Palgrave, Ontario/Barrington, IL – April 28, 2011 – EMG Show Management System, a comprehensive horse show entries program, will be a part of some of the biggest horse shows in North America this year, helping them stay organized and meet the needs of their competitors.
Created through a partnership between Equestrian Management Group (EMG) and Network Identity, Inc., owned by Jon Kassel, the EMG Show Management System is a comprehensive horse show entries program with additional capabilities in competition planning and hospitality management. The most recent version of the program was launched in 2008 and has quickly become the program of choice for some of the largest hunter/jumper competitions in North America, including all of the HITS Horse Shows, Kentucky Horse Shows, Showplace Productions, Capital Challenge, Washington International Horse Show, The Royal Winter Fair, and the Hampton Classic.
A new show this year using the EMG Show Management System is the Devon Horse Show in May. The program is helping Devon with their entries as well as their qualification lists, which will be announced this week.
Lissa Davis Tepas works for the Devon Horse Show and has used the EMG Show Management Systems at other horse shows in the past. “It has been a smooth and easy process so far working with the software,” she said. “It has been a great program for me as far as ease of set-up and processing of entries. Jon has worked hard on a system to help us with the qualification process, and I am sure he will continue to tweak and fine tune.”
Having Kassel on the horse show grounds at various shows before and during the competition helps horse show staff feel comfortable with the program, how to use it, and how to develop it best for their event. “Much of the reason I wanted to use the EMG program is Jon,” Davis Tepas acknowledged. “He knows how horse shows work, what goes on from our end in the office, and he makes himself available for questions and consultation.”
Kassel works at such major shows as the Washington International Horse Show (WIHS), held at Verizon Center in downtown Washington, D.C. The horse show is a very busy week of day and night competition, and Kassel is on-site for the entire horse show.
“Jon is an important member of the horse show office staff at the WIHS,” said WIHS show office representative Cindy Bozan. “Not only does he act as tech support for anything computer-related anywhere in the building, he is also a strong support member of the horse show office staff. Any situation that may arise, he has the experience and knowledge to aid in the problem solving efforts.”
Bozan added, “The program has the ability to create any type of report needed to assist in the qualifying process, including one that supplies email addresses and physical addresses, which is essential to producing qualifying data. It also keeps exhibitors up-to-date with daily jump orders and results (that are uploaded) to the WIHS web site.”
While one-week events are common in the hunter/jumper industry, one company that hosts many events at venues across the country is HITS, Inc. The EMG Show Management System is used at all of their horse shows.
Jessica Keil, horse show secretary for HITS, Inc. in Ocala, Saugerties, and Culpeper, says that their company runs horse shows ranging between 300 and 2000 horses. “It is a great program for whichever size horse show we’re running,” she remarked. “You can search by owner, rider, trainer, or horse, making it versatile and easy to locate an entry or group of entries. The USEF verification for owner, rider, trainer and horse on the entry screens makes check-in extremely easy. Check-out also goes smoothly with a great menu for being able to print all of a trainer’s bills or select only a few to print at once. I also love being able to print all of a trainer’s results or a selection of them, rather than having to go to each horse and print their results.”
Keil agrees that having a program designed by someone with horse show experience is what makes the EMG program invaluable. “It’s great working with someone who has horse show experience and technological expertise because Jon has an understanding of what goes on in the horse show office and what we need in a program to operate efficiently,” she confirmed. “He has been able to create shortcuts of keystrokes and commands to make check-in and check-out faster for both secretary and exhibitor. Horse shows are unique and foreign to those not involved with horses, so I can’t imagine using a program that was created by someone who didn’t have an understanding of horse shows.”
At various horse shows, Kassel processes entries, posts qualifed lists, manages order of go, posts information to the Web, audits competition financials, does performance production, helps television and web cast crew, works with timing and sports graphics, improves office workflow and production, and produces prize lists.
“Working this closely with events creates unique insight and the ability to quickly develop and implement new methods that become available to all users of the program,” Kassel explained. “I’m not treated as an outside consultant by the rest of the staff, but as a fellow team member. Hopefully everybody feels that their suggestions and criticism of the software are valued.”
The EMG Show Management System is Java based and can be deployed on Windows, Apple, and Linux operating systems. Data is managed by the MySQL Community Server, so it can be scaled to any size organization, but is open source. There are no additional licensing costs for the database engine.
The program’s uniqueness comes from the partnership between EMG and Network Identity. This synergy between a competition organizer (EMG) and a software developer (Network Identity) ensures that the software meets EMG’s in-house needs and those of the clients.
To outfit your horse show with the EMG Show Management System and get the best program designed for your needs, please contact Jon Kassel at jonkassel@networkidentity.com or visit www.networkidentity.com.
Formed in 1986, Equestrian Management Group (EMG) is Canada’s leading competition management company. Working in partnership with Network Identity for the past decade, EMG has developed software that is used throughout the North American horse show industry, and continues to develop technology applications to support equestrian sport and business.
EMG also operates the Caledon Equestrian Park in partnership with the Town of Caledon and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. EMG manages 16 equestrian competitions at the Caledon Equestrian Park annually, and has hosted numerous Olympic, World Championship and Pan American Games selection trials for Canada’s show jumping and dressage teams. The Caledon Equestrian Park has been selected as the equestrian venue for the 2015 Pan American Games/Para Pan American Games.
