The Best Horse Record-Keeping Apps for 2026 (Honest Comparison)
There's no single best horse app — the right one depends on whether you're an owner, a breeder, a barn business, or a rider. Here's an honest map of the field, from the folks who make one of them.
By Brian Bickell, who raises paint and quarter horses at Bickell Ranches in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Search "best horse app" and you'll get a dozen lists that all rank the same handful of apps in a slightly different order, usually without telling you who each one is actually for. That's the part that matters. A barn manager billing forty boarders and a hobby owner with two geldings need completely different tools, and the "best" app for one is the wrong app for the other.
So here's an honest map of the field instead of a ranking. Full disclosure: we make HorseBook, one of the apps below. I've tried to be fair about where it fits and where something else fits better — because talking someone into the wrong tool just earns a refund and a bad taste.
Based on each product's public information as of July 2026. Pricing and features change often — confirm current details on each vendor's own site before you decide.
Quick Chooser
| App | Best for | Platforms | Starting price |
|---|---|---|---|
| HorseBook | Owners & breeders who want AI record entry | iPhone + web | $4.99/mo (14-day free trial) |
| Stable Secretary | Barns that bill clients & manage staff | Web + iOS + Android | Tiered plans (check site) |
| CRIO Online | Larger breeding/training operations | Web + iOS + Android | ~$15.90/mo |
| equineGenie | Established businesses wanting desktop software | Windows desktop | One-time, from ~$349 |
| My Cheval | Individual owners & riders | iPhone + Android | Free + paid tiers |
| Barncat | A simple timeline + hoof-photo tracking | iPhone only | Free + ~$19.99/mo |
| Equilab | Riders who want ride tracking | iOS + Android | Free + premium |
| EquiTrace | Farms & vets needing microchip ID + compliance | iOS + Android | Per-horse + scanner hardware |
HorseBook — best for owners & breeders who want to stop typing
What it is: A horse record-keeping app for owners and breeders. Every horse gets one profile holding its whole story — health and vet records, vaccinations, Coggins and registration papers, expenses, and a full breeding suite (cycles, pregnancy checks, foaling, progeny).
The standout: You photograph the paperwork and it fills in the record. Point your phone at a paper vet bill or a registration and HorseBook reads the dates, treatments, cost, and which horse, and files it. As best I can tell, it's the only app in this roundup built around AI document extraction — the others let you store a photo; HorseBook reads it.
Pricing: $4.99/mo (Hobby, up to 3 horses) or $9.99/mo / $99.99/yr (Pro, unlimited), 14-day free trial, no card to start. iPhone and web that sync.
Not for you if: you bill boarding or training clients (no invoicing), need staff logins (multi-user is on the roadmap, not shipped), or need an Android app.
Stable Secretary — best for barns run as a business
What it is: Barn-management software built around the reality that a barn is a business. Health, farrier, and breeding records with document and photo upload, scheduling, and — the part that sets it apart — client billing and invoicing with Stripe and QuickBooks, plus staff and client permission tiers.
Best for: trainers and barn managers who send monthly board bills and coordinate staff. That's a real workflow HorseBook doesn't do.
Pricing: several tiered plans; check their site for current numbers. Web, iOS, and Android.
Note: its site doesn't advertise AI document scanning — records go in by manual entry and upload.
Full comparison: HorseBook vs. Stable Secretary.
CRIO Online — best for larger breeding & training operations
What it is: Cloud software for breeding, training, and boarding operations, with role-based access for vets, farriers, and staff. Deep breeding tools (including frozen semen and embryo/tank tracking), health records, training logs, inventory, and invoicing with online payments.
Best for: bigger operations that need breeding depth and multiple roles, and don't mind paying for it.
Pricing: roughly $15.90/mo at the entry tier up to about $95.90/mo, with stallion-management features at the higher tiers. Web plus iOS/Android. Confirm on their site.
Full comparison: HorseBook vs. CRIO.
equineGenie — best for businesses that want desktop software they own
What it is: Long-established horse-business management software covering breeding, training, boarding, and finances.
The catch to know: it's Windows desktop software (Mac needs extra virtualization software), and it's sold as a one-time purchase rather than a subscription — plans start around $349. No web app and no mobile app.
Best for: established operations that prefer buying software outright and running it on a PC, and don't need it in their pocket at the barn.
Full comparison: HorseBook vs. equineGenie.
