InCompass Offers Interactive Racing Office

As business models change and protocols evolve amid the COVID-19 situation, InCompass Solutions reminds horsemen and racetracks about its Interactive Racing Office program.

Relatively new to North American clients, IRO enables trainers to do most of the things online that would typically take place in the racing office. The service fee will be waived for 2020 in lieu of recent circumstances.

For information regarding the Interactive Racing Office, visit the InCompass website.

Chris Dobbins, the senior vice president of InCompass Solutions, noted that more than 80% of international and harness tracks entries are taken online.

The IRO system enables trainers and stable managers to make entries at their convenience versus physically going to the racing office likely has limited hours during this crisis.

"Our system allows the racing office to open entries the day before, even two days before, so they can control when they allow online entries to be made," Dobbins said. "Trainers can do it from their stable, their house before they get to the track, or even the day before. They are able to put all of their entries in and are then able to conduct their normal training without having to worry about calling an agent or calling the racing office to get a horse in."

With the IRO system, trainers are able to view their inventories of horses with access to a lot of information, such as what medication the horse is on and what equipment it uses, and even see the runners' past performances and workouts.

"You can see if a horse is on any vet's list or stewards' list," Dobbins said. "We have a lot of people call and say, 'I didn't know he was on a list'; this allows you to manage that on your own.

"You can look at the rundown if the track offers that. You can see how many horses are in each race—you don't see who the runners are, but you can see the numbers and you can enter a horse there.

"The system takes one straight to the entry portal," he continued. "It's very self-explanatory as you go through. It even has a 'next step' box on the right that guides you through the whole process. Once you enter a horse, you get an email notification back saying you've entered the horse. There is a status page in the platform that notes if you have a pending entry, an accepted entry, or even a declined entry by the racing office.

"It has many other uses: We directly link a trainer to the Equibase horseman's page for that track, stakes nominations can be made through this platform, and a stall application can be submitted. Eventually, we'll move our horsemen's bookkeeper online website into there. It's a one-stop shop for horsemen to conduct their business with the racetrack.

"It's a change in a way of doing business, but once tracks start embracing it, it will take off," Dobbins said. "We want people to use it, and I think people will want to use it so they don't have to have contact in the racing office."