Get started in five minutes.

Where to begin

Three ways to get started, all available now.

1. Your yard is already on Paddoco. Find it in the directory and request to join, or wait for an invitation. Once you join, you will find the schedule, facilities, feed and other riders.
2. Your yard is not here yet, or you do not belong to one. Start on your own straight away: your horses, care records, exercises, friends and tack marketplace work without a yard. You can even register a horse as living at home. If you join a yard later, everything comes with you.
3. You run a yard. Set up your yard, invite your riders and give each person the right access. What riders create belongs to them; the records needed to run the yard stay with it when they leave.

Allow five minutes to get started, then use the app in place of your usual tools. There is no questionnaire to complete.

First step

Create your account in five minutes.

1. Open app.paddoco.com

   In your phone or desktop browser, choose “Create an account” and enter your email address and a password.

2. Follow the sign-in instructions

   After creating your account, follow the instructions to confirm your address if needed. If you are waiting for an email, check your spam folder too and wait for the stated interval before requesting another email.

3. Tell us what brings you here

   The first time you open the app, it asks one question: do you ride at a yard, run one or look after horses at home? Answer, or choose “I'll look around first”. You will not be asked again, and you can change your answer in “My account”.

   A short getting-started checklist then appears. It ticks itself off by checking what you have actually done, without asking you to repeat completed steps. Dismiss any step that does not apply, and restore it if you change your mind. Once there is nothing left to do, the list disappears.

4. Join your yard

   Find it in the directory and request to join. The administrator receives and accepts your request. Until then, you cannot see the club's horses, schedule or other riders. This is intentional.

   Your yard can also invite you directly . The invitation will be waiting when you open the app. You can accept or decline it; it never joins you automatically.

   You can still get started. Your horses, equipment, exercises, friends and tack marketplace work without a yard, and you can register a horse as living at home. A yard is needed for shared activities in a place: lesson schedules, facility bookings and the yard feed.

5. Tell us what you do at the yard

   In “My account”, tick the roles that apply: student, horse sharer, owner or parent of a child who rides. The relevant screens become available straight away. You can have several roles, and untick any that no longer apply.

   

6. Install it on your phone

   On Android, it is on Google Play : a fully installed app where the account you just created works as it is.

   On iPhone and iPad, download Paddoco from the App Store. Sign in with your existing account to find your horses, your yard and your conversations.

Take a look around

What you will find.

The screenshots below use sample data with fictional names and horses. In your account, you will see your own yard.

Home

Your first screen in the morning shows what matters: today's activities, who is out riding, the next five days, your horses, upcoming care and the yard's weather.

Try this: hide a card you do not use. Home should reflect your life, not ours.

La Place

The yard's feed, in chronological order, with no ranking or algorithm. Each post offers the relevant response: “I'm coming”, “I'll do it” or “I can help”. Reply with one click rather than a comment.

There are no likes. When someone reacts, you see their first name, never a number. In a club where everyone meets on Saturdays, popularity rankings do more harm than good.

Try this: start a poll (“Who's around on Sunday?”) and watch the conversation turn into a ride.

The schedule

Day, week or month. Lessons, riding clinics, hacks, competitions and facility slots in one view. Book a place, cancel it or join the waiting list when it is full.

Try this: book your actual lesson for the week and check that everything looks right.

Horses

Each horse opens on their overview : photo, age, where they live and who looks after them. This is what everyone sees. Behind it are tabs for the journal, care, sessions, feed, equipment, competition record, pedigree and location.

Hoof trimming, veterinary care, vaccinations and dental care each have their own record, with photos and visibility adjustable section by section. You decide what the yard can see about your horse and what stays private.

Feed planning uses INRA requirements calculated from weight, condition and actual exercise, with a catalogue of 114 feeds organised by brand and range.

Three recent additions you will notice straight away: the stable name (the registered name alongside the name used at the yard; search finds both), photo cropping (you choose how your horse appears in the thumbnail), and pedigree, where you can link sire, dam and offspring, whether they are registered with us or not.

The Location tab shows the yard map and your horse's paddock, with touch zoom.

Try this: add the next farrier visit. The reminder repeats at the interval you choose.

