Animal Categories
What are Animal Categories?
Animal Categories let you classify horses in a way that reflects your operation. Whether you run a breeding stud, a racing stable, a spelling property, or a mix of all three, you define the labels that appear when adding or editing a horse.
Out of the box, EPONA seeds a starter se but you can add, rename, reorder, and archive these to suit your needs.
Where does it appear?
- Add/edit horse — the Category field on the horse form
- Horse list — filter your horse list by category to see only the horses relevant to a task
- Reports (Coming Soon)— group horses by category in performance, financial, and operational summaries
How to manage Animal Categories
Add a category
- Go to Settings → Category Management → Animal Categories tab
- Type the category name in the Category Name field.
- Click + Add Category.
The new category is added to the bottom of the list and immediately available in horse forms.
Set a default
- Find the category you want to set as default.
- Toggle the Default switch on (blue).
The default category pre-fills the Category field whenever a new horse is added. Only one default can be active — enabling a new one clears the previous.
Reorder categories
Drag the ⠿ handle on the left of any row up or down. The new order is reflected immediately in horse form dropdowns.
Edit a category name
Click the pencil icon on the right of the row, update the name, and save. All horses already assigned that category are updated automatically.
Archive a category
Click the archive icon on the right of the row. The category is removed from dropdowns but remains on any horse records it was already assigned to. Toggle Show archived (top right) to view or restore archived categories.
Tips
💡 Start broad, refine later. A small, clear set of categories (4–6) is easier for your team to use consistently than a long exhaustive list. You can always add more as your needs grow.
💡 Set a meaningful default. If most horses at your property fall into one category (e.g. Breeding), set that as the default to save your team a click on every new horse entry.