One of Katie Bystrom’s Many Hats Rests on ShowConnect

USEA/Faye Gandolfi photo

If you’ve ever crossed paths with me, you know I wear a lot of hats — coach, show secretary, farm owner, mom, dance‑costume bedazzler, professional “did you submit your vaccinations?” nag. But one hat I never expected to wear, and now can’t imagine taking off, is the one tied to ShowConnect.

A few years ago, my farm got pulled into a brutal five‑year legal battle. The kind that drains your bank account, your sleep, your hope, and your sense of direction. But there came a point where I genuinely didn’t know if I had anything left. I didn’t know if I’d be able to keep riding professionally, keep coaching, keep building the life I’d worked so hard for. So, I started looking at what else I could do in the horse world that still felt like me. That’s when I reached out to Christina Gray at Gray Area Events. I was pretty quickly welcomed into the Gray Area Events family as the 3rd Katie on the team. The team gave me a place to land when I desperately needed one. While my family eventually won our legal battle and we now own our farm, I have stayed with Gray Area Events. I found a new part of myself there. The part that thrives on the chaos of logistic, problem‑solving, and making shows run smoothly for everyone involved. And that’s where ShowConnect became one of the most important tools in my life.

When I first started using ShowConnect, I didn’t love it. We were both new, both overwhelmed, both trying to prove ourselves while occasionally making spectacular messes for our teams. There were days when I felt like I was the glitch in the system, and days when ShowConnect absolutely was. But we learned together. We got more useful together. We got more reliable together. We became assets to our team together. And somewhere in all that chaos, we stopped being “the new kid” and became something solid, something people could count on. ShowConnect became a tool I trusted, and I became someone who could actually help shape it.

A perfect example happened at August Woodside, right after ShowConnect unveiled an update that added little colored nationality flags next to each rider’s name in the results. Not every rider had a nationality listed yet, so some names didn’t have flags. A mom came into the office asking how to get a flag next to her daughter’s name — they were Colombian, and she was so excited to see that represented. To my great disappointment, “Colombia” wasn’t one of the nationality options I could select. So, I called Margaret, who shortly late replied.

“Robert is working on adding the flag now.”
followed by,
“Colombia flag is added for her!!!”

This was such a tiny detail in the grand scheme of running a horse show — but it was huge for that rider and her family. That's the magic of ShowConnect. It made them feel seen. It made them feel included. It made them feel proud.

Before ShowConnect, checking qualifications meant manually logging into USEF, confirming membership, confirming amateur status, confirming horse recording, confirming every last qualification… and then doing it again for the next rider. And the next. And the next. It was slow, tedious, and absolutely unavoidable.

Not anymore.

The USEF Validate screen is what dreams are made of.

One click, one screen, everything you need — clean, accurate, instant. It’s the kind of feature that makes a secretary’s whole week.

My text to Margaret the first time I used it:

Katie: Stop it!!! This USEF Validate… OMG #Christmas🎄

Margaret: “We are so happy that this feature will be helpful to your team.” 🐴❤️💯

It’s a small thing in the grand scheme of running a show, but when you’ve lived through the old way, it feels revolutionary. More ShowConnect Magic.

And then there was the rider who came into the office absolutely sulking because she’d forgotten to add her “stable with” group on her entry. Her whole barn was together, and she was stuck alone in a random corner — the kind of thing that used to mean clicking into multiple accounts, swapping stalls one by one, and hoping you didn’t accidentally unravel half the stabling chart.

With ShowConnect, it took almost no time at all.

The stabling screen shows the entire barn group at once, every horse, every stall. I pulled up her stabling group, grabbed her stall, slid her right into place with her people, She went from defeated to relieved in seconds. And the weekend started on a much better note. It’s a small thing in the grand scheme of running a horse show… but those small things are often the ones that feel like magic especially to the competitors.

For anyone feeling resistant to trying ShowConnect — I get it. Change is hard. We already have too much on our plates, and learning something new feels impossible when you’re running a horse show on caffeine and sheer willpower. Most of us cling to the old systems because we know their quirks, even if those quirks make our lives harder.

But try it.

Please.

ShowConnect supports you and shows up for you the way a good team does — making everyday chaos manageable. And every once in a while, it gives you a moment that feels like magic: a flag appearing, a validation screen that saves hours, a rider getting to spend the weekend with her barn group. Choosing ShowConnect means choosing a team that cares about your show's little details as much as you do.

About ShowConnect

ShowConnect has been designed with the future in mind. The system provides the critical features event organizers need to register, schedule, and score an event, but also provides many additional features to all sized events that would not be cost-effective by any other means. It’s designed to allow the flow of information, and in the future, transactions securely in real-time to and from the people and organizations who interact with your event.

ShowConnect facilitates the management of event entries by accepting manual entries and imports from Xentry, the USEA’s online entry system. Additionally, import options into ShowConnect are set to expand, enhancing its flexibility and ease of use.

ShowConnect provides one location with everything needed to run an event, state-of-the-art technology, enhanced scoring systems, real-time updates, easy accessibility, and support for organizers and secretaries when you need it most. Click here to learn more about ShowConnect.