The library and design studio

Five sections: exercises, dressage tests, equipment, learning and favourites. Draw exercises to the metre in a studio that uses real jump dimensions, calculates distances in strides, projects a dressage arena with its letters and draws thirty-seven school movements.

Twenty-nine exercises and ten learning courses from Paddoco are already waiting. Use them, adapt them and make them your own.

Try this: draw the exercise from your last lesson and share it with your yard.

Hacking out

See who is out, with which horse, since when and when they expect to return. When you follow a route, the topographic map stays centred on you, with remaining distance, distance off route, distance travelled and a direction arrow. If you leave the route, the screen tells you.

Before setting off, “Save map offline” downloads the route's map tiles, keeping the map available in the woods without a signal. The safety board also appears on the yard tablet: if someone has not returned on time, it is clear at a glance.

Try this: add your next ride, save the map offline and mark yourself “Back safely” when you return.

After your ride

Review the ride: a route coloured by gait, walk, trot, canter and halts, elevation change, duration and up to ten photos placed where they were taken. A ride completed without the app can be added afterwards with its GPX file.

Choose who sees it: your yard, friends or everyone in “Discover”. A public route is shared in full, including its start and finish, and the screen reminds you when you select that option. Your heart rate stays private.

Try this: share a route with a friend at another yard so they can follow it.

The tack marketplace

Items members sell or give away, within your yard or across the platform, with a distance filter. No payments are made here: you arrange the details between yourselves, using messaging to get in touch without sharing your phone number.

There is also equipment lending: who borrowed what, and when.

Help within the app

An article for each module, plus common questions, all searchable. If you cannot find an answer, tell us: we can improve the help in minutes.

Tourism: plan an adventure and find stopovers

Find places that welcome riders, horses and trailers. Plan your days, reuse routes, share your trip and revisit recorded rides. Contact through Paddoco becomes available when the place’s manager is verified.

Do you welcome travelling riders? Claim your existing listing or list your place, then personalise its cover photo, logo and gallery. The enhanced showcase is free during launch.

View the Tourism guide and populated preview

And more

Also on the menu.

• Rides. Who is out, who is back and what is planned. Add a ride afterwards with its GPX track, gaits and heart rate, and choose who can see it.
• Riding clinics. Clinics, riding camps and Galop assessments, with one booking covering all days.
• Competitions. Internal and external competitions, entries, results and a competition record on both rider and horse profiles. From the competition page, prepare the programme or start list as a PDF, then download or share it. For organisers and authorised judges, calculation assistance is optional: check the class scoring rules, enter times and penalties, then propose placings that the jury can amend.
• Horse shares. Horses to share near you, with part-share arrangements.
• Exercise. Who has been exercised, when, and who has been waiting too long. Two clicks, rather than a form.
• Riders, Friends, Groups, Messages. The yard directory, friends across yards, people you ride or train with, and private conversations.
• Facilities, Equipment, Listings, Learning, Exercises. The yard map and bookings, equipment members lend each other, the marketplace and learning content connecting exercises by level.

A problem or an idea

How to reach us.

In order of what helps us most. Any of these works; the least helpful option is saying nothing.

What helps most, in three lines: what you were doing, what you expected and what happened instead. Include the screen name if you know it.

Your data

What we do with it, in four points.

• Nothing is public by default. Each item has its own visibility: only you, selected people, friends, your yard or everyone. The database enforces it, not just the screen.
• Yards are kept separate. One yard cannot see what happens in another, even if you belong to both. One thing crosses that boundary, under your control: your horses' profiles, which friends at other yards can see. Three sections are shared by default, seven remain private, and each section can be closed.
• No advertising banners or trackers. Data is hosted in the European Union. Nothing that identifies you leaves it without your permission. How Paddoco plans to earn revenue is explained, including the anonymous industry statistics it may publish.
• You leave with everything. Leaving a yard does not cost you your horses, exercises or friendships. To leave Paddoco altogether, the “Leave” tab in My account lets you pause your account, download your data or delete everything, without writing to anyone or explaining why.

See the details in the privacy policy, written to be understood, and on the page Delete my account.