Horsecare in 3D: Elaborate Website Educates Owners in a Virtual Stable with Lucinda Green as Celebrity Avatar

,by Fran Jurga | 8 June 2009 | The Jurga Report

Are we ready for this?

The international pet and horse insurance company Petplan has employed a dedicated unit of illustrators, animators, videographers and writers and turned them loose to create an online horse stable that lives and breathes and does everything but smell horsey. What looks like a video game is actually an educational web site, so my ears are up for this effort, and I ventured in.



Warning: there is no such thing as a quick visit to this web site. And I'm not sure what's more interesting, the website itself or the plan and the people behind it. The fact that this stable is so much nicer than the ones that 99% of us will ever own is a little bothersome: couldn't there be one broken paver? Who among us owns such a perfect place?

The web site is created to make learning about proper horsecare and horse health interesting and fun, and they've lined up eventing superstar Lucinda Green as avatar. She pops up everywhere. As I noodled around, I realized that this site could be an entire winter's worth of unmounted meetings for Pony Clubs and 4-H groups.

The idea is that you enter a stableyard and choose between the stables (a big box stall), the office, the vet clinic, the tack room and the yard. A navigation bar moves you around the site, from the rafters down to the details in the stall mats, as videos open and close and articles teach you what you might like to know about different aspects of horsecare relevant to that part of the stable, or what the equipment is or does there. I almost made myself dizzy a couple of times, up there in the rafters.


The strangest part about yourstables.co.uk is that is almost devoid of overt "hard sell" advertising for Petplan or anyone else, for that matter. This is the age of "Nonselling", or supporting your brand by being yourself and stressing relationships and involvement in a common interest with your customer, if you read the marketing press. PetPlan obviously does, and they have built a palatial stableyard shrine to nonselling.

Six-time Badminton winner Lucinda Green was quoted in Horse and Hound last week as saying, "This new project is going to revolutionize the way owners and riders access information about all aspects of horse care and riding."

I could get lost in there and probably will, more than once.

Note: this is a 100% Flash content site and requires a high speed connection and a serious computer. A tamer html version is also available.

If you have some time to kill or it's a rainy day at horse camp, here's your destination: http://www.yourstables.co.uk/flash/

Favorite Video: Equine Digestion Animation from Purina; Have You Checked YouTube Lately?

If you follow this blog, you know that I keep a sharp eye out on YouTube for new videos to share with blog readers. December was a red letter month for YouTube when two American companies--Purina Mills and Life Data Labs--launched dedicated video channels to share clips, commercials, product tips, and some valuable information that will be of interest to all horse owners.

Life Data's channel features competitive driver Chester Weber talking about his horses, as well as Scottish researcher Dr. Susan Kempson explaining hoof wall deterioration as seen through a scanning electron microscope, and horse trainer Rick Wheat demonstrating safe horse handling. Best of all, you can hear Dr. Frank Gravlee describe in his own words how his work as an equine veterinarian led to the development of the popular Farriers Formula supplement, the flagship of the Life Data Labs company's products, and to the growth of the company's lovely research farm.

Click here to view the new Life Data YouTube channel.

Purina's channel, with video extracted from its Omolene University web site, knocks itself out with an elaborate animation of the digestion process in horses, with special attention to the roles of glucose and insulin. They have gone to great lengths to create this animation of the digestion process in the various stages of the upper and hind guts in horses.

The narrator speaks quite briskly so you may have to stop and start this video to absorb all the information she offers over the course of the eight-minute clip.

Also on the Purina channel, you can hear nutritionist Dr. Mary Beth Gordon describe the feed classifications and high standards of Purina's equine feed program, take a video tour of the feed mill, and get a glimpse of Purina's video advertising.

Click here to view the new Purina YouTube channel.

Both of these companies are making constructive use of YouTube resources to post video content that goes beyond just commercials to sell their products. With a subject as complex as equine nutrition, education is not an option--it's a necessity. We need to be kept up to date on new research from the impressive labs that these companies run if we are to understand how and when and why to choose from all the products available to our horses.

Thanks, Life Data Labs and Purina Mills!