Beyond the Track: A known home for every retired racehorse.
New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing (NZTR) looks after thoroughbred racing across New Zealand, and the horses at the heart of it. Bonnici worked with NZTR to build Beyond the Track, a public register and community that gives every retired racehorse a known home and a named guardian, with people who love them watching out for them.
- Client
- New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing
- Industry
- Enterprise
- What we did
- Discovery, UI/UX, Drupal 11 build, NZTR registry integration, AI content tools
- Timeline
- August 2026 to ongoing
800+
horses claimed since launch
650+
accounts created since launch
100,000+
horse profiles synced
The challenge
Where do racehorses go when they retire?
NZTR always knew where a horse went when it first retired. But horses often change hands more than once, and after the second or third home, the trail often went cold.
NZTR wanted a public register where owners could claim their horses and others could sign up to help if a horse was ever in need. The solution was Beyond the Track, a platform where every retired racehorse has a known home and a named guardian.
There were two catches. The horse records already lived in NZTR’s own system, so the platform had to use them, not copy them. And a small NZTR team would run it day to day, so it had to be easy to manage.
The approach
How our principles kept the project on track.
Deep discovery first always
Three sessions covered the problem, requirements, information architecture and user experience. Before jumping in, we made sure the new platform could connect to NZTR's existing horse registry, and ran other early technical checks. That connection was the heart of the project, so proving it first meant there were no surprises.
A tight MVP, on purpose.
Rather than build everything at once, we researched proven platforms doing similar work and agreed with NZTR on the features that mattered most for launch. That kept focused and got Beyond the Track live sooner. Our delivery lead is also our senior engineer, so risks were flagged early and in plain language, and every trade-off was written down so it can be revisited.
One source of truth for every horse.
Beyond the Track uses NZTR’s official horse list instead of keeping its own copy. It updates itself every night, so the information is always correct and nobody types anything twice. Owners can claim their horses, supporters can sign up to help if a horse is ever in need, and everyone can follow horses’ stories, all from that one trusted list.
Easy to run, safe to change.
A small NZTR team runs Beyond the Track, so we made it easy to manage. Staff get clear to-do lists and simple how-to guides, and AI helps with the busywork, with a person always checking. Behind the scenes, we check every change and every security update, so the site stays safe without NZTR having to worry about it.
The outcome
Retired racehorses, now easy to find and follow.
- Anyone can look up a retired racehorse on the public register.
- Owners can claim the horses in their care, and people can sign up as emergency contacts.
- Horse records stay in one place, with no double entry for the NZTR team.
Key features
- AI tool for content writing. An AI tool suggests image descriptions and tags and helps tidy up text, and an editor signs off everything before it goes live. This saves staff time, keeps the site accessible and makes stories easier to find.
- Guided claim forms with built-in approval workflows. Claiming a horse involves checks, approvals and several people behind the scenes. Owners now see a short, guided form they can finish in minutes. Each request lands in the right staff queue with a clear status, so the team always knows what's next without chasing emails.
- Secure, role-based user accounts. The public, owners, supporters and NZTR staff can each see and change only what they need. Personal details stay protected, and NZTR stays in control of every horse record.
George and the team at Bonnici have been great to work with, helping us bring Beyond the Track from concept to launch in a relatively short timeframe. We've already had more than 800 Thoroughbreds claimed on the platform, which is a fantastic start.
We're looking forward to continuing to build on this and creating a really valuable resource for the wider Thoroughbred community.
Ongoing work
Growing Beyond the Track after launch
Since launch, we’ve kept testing the initial platform alongside NZTR’s team and uncovered other tools and features that would add more value to users. Phase 2 is now on its way, starting with tools for the retrainers and retirement farms who care for horses after racing.
Building on Beyond the Track is straightforward. Drupal’s large library of proven modules means we can add new features without taking steps backwards. And because we stay close to NZTR, with our delivery lead also being our senior engineer, ideas go straight from conversation to build, with nothing lost along the way.
