Filling out horse show entry forms the traditional way is repetitive, tedious and time consuming. It’s easy to miss something when completing them, resulting in extra work and delays in the show office. Simone Otus Coxe and Barbara Phillips recognized a need to do something about this problem, and Equestrian Connect, an easy, one-minute online horse show entry system, was born.

As amateur jumper riders who have done their own entries for years, Coxe and Phillips share the same frustrations as anyone involved in showing horses: having to look up membership numbers, trainer information, making sure to have the correct class numbers, and on and on. With Phillips’s background in computer science and business, she was able to design a system that would take out the repetition.

On EquestrianConnect.com, users enter the needed information once, and then it is used for every horse show they enter. With the cooperation of the horse shows Equestrian Connect has partnered with, selecting the right classes is just a matter of a few mouse clicks. After quickly making all the needed selections, the user prints their complete, correct and legible entry form to mail to the show.

Jenni McAllister of Martin McAllister Training said, “Once the information is in, Equestrian Connect is really easy to use. I like that I don’t have to keep looking up all the numbers, rewrite everyone’s address…it’s very convenient. I love it.”

Since Equestrian Connect launched in November 2009, over 1200 horses and 1000 people have been entered in the system to create entries for 75 shows—and those numbers are growing all the time, including shows from across the country. “Equestrian Connect is an official service provider to the Washington International Horse Show,” Coxe explained. “We’ll also have the Hits on the Hudson series and a number of other shows available. We generated 70 entries for the Spruce Meadows summer series, and entry forms for the Spruce Meadows Fall Series, including the Masters, will also be available.”

Hope Glynn of Sonoma Valley Stables is one of those users. “Equestrian Connect has allowed me to do entries for a large barn quickly and easily. It allows me to spend more time with the horses and less time on the computer.”

Horse show managers also like the system. Linda McRae, manager of the Langer Equestrian Group hunter/jumper shows at Woodside and Hansen Dam explained, “I love receiving entries from Equestrian Connect. The information provided to them is sent to us clearly, and there seems to be more information on each entry than the ones that are done the handwritten way. I wish everyone would use it—it would make my life so much easier!”

In addition to the online entry service, Equestrian Connect provides valuable alerts via email and their facebook page to let users know when entry forms are available in the system and remind them of upcoming deadlines.

Equestrian Connect, LLC was founded in spring 2009 and is based in Menlo Park, California. Phillips rides with Butch Thomas at Willow Tree Farms, and Coxe rides with Duncan McFarlane and Helen McNaught of Outwoods Farm. Their years of experience in the competition arena make them prime candidates for running a system like Equestrian Connect..