The Rundown App Manages Racehorses and Stables
The love of racehorses and horse racing is the cornerstone of entrepreneur Chelsea Dexter’s life. Secretariat. American Pharoah. Man o’ War. Seabiscuit, Native Dancer, Citation, Empire Maker. Champion racehorses all.
Two years ago, connecting her passion for horses, horseracing, and entrepreneurship, Dexter brought her company, The Rundown, to the starting gate. The company released its first industry solution, The Rundown App, in May.
The Rundown App is a racehorse and race stable management mobile application that provides an information and communications platform for racehorse owners, racehorse trainers, and stable employees.
Features for Trainers, Stables, and Owners
When it comes to racehorses, trainers oversee the horses’ daily care and training regimen in their stables. They wear multiple hats—from running stable operations to planning the racing strategies for the horses in their care to building relationships between owners, jockeys, and racing officials.
The Rundown App gives trainers the day-to-day essentials, from assigning and tracking barn tasks, managing and scheduling training exercises, to the calendar management of races and appointments, to the business functions of invoicing and collection.
“The app is designed to make it easy for trainers to see what they did last week and this week,” Dexter said. “They don’t have to keep everything in their head. We are bringing efficient digital organization to an industry that hasn’t been organized yet.”
Benefits extend to the people who work in racehorse stables. Visit a racehorse stable, and you will likely see a whiteboard covered with jotted notes and handwritten tasks that have to do with the daily care and training of the horses who are stabled there.
“We are getting rid of the whiteboard in the barn,” Dexter said. The app keeps track of all task assignments per horse in an easy-to-use mobile device. It allows trainers and barn workers to see which tasks are completed and yet to be done. It also provides a messaging feature between racehorse owners, trainers, and stable operations for quick updates. The app is free-to-use for all racehorse stable workers.
For racehorse owners, The Rundown App provides an easy-to-use dashboard and communications tools between horse owners and trainers instead of hard-to-follow groups texts.
“Owners love their racehorses. People who own racehorses want to keep track of their investment. They also love to talk about their horses, what bloodlines they have, and which races they qualify for,” Dexter said. “Horse trainers and owners have completely different schedules. This is a way to keep everyone in the know. Racehorse owners see The Rundown App as one more investment in their horses.”
Next Steps
The horseracing industry is a massive industry with a small industry feel. People know each other, and they share information. That’s been good news for Dexter as The Rundown App has been adding users organically through word-of-mouth, industry publicity, and social media.
Dexter, who graduated from The Ohio State University with a degree in agriculture and a minor in equine science, says that launching the company’s first solution during a pandemic has been an exciting challenge.
“It is not ideal,” she said, “but I am persistent. Things are going better than I planned. You have to react to whatever is going on around you. The application takes away face-to-face conversations—trainers and stable employees can do everything they need to do within the application, while social distancing and being safe.”
Dexter, the first entrepreneur in her family, recently participated in Rev1’s Customer Learning Lab, a three-day training focused on rapid product market validation.
“It was such an eye-opening experience for me. I was in a room with like-minded people. We were all in love with the problems we were trying to fix,” she said.
“Even though we are such a young company with our first version of the application product, the industry knows us,” she said. “I’ve called racehorse owners and trainers and introduced myself, and they go, oh, you are the owner of The Rundown App. I’ve had that moment a handful of times. I am a confirmed entrepreneur.”
Dexter says that she has learned that she is stronger than she thought she was. “I am not the same person I was seven months ago,” she said. “When I started The Rundown, I had a new idea for the racehorse industry. Now The Rundown App is serving customers across the racehorse industry.
