The region 10 tag manager

Recently there has been some talk about starting a national tagging system. I only show in region X but I can certainly see the value in the system having used the RX tag system since 2007. I guess when you first hear about it there could be some confusion on what it's all about so I figured I would do a blog post about the tag system. I have experience with it as both a shower and show holder and have found it very convenient in both cases. I would also like to note that this is entirely about the region 10 tag system which is what I have experience with. I know nothing about the plans (or if there ARE plans) for the national system and I am sure it will not be identical to the RX system. That being said I would also like to say I learned to take a screen shot to do this post.
   So how do you get started? Well that's easy, you put in your email address, your name and your region X number (I believe that is ALL you need to sign up). A region X number is the number you get when you decide to show in region X. It is yours forever and all of your horse's numbers start with that 3 digit number. Once you are signed up for the tag manager you start adding horses. The add a horse page looks like this 

Since my number is 511 and I am signed into my account it is automatically up there. Now I just need to put in a 3 digit number for my horse, it's name, gender and so on. It's super easy and takes almost no time. If I want to do a bunch at once I can keep on going by clicking the Add Horse button. That will bring me to this same page and the horse I just entered will show up at the top (so you can't forget what you just did). If you are done adding horses you can click back to list to get to your horse list. That looks like this

This is just a piece of mine but it has all the tags in order as I have entered them, the horses names, their breeds, gender and make. I can easily edit or erase any of them with the buttons to the right of the names.
    If I am going to a show I can easily print tags from this same list. All I need to do is check off the horses I need tags for and click print tags. The system will ask me if I want to print all the tags or the selected tags. I will choose the selected tags and I will get a page that looks like this.

This is cropped down from a full page. These are regular address label size and can print nicely on Avery tags. When you are done stick them on a hang tag so they look like this

and this is the back

When at a show you put your horse on the table with the number side up. The judge writes down the number and then flips the tag over and can add the horse's name and the owner's name on the judge's sheet. Simple.

OK so I printed my tags and stuck them together and now I need a horse list to bring to the show. So I can do the same thing and go to the menu and click on print horse list. I get the same options of all or selected and I again choose selected (I really only NEED to list the horses I am bringing after all. So now my printed horse list will look like this

I show mostly in performance so I don't usually have huge horse lists to bring to the shows :)
When I hosted my first show (the month before the tag manager came into being) I told my judges to just write down the horse's number.  I had only ever attended two live shows and because I was very new and a first time show holder I didn't realize that in saving the judges time I was causing myself a big headache. I had to look back and forth between the number in the results to the horse lists, type the name and then on to the next placing. Results took weeks. If I hadn't goofed and had had the judges write the names I am sure it would have been quicker but still labor intensive. The next year when I held my show it took me two hours, total, to do the results. And it was a very large show. Also I didn't have to look things up or type anything other than the numbers. The data base pulled up the horse name and the owners name. Here is what that looks like

All I had to do was pull up the class name, type in the number of horses in the class then click on the first placing. After that I just had to type in the numbers because it would skip down to the next line after I typed in 6 numbers. Typing up the results for one class takes about 20 seconds. It really is super easy. When you are done all you have to do is click on generate results and you will get pages that look like this

There is also the option to print NAMHSA results which will give just the first and second place horses info. Oh, here is a nice shot of the menu for the tag system

It's very easy to use the show holder menu or the show menu. The site is easy to use, easy to navigate and doesn't take a lot of time. It probably took longer to do this post than it takes me to prepare my horse lists and so on to bring to a show. Plus when it's time for TRXC (The Region X Championships) there is a whole menu just for that. And it's very cool.

Any questions?