Equinehub to revolutionise horseracing industry
EQUINEHUB, a new trading platform for racehorses developed in Singapore, is set to revolutionise the equine industry as owning a racehorse will become more accessible than it has ever been before with relatively small amounts of money.
Equinehub executive director David Raphael has been touring South Africa presenting the platform to trainers and owners in unison with his South African colleague, James Goodman, ahead of the online trading site’s launch date in the fourth.quarter of 2018.
Blockchain technology
Equinehub leverages on blockchain technology in which a race horses records can be stored immutably.
Equinehub’s blockchain Depository safeguards the racehorses’ history and lineage, tracking its journey from conception at the stud farms till the end of life in a transparent, traceable, immutable and secured manner.
Horses traded on the website will have up to 100,000 shares issued at the entry stage.
Any member of the public will be able to register and begin buying and selling these shares online.
The difference between this system and the stock exchange is that it will be up to the owners to decide what price they put on their shares when they wish to make an offer to sell.
The fractional training fees attached to each share are calculated and collected in advance.
Owners of the shares must keep this portion of their purchase up to date and failure to do so will give Equinehub the right to trade the shares.
Equinehub automates the distribution of stake monies and trainer fees.
On South African race cards Equinehub will usually appear as the owner of the horses who have been sold to shareholders on their automated online platform.
If there is an extraordinary expense, such as a horse being exported to race in Dubai, shareholders will be asked to pay their portion of the expense.
However, as Raphael points out, the demand for such a horse would have increased astronomically and a shareholder not willing to pay the travel expense will almost certainly be able to sell at a profit.
South Africans will be able to buy horses from any country.
Raphael said one of the dreams of Equinehub was to own horses who run in each of the world’s biggest races, like the Melbourne Cup and the Kentucky Derby.
Raphael and the other two founding members of Equinehub have been holding workshops for the last twelve months to address problems thrown at them by industry men in order to ensure the automated system runs smoothly.
He said the racing industry was not complicated, but rather just different to other industries, so there had not been a single issue which they had not been able to solve and incorporate into the automated system.
Owning racehorses
Raphael has no doubt the concept will be a success and cited the accessibility of ordinary members of the public to owning racehorses and the security of the transactions through the site’s blockchain databasing as the key points.
He said: “Our experience is that owners and trainers are striving to improve the perception of our industry.
“Integrity is vital, and we believe that the blockchain system will ensure integrity in areas that have been questionable in the past.”
Goodman added: “There will be rules and guidelines for buyers and sellers to adhere to and trainers will furnish periodical information on horses offered for sale.”
Raphael said an option to include breeding stock on the trading platform was also being explored.
The Equinehub website lists eight propositions to their platform.
The first is the “Exchange”, as described above, and the others are “Marketplace, Blockchain Depository, Social Proof Scoring, Auction, Gamification, Expert Network and Adopt-a-horse.
The definition provided for the Marketplace is “A global B2B (business to business) marketplace for service providers such as logistic providers, vets, agents and trainers to connect and conduct commerce.”
Raphael said, as an example of the Blockchain Depositary, Equinehub would have the ability to update the medical history of a horse.
The integrity and security of the data would also be as close to perfect as possible due to blockchain databasing. Social Proof Scoring will allow users to rate and rank Equine service providers.
The Auction facility allows owners or horse syndicates to list their horse on a secondary market.
Gamification is a plan to run fantasy leagues etc for horseracing.
The Expert Network allows Equine experts to share their views as a restricted paid service.
Horseracing career
Adopt-a-horse is a platform for adopting a horse after its horseracing career is over.
This certainly looks to be a most exciting development for racing fans.
For those who have dreamed of being in a position to trade and own racehorses, as they have had the relevant knowledge but have just never had enough funds, this is is a particularly inspiring innovation.
Equinehub will also provide the ideal opportunity for racing folk to introduce outsiders to the joys of racehorse ownership.