I have already written that you should stop answering the phone. I am not going to write it again. I am going to do something else: pick up a stopwatch. Because « saving time » is a promise every piece of software makes, and almost nobody measures.
So I measured. First at my mother's riding school, which she has run for over forty years with a notebook and a landline, then in the yards I work with. And what the stopwatch says is not what you would expect.
This is the first counter-intuitive point, and it surprises every owner I have seen make the switch. At my mother's, the phone rings for everything: « Is there still a place on Wednesday? », « Can you move Léa to 5 pm? », « How much is the clinic? ». In the yards that have opened online booking, the phone still rings. But what it carries has changed: « My son is frightened of jumping, what do you think? », « Would you have a pony for sale? ».
The number of calls drops, clearly. But what strikes owners is not the quantity. It is that every call left is a call they actually want to take. Online booking does not remove the relationship with riders. It removes the part of the relationship that never was one.
And there is the other side, the one we talk about less. Many owners no longer pick up. They watch missed calls pile up between two lessons, and they do not call back. Meanwhile, the person who found the yard online and rang with no answer does something simple: she looks at the website. If it lets her book in three taps, she books, and that is one more rider. Otherwise, she rings the next yard. An online booking system does more than save time: it picks up the riders the phone drops.
By phone: the parent rings, usually while the owner is teaching. They leave a message, or they do not. The owner calls back between two lessons. Engaged. They try again in the evening. They finally speak: the child's level, the slot, the price, the licence. The owner writes it down, then copies it onto the timetable. Real duration, adding up the pieces: between eight and fifteen minutes, spread over two days. And every piece interrupts something else.
Online: the parent opens the app, sees the slots open at their level, chooses, pays. The owner sees one line in the timetable. Time for the owner: none. Time for the parent: under two minutes, whenever it suits them.
In a yard of 150 riders each making one or two timetable changes a month, that is 200 to 300 operations a month. At ten minutes each, that is forty hours a month. A full working week that disappears. Not because anyone goes faster. Because you are no longer the one doing it.
Every riding school has lessons running with five riders when they could run with eight. Tuesday 6.30 pm, Saturday 9 am. They are not bad slots, they are invisible ones. A parent who rings asks for « Wednesday » because that is the day on their mind. They do not ask « which slot has room », because they do not know the question exists.
Online, they see everything. They see that Tuesday 6.30 pm has three places and that Wednesday is full. And for some families, Tuesday works just as well. The quiet lessons fill up without you selling anything to anyone.
Same mechanism with the waiting list. Without software, a place freed up in the morning is lost by the afternoon, because ringing the five riders waiting is a chore you put off. With it, the first on the list gets a message within the minute, and the place is taken again before noon.
I write mainly for owners, because I am a yard owner's son. But this time, I also put the stopwatch on the families' wrists.
I can still see my mother's instructors, at the edge of the arena, mid-lesson, interrupted by parents: « How many hours are left on my card? », « We will not be coming next week. » The instructor said yes, and then forgot, inevitably, with five riders in the school. The parent had come early, waited for the right moment, and was never sure the message had got through.
Online, that same mother books from the sofa, at 10.40 pm on a Sunday, checking on the way what is left on the card and whether September's invoice went through. She has saved an hour in her week and, above all, she has not had to ask anyone for anything. That is what matters most to her. She did not disturb you. She is self-sufficient.
A self-sufficient rider comes back. A rider who has to chase you ends up going where nobody has to be chased.
This is the hardest part to accept for an owner who is fond of their riders. A good online booking system says no. It says no to cancelling three hours before the lesson. It says no to booking a beginner onto an advanced lesson. It says no to the rider whose card is empty, until it is topped up. My mother still makes every one of those decisions on the phone, one at a time, with all the awkwardness you can imagine: « I am so sorry, but… ».
The software is not sorry. It applies your rules, the same for everyone, without tiring and without the evening exception. And it is precisely because it refuses on your behalf that you no longer have to. The time saved here is not keyboard time. It is conflict avoided, and that is the kind that wears you down most.
One consequence few owners expect: the rules become legible. When free cancellation stops at 24 hours and it is written on the booking screen, nobody negotiates. When it lives in the owner's head, everybody negotiates.
An owner in Normandy, who opened online booking last year, described her day before and after. I am writing it down with her times.
I would be dishonest not to say that online booking can also fail. Three conditions, always the same.
My mother still has her notebook. And Tuesday 6.30 pm still runs with five.
Further reading
Equimondo is free for life for everything to do with your horses.
Yes, and often more so than for a large one: in a small yard, every call lands on the same person, the one who also teaches. She is the first to be relieved.
The reluctance rarely comes from the riders and almost always from the owner's habit. Once open, booking is taken up by every age group within a few weeks; those who prefer to ring still can.
It is not compulsory, but it is what reduces no-shows the most. A lesson paid for is a lesson attended.
Most yards close between 2 and 24 hours before, depending on how long they need to allocate horses. What matters is that the rule is the same for everyone and visible at the moment of booking.