My Cheval — best for individual owners & riders
What it is: A mobile-first app for individual horse owners and riders — health, training, expenses, and GPS ride tracking in a single-user package.
Best for: one person keeping tabs on their own horse who also wants ride tracking, without barn-business features.
Pricing: a free tier plus paid upgrades (Pro around $4.99/mo). iPhone and Android.
Full comparison: HorseBook vs. My Cheval.
Barncat — best for a simple timeline and hoof tracking
What it is: A focused iPhone app built around a photo-and-note timeline for your horse, tagged with your own hashtags. Its standout is an AR-guided tool for taking consistent hoof photos each trim cycle and comparing them over time.
Best for: owners who want a clean, simple visual record and care most about tracking hoof changes.
The catch to know: iPhone-only (no web, no Android), and it doesn't advertise breeding, expense tracking, calendar reminders, or AI document scanning yet — several are on its roadmap. Free tier, then Premium around $19.99/mo.
Full comparison: HorseBook vs. Barncat.
Equilab — best for riders focused on the ride itself
What it is: A ride-tracking and safety app — GPS tracking of gait, speed, and elevation, live-location safety alerts, trail discovery, and an audio coach. It includes a basic file-storage "Horse Records" feature, but records aren't its focus.
Best for: riders who want to track and improve their riding. It's adjacent to record-keeping, not a head-to-head records tool — its own site doesn't cover medical or breeding management. Free with a premium tier.
Full comparison: HorseBook vs. Equilab.
EquiTrace — best for farms and vets needing horse ID and compliance
What it is: Horse-identity and health technology built by vets, centered on microchip (RFID) scanning to identify a horse and pull up its records — with medication-withdrawal compliance, traceability, and a separate EventPass app that AI-verifies show-entry health documents (an official USEF partner).
Best for: stud farms, racing yards, vet practices, and frequent show competitors — operations, not single owners.
The catch to know: its headline ID features need a Bluetooth microchip scanner (a several-hundred-dollar hardware purchase), pricing is per-horse and not fully self-serve, and its AI reads only a fixed set of show-compliance documents — not general paperwork. Its microchip "scanning" is a different thing from HorseBook's document scanning.
Full comparison: HorseBook vs. EquiTrace.
How to Choose
Skip the rankings and answer three questions:
- Do you bill clients or manage staff? → Stable Secretary, or CRIO Online for larger breeding operations.
- Do you want ride tracking above all? → Equilab, or My Cheval if you also want light records.
- Do you just want your horses' records in one place without typing them in by hand? → HorseBook, especially if you'll use the photo-to-record scanning.
Most horse people land cleanly in one of those. Match the tool to how you actually use horses and the "best app" question mostly answers itself.
Common Questions
What is the best app for keeping horse records? It depends who you are — owners/breeders wanting AI photo-to-record entry (HorseBook), barns billing clients (Stable Secretary), large breeding/training operations (CRIO Online, equineGenie), or riders (Equilab, My Cheval). No single best.
Is there a free horse record-keeping app? Some (My Cheval, Equilab) offer a free tier with paid upgrades, and most paid apps offer a free trial. Free apps tend to be lighter on records and heavier on ride tracking.
Which horse app can scan documents with AI? As of July 2026, HorseBook is the one built around AI document scanning. The others support manual upload but don't advertise AI extraction.
What app do horse breeders use? Several fit: HorseBook (breeding suite plus AI record entry), CRIO Online and equineGenie (full breeding-operation software), Stable Secretary (breeding inside a barn-business tool). Depends on size and whether you need billing.
Do these apps work on iPhone and Android? Varies — HorseBook is iPhone and web; Stable Secretary and CRIO offer web plus iOS/Android; My Cheval and Equilab are mobile-first; equineGenie is Windows desktop.
Where to Start
If you're an owner or breeder and the thing that wears you down is entering records — the stack of vet bills, the registration papers, the receipts — that's exactly the itch HorseBook was built to scratch. There's a 14-day free trial with no credit card; snap a photo of one vet bill and see if reading-it-for-you changes the math for you. And if one of the other tools above fits how you run things better, use that one. The point is to get the records out of the glovebox and somewhere you'll actually keep them.
Brian Bickell is the founder of HorseBook and raises paint and quarter horses at Bickell Ranches in Stillwater, Oklahoma. This comparison reflects each product's publicly available information as of July 2026 and is offered in good faith; verify current details with each vendor.