One rider, several horses, a day of classes. Every line is billed.
An entry is not one record. It is a rider, the horses in the trailer, the classes each horse is going in, the stalls, the hook-up and the fees added at the show office. The entry platform charges on the count, and the count is always bigger than the crowd.
What a show or a circuit rents
This stack was assembled in order of urgency: entries first, then a way to get results out, then a way to get money back in.
The count that is billed is not the count that arrives
One rider brings several horses, each horse goes in several classes, and every one of those combinations is a record the entry platform can charge for. A single trailer on your grounds can generate a long list of them before the first fee sheet is printed. Add a division or open a schooling section on the Friday and the count rises again without another truck parking on the field. The pricing is attached to exactly what a show committee spends its year trying to grow.
Nothing is final until the class runs. Riders scratch on the morning, add at the gate, swap a horse that came up sore and change trainers between rings. If the platform charges at entry, a scratch may never come back; if it charges at the gate, your office is reconciling two lists on the one day it cannot spare the time. Office fees, drug fees and late fees all land in that same window, on paper, next to the coffee.
Then there is the circuit. Standings only work if the same horse and the same rider are recognised at every stop of the season, and when each show runs its own entry product the matching is done on spelling. A barn name typed two ways is a competitor who quietly loses a year-end placing, and somebody rebuilds the table by hand before the banquet. Per-show licensing charges the circuit again at every stop for that privilege.
What we rebuild for a show or a circuit
- Entries by horse, rider and classOne account per person with their horses saved from last season, classes picked off your printed schedule, and your eligibility, height, age and cross-entry rules applied as they choose rather than argued about later.
- The show office on the dayScratches, adds, horse swaps, rider changes and late entries taken right up to the gate, with the fee sheet recalculating itself and one running balance per account.
- Stalls, hook-ups and bedding as inventoryBarns, pens and hook-ups laid out as a map, reserved in the same order as the entry, with trainers' strings stabled together and the stall chart visible to whoever is on the radio.
- Back numbers, paperwork and the gate listNumbers issued per horse or per rider to your rule and reissued when one goes home in a truck, with coggins, vaccination and measurement documents held against the horse and their expiry dates checked before arrival.
- Results, points and prize moneyPlacings taken ringside, carried through the season against the same horse and rider, and turned into a payout list with office, drug and late fees already netted off.
What must stay with the association
- Governing body membership and eligibilityBreed and discipline associations hold the memberships, the horse recordings, the rider status and the rules that decide who may compete. That is their record and it stays theirs. We check a number and store it against the entry. We never decide eligibility.
- Sanctioned results and fees owed upwardWhere an approved show must file its results, its class list or its drug and sanction fees through the association's own system for them to count, that filing stays. We produce the return in the format the association publishes.
- Card processingThe processor's charge is the same whoever built the entry form, and prize money and refunds move on the rails your bank and processor already give you.
The show office is the product
The show office is where this is won or lost. Everything that matters happens at one desk with a queue in front of it: a scratch, an add, a horse swapped after a bad warm-up, a trainer settling for a barnful of riders at once, a number reissued because the first one went home in a truck. A system that is pleasant to enter on and awkward at that desk has failed. So we build the office view first and run it through a real weekend while the current product still takes the entries.
The other thing a showground decides for you is the network. Rings are often a long way from anything, and the signal at the in-gate is not the signal in the office. So the parts used away from the desk, the gate list, the check-in and the placings, are built to work on a phone that has dropped off, and to send up what they collected once the phone finds a bar again. The office keeps a printable order of go for the day the whole site goes quiet.
Questions show secretaries and circuit managers ask
Would this affect our approval or our riders' points with the association?
No, because none of that moves. Memberships, horse recordings, rider status and eligibility stay with the association, and where results or fees must be filed in its system we produce the return in the format it asks for. What changes is the entry form, the office desk and the stall chart, which you chose yourselves.
Can we still take changes at the gate?
Yes, and that is the part we build first. Scratches, adds, horse swaps and late entries go in up to the moment the class runs, the fee sheet recalculates, and the account shows one balance. It is built to keep working on a phone with poor signal at the in-gate.
How do points work across a whole circuit?
The same horse and the same rider are one record for the season rather than a name retyped at every show, so standings update as results are entered instead of being rebuilt from spreadsheets before the banquet. Your points rules, drop scores and divisions are set once and applied at every stop.
We run two shows a year. Is this worth doing?
Probably not, and it is fairer to say that than to sell you something. Add your per-entry or per-horse fees, the per-show licences and the stall add-ons into the calculator on this site, then look at the total over several seasons. If the number is small, keep renting and put the money into footing and prize money.
From the blog, for equestrian and rodeo
- What do stall and RV hook-up reservations cost a show to run?September 24, 2026 · Stalls, shavings and hook-ups are inventory on a map, not a ticket add-on. What they cost in fees and in show office time, and what to count.
- Why does one rider generate several billable records at a horse show?September 24, 2026 · Entry platforms bill on horse, rider and class combinations, so one trailer produces a long list of charges. How that multiplies and what to count.
Keep reading
Send us what entries cost you
The fee per entry, per horse or per class, the licences you pay per show, and what the show office still reconciles by hand.
Hiro costs about a tenth of what you pay now, quoted against your own bill. Hosting, fixes and changes included, and no per-seat fees.