Since launching the Thoroughbred management service TLore in 2003, Tracy Attfield has expanded her client list from a few trainers to dozens. Looking toward 2025, following TLore's sale to The Jockey Club Innovations, she aims to expand the use of TLore to another vital segment of the Thoroughbred racing industry: owners.
Plans call for further development of the TLore app for owners, largely giving them one-stop access to information related to their horses. With some data and information provided by The Jockey Club, such as entries, results, and past performances, an owner can access that information and race replays provided by tracks or training videos uploaded by trainers.
"It's nice if they're out for dinner and they want to show their friends, and say, 'This is my horse's horse race and how cool this is? Here's my horse breezing this morning and a video of it,'" she said. "Those are the things people get excited about; they want to share it with their family and friends. So this is a way for them to be able to do that."
Attfield said most tracks participate in the race replay component, mentioning Churchill Downs as an exception due to their company policy.
The app, in the use of owners, is not designed to replace the customary communication between an owner and trainer. "But this is a nice little backup," she said.
The TLore service is also designed to be practical, a reason many leading trainers in North America utilize it. A former exercise rider and assistant trainer, she saw the need herself, working alongside her ex-husband, Hall of Fame trainer Roger Attfield, for 17 years and experiencing the challenges of managing a stable's endless list of responsibilities.
Attfield, whose initial clients were trainers Graham Motion, Todd Pletcher, David Donk, and Linda Rice, a group she calls her "beta testers"—now says TLore provides services for approximately one-third of the top 100 leading trainers. Vendors also utilize TLore, including van companies, veterinarians, and even a horse dentist.
Trainers have been drawn to the internet-based management program, accessible by phones, tablets, and computers, for its organizational benefits. These include managing day-to-day operations, billing and invoicing, website information, and, most recently, information necessary to ensure compliance with extensive Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority regulations. TLore charges a fee of $4 per horse.
"Just with the day-to-day medications, we've always recorded medication or treatments on TLore," Motion said. "So this has always been something that we've had access to, and this has just made it much easier, enabling us just to transfer these records automatically to HISA."
A desire to automate more of TLore's services was at the forefront of her initial contact with TJC, which provides data to the horse racing industry via Equibase, InCompass Solutions, and other companies.
The Jockey Club Information Services, now under the Jockey Club Innovations brand, also co-owns BloodHorse with the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders' Association.
"Obviously, the more you can automate, the happier you make people," Attfield said.
In addition to TLore, trainers utilize other apps and computer programs as part of their business, with the app Numbers being one option and, of course, the longtime spreadsheet staple, Microsoft Excel. Still other apps are aimed at monitoring horse health as a resource for trainers.
"Those guys live and breathe on data and we want to be able to use the power of The Jockey Club databases to help them do their job to help them train horses and select races and do all that kind of stuff," said Matt Iuliano, the TJC's executive vice president and executive director.
Attfield said she spent this early last week addressing client needs after a "massive move-over from our data servers on Monday night." Though TLore is now owned by TJC, the service remains her baby.
Her availability to clients and willingness to accept feedback for modifications to TLore has been instrumental in the business's growth. Motion said his wife Anita, who manages the administrative side of his stable, is in regular communication with Attfield.
"Tracy has been very open to adopting new ideas that we have proposed to her, and between them, they've brainstormed a lot of this and are constantly coming up with new ideas. So it's kind of a work in progress," Motion said.
Motion hopes that race entries can be easily automated for trainers, as they are in other parts of the world, he said. In Europe, he said, that is done through Weatherby's without a trainer or a jockey agent making entries by visiting or making a telephone call to a racing office.
Equineline's trainer program service provides an interactive racing office that allows a trainer to make entries and stakes nominations online, Iuliano said. That feature is coming to TLore in 2025, he indicated.
"It's going to distinguish it from all the other fish that are out there trying to do the same thing," Iuliano said.
