The website functionality just makes sense. Nothing is clunky. It feels like the folks behind Horse Spot thought of everything.
When the horse show finally came, I’d check the daily schedule in the morning and at the end of the day, as it was updated frequently to keep the status of show as current as possible. It also made it easy to add and scratch classes – literally from the stall as I was tacking up my horse.
Launched in 2023, this cloud-based platform is changing the way equestrians can enter, access and enjoy their time at horse shows, from rated circuits to local schooling series, and making the process simple and organized for the managers who put on these events.
And it’s not just a game changer for competitors. Horse show managers can login and access everything they need to keep the horse show running smoothly. That means managers are no longer tethered to only one or two computers in the show office to update results or to check-out competitors. Services are completely customizable, and also feature analytics and insights to identify performance and popularity trends among users at a specific event.
At the UDJC show, I was told there was no need to “check out” at the office at the end of the last day of the show, unless I wanted to. I just browsed my entry on Horse Spot, made sure all my classes were accounted for correctly, and went home. My credit card was then charged accordingly.
So simple. So easy!
Want to learn more about Horse Spot? Discover shows at horsespot.net, learn more about them here and discover their social media channels here: Instagram and Facebook. And listen to our full interview with Michael and Lindsay on Episode 136 of the Heels Down Happy Hour Podcast.