News story tonight on BloodHorse regarding foaltrack

[dray33]

Well it's out there, tonight on BloodHorse, so it's only fair I release it here. I think for people like us who love young horses, breeding and sales, it means great things. I've been waiting a long time to say this: Finally, by connecting with the Equibase Virtual Stable, we can now answer the question: "what happens to my favorite horses after the sale?"

PS: The new site goes live around 10am, EST tomorrow (Friday Jan. 28th).

Facebook for Foals Links to Equibase
By Blood-Horse Staff
Updated: Thursday, January 28, 2010 8:55 PM
Posted: Thursday, January 28, 2010 8:48 PM

A free online service called foaltrack.com, which enables fans and industry participants to follow the development of young Thoroughbreds, will allow viewers to track the careers of their favorite racehorses beginning Jan. 29 through Equibase’s Virtual Stable notifications.

“As yearlings turn 2, get named, start breezing, racing and winning, foaltrack members will know immediately with free workout, entry and result notifications provided by Equibase Virtual Stable,” said Drew Rayman, founder of foaltrack.com.

A unique page is created for every horse entered on foaltrack.com. Many of the entries include photos of the horses, enabling an overview of a stallion’s progeny and the progress of each horse through the conclusion of its racing career. Each page also includes links to TrueNicks nicking information and to The Blood-Horse’s Stallion Register Online.

“Foaltrack.com is like Facebook for horses,” Rayman said. “It has consolidated multiple sources of free data (race results, entries, workouts, nicking, pedigree) onto a single platform, where buyers, breeders, owners and thousands of racing fans experience the thrill of the sales and track their favorite horses.”

Launched in August 2009, foaltrack.com has become a leading Web site for tracking young Thoroughbreds and sales horses. Fasig-Tipton and Keeneland participated in the foaltrack.com launch, adding over 10,000 foals of 2008 to the foaltrack database during the 2009 yearling sales season. Foaltrack’s partnerships with forums, blogs, social sites and industry organizations has already attracted over 5,000 participants, giving foaltrack a reach well beyond 50,000 Thoroughbred buyers, breeders, owners, stallion farms and fans, according to Rayman.

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Please join us at http://www.foaltrack.com.

Thanks.

[Roguelet]

Congratulations! That's AWESOME! OK, counting down... 4 hours to go... I can't wait to see it!

[Toccet02]

Congratulations "Dray"! Nicely done.

[Crystal]

WOOOO HOOO! You Go Drew!

[wilf]

Nice work Drew, a wonderful tool indeed!

[winds]

Congratulations!!! My foal's on foal track and it'll be nice to keep up with her after she's sold in the fall.

winds

[jellac]

dray -

Foaltrack (or as its been likened: "Facebook for horses") is a fantastic idea!! This is going to go a long way towards reuniting thoroughbred racing's non thoroughbred owning fans of the sport and/or non-racing oriented fans of the breed - especialy younger ones - with those of us in the sport/industry who really care about the horse. Simply Brilliant!

A giant step forward for our sport and industry and most of all for the horses. The best 'PR' I can possibally think of is one that helps members of the public/fans make a direct connection with the sport via individual horses. I think it's great that the DRF is allowing linkage with official works/workout times via this interface so the public in general can see them with the photos and 'story' or history of a thoroughbred as he/she developes/matures.

I salute you and those that have worked with you on this project for pulling all these pieces togehter with the all important photo aspect.

[skywatcher]

congratulations...site looks great and I've added my babies too!

[dray33]

jellac: Thank You. You hit the nail on the proverbial head. The idea here is to highlight the young horses. That's a great, and social way to attract a newer and younger audience for sure, but it serves a great purpose for industry people too... first: we all know how to get to the free information, this simply puts it all in one place, and second: it allows us to keep track of all those young horses. The ones we see at the sales, or from a breeder. Wherever... it's one of the best thing our sport has. Over time, you will know what happened to Hip 138, the one that had OCD's. Did it make it to the races? Or Hip 77 that you fell in love with. How's your eye? How about Fantasy Leagues, with a Million Dollar "budget" over time? Not to mention the benefit of seeing the HORSE, along with a catalog page. They do it in Japan, Europe. Why not here, only better?

Any suggestions, or ways to make it better, please let me know. There's a lot to do, but it's going to be fun. Thank you all for taking the time to look.

[justinnich]

Quick question, Dray...any way I can "claim" my horses? Obviously we have a couple that are on there from the sales, and I don't want to add them again and create redundancies. I'm just wondering if there's any way I can take a horse that someone else submitted and list it as mine since we've purchased it in real life.

As of now, we have Much Rejoicing, Empiricist, and Sunlight Sonata on there that I know of.

[dray33]

We are working on that right now actually. Basically, there are going to be multiple pages of horses, especially popular ones. So if there is 12 Zenyatta "pages", how to we show them, and prioritize them? Here's where we are at right now:

We are creating a "Gallery" page for any horse with multiple entries. Who comes first, what takes priority will be: first: Pictures taken at the sales by staff photographers and images loaded by breeders (if the horse is not in the sale). If the breeder loads an image prior to sale, that will go first. Second will be by date entered. Something to that effect. What we want to do is add administration functionality so that we can click a button and set priority.

As an example: Much Rejoicing. We have her page created for the sale. If you purchased her in real life and want to add images, there is a link for that. BUT, it would be better for you to control that page if you wanted. So that's what we are building, a way to "hand off" the pages at any point in the process. Give me a week or two, we should have something working.

[justinnich]

Sounds good, just wanted to make sure that kinda thing was in your brainstorming. Best of luck with the site, and congratulations on the new set-up! The idea is awesome!