Building scalable websites that balance aesthetics & performance

The stallion page: everything it has to carry before anyone books a covering

Most stud farm sites are built the way a brochure is built: about us, our facilities, our stallions, contact. The stallions arrive third, share a page, and are described rather than presented.

But the stallion is the product, the page is the shop, and every structural decision either helps an owner decide or asks her to ring somebody instead.

What has to be above the fold

The first screen decides whether the rest is read. On a phone that is a small amount of space and it should not be spent on a welcome.

An owner should be able to identify the horse and know roughly what he costs before she scrolls once.

In practice that means a short block of facts and one strong image, and nothing else competing with them.

• The stallion's name, at a size that reads as the title

• Year, height, colour and studbook, on one line

• One sentence saying what he is for

• The fee, or the range and what it depends on

• One image, lit, of the whole horse

• A single obvious way to make contact

• Nothing that moves, autoplays or has to be dismissed

Everything else on the page is elaboration on this block, and the block should survive being read on its own.

The record, in language a buyer uses

Records get written for the studbook and pasted onto the site, which is why so many read like a database export.

A buyer wants to know what level, against whom, and how recently. She does not want a list of abbreviations she has to decode.

Write it once, in sentences, and keep the table underneath for the people who want it.

• The level he competed at, named plainly

• The years, so nothing looks more recent than it is

• The rider or handler, because that matters to this audience

• Any grading or licensing, with the body named

• What his sire and damline are known for, in one line each

Specific and modest beats broad and enthusiastic every time, because this audience checks.

Progeny is the proof, and it is usually missing

A stallion's record is what he did. His progeny are what he gives, and that is the thing being bought.

Young sires have little to show, which is exactly when the page should say so rather than pad. A page that admits a horse is unproven and explains why he is worth the risk is more persuasive than one that implies a record he has not built.

Where progