Lexington, KY - For decades, people looking to buy horses have been seen at a sale with a well-thumbed catalog listing hundreds of horses, crammed with information about the racing and breeding success in their bloodlines and, if they are old enough, their own history on the racetrack.
The catalog would have dog-eared pages and notes scribbled in the margins, and it would be stuffed with notes written on other sheets of paper as the potential buyer scouted out prospects at the barns before the horse entered the sales ring. But the actual information in the sales catalogs is weeks old by the time a horse enters that sales ring.
To address this, Fasig-Tipton, Lexington's oldest horse auction facility, now has printed on its catalog a quick response code that, when scanned with a reader by a smartphone or tablet, brings up QR Code Enhanced Pedigrees, a web page with all the information in the catalogs, plus updates, links to news stories and video.
Now the potential buyer can watch video of a prospect running or training on a mobile device and see updated race results from the horse or its siblings - or in the case of breeding stock, from other offspring.
And a lot can change from the time that catalog is printed to the time the horse steps in the sales ring, especially in a situation where a horse is running at the Breeders' Cup on Friday or Saturday and then shipping to Lexington to sell on Sunday. Fasig-Tipton started printing the QR codes, which look like a square version of a UPC code, for its one-day November sale.
As an example, hip no. 6 in the November sale, Pachattack, had finished second in a Grade I stakes race at Keeneland, and a half sister had run second in a race in Ireland since the catalog information had been shipped to the printer. Pachattack ended up selling for $1.2 million at the November sale. While the information was certainly no secret, the QR codes put the information at buyers' fingertips, even as they walked around the paddock.
"It might make additional people interested in the horse," said Max Hodge, director of client services at Fasig-Tipton, part of the team that helped apply the technology to Thoroughbreds.
In the past, consignors would have passed along updated information to people as they stopped by the barn to check out the horse before it entered the ring. But if they weren't interested enough to stop by the barn, they may not have gotten the information in time to become a serious bidder. Consignors can also include a link to the updated news pages to potential buyers through advertisements online and in e-newsletters.
For Fasig-Tipton, more interest in a horse hopefully translates into a higher sales price.
"We want everybody's horse to sell at a premium," said Hodge. "That's how we get paid."
The updates, which are highlighted in red on the enhanced pedigrees site, are being uploaded constantly.
"Sellers love it," said Hodge, who breeds and races horses himself.
Hodge was part of a team of about five staff members from Fasig-Tipton to do the brainstorming about incorporating the QR codes as part of a sale catalog. Fasig-Tipton already was keeping a detailed database of information about the racehorses and breeding stock, so it was largely a matter of turning that information into "a unified, presentable website."
Hodge credited Fasig-Tipton's I.T. manager, Paul Barlow, with doing most of the heavy lifting to get the project up and running.
Hodge said it was in development for about two months before it went live.
And in conjunction with Equineline, a service provided by the Jockey Club, which also offers a free sales catalog application for mobile devices, the printed and dog-eared catalog is no longer a necessity at a Thoroughbred sale. Equineline helps Hodge rank horses and assign values and make notes about a horse that he can refer back to should a horse that he passes on at one sale show up again at another.
"I haven't used a catalog in over a year," Hodge said.