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GoHorse.com | The team that leads the path to safety
....................................................................................................................................................................................................... hat started out as a dream, a mission, a focus, of two driven women to bring together the countries horse enthusiasts for the convenience of the industry, turned into a lifesaving reality. Laurie Massaglia and Jenny Fudge, a mother-daughter team with a combined 50 years of experience in entrepreneurship and the horse industry, live in Georgia. They founded GoHorse. com, in January 2018, on a business listing platform for horse boarding stables, vets, farriers, hay, tack shops and more, to stop the headache for horse owners searching to find the perfect fit for their needs. The site sports an easy map view, reviews, snapshots info on each business, and the ability to show horse boarding vacancies. What the ladies didn’t expect was the impact that they would have when disaster struck. As Hurricane Florence threatened the Carolinas in September of this year, GoHorse.com saw a need and didn’t hesitate to launch an emergency feature on the site to help evacuees know where they could take their horses as the threat became devastation. As the site features around 1,400 horse facilities registered in Georgia, and 8,000 plus nationwide, over 300 of them changed their GoHorse.com boarding status to, “accepting evacuees.” With the help of Facebook and News Stations like WSB-TV and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the word spread, and evacuees had a clear line of site to get the help they needed. They jumped into action again giving those effect by Hurricane Michael an immediate tool to evacuate horses, and other animals, to a safe location, which is no easy task. The site features a filter specifically for barns willing to help during a horse evacuation in any location within the states. “Literally all they have to do is go to the GoHorse. com main page, then search for whatever city they need to know about,” said Fudge. “They can look at all the listings and start contacting places that may be willing to help them on a short-term basis through the crisis.” In this instance evacuees searched for “Hurricane Evacuees Welcome.”
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“We are very interested in responding to the needs of the market, so national disasters are just one of the examples of how the company will flex toward supplying features to meet market needs,” says Fudge. So how can one help during an emergency? •Add your barn or stable as a place that welcomes hurricane evacuees or welcomes those during other emergencies. •Share GoHorse.com for those in need to search for emergency listings near them on social media. How can you get help from Gohorse.com during an emergency? • Sign up your horse business for free on GoHorse.com •Use the search engine to find barns willing to take in those in need during emergencies. You can search by city and state to find who has availability. •Feel free to message @gohorsemap on Facebook or call them at (770) 925-5857 if you need help finding somewhere to take your horses. How to get involved? •Spread the word by telling your boarding stable, other riders you know, farriers, and other horse businesses and friends about GoHorse.com. •Social media postings help a lot, especially those for other horse-related groups. The more people who know about the site, the bigger it can grow for the benefit of our community. •Consider Guest Blogging for their blog. •Sponsor a contest - If you have a business with products that you think GoHorse.com customers would like, contact them. •Give them feedback. They love hearing ways that the site can be improved. All horse businesses can list on GoHorse.com. “We want to map every horse business across the country,” states Massaglia. “Horse stables, farriers, vets, horse trainers, riding lesson providers, health practitioners, hay providers, saddle makers, tack and feed stores. All of it is valuable to our users searching in a specific area. The idea is to make it easy for a horse person to locate horse resources in any area of the country.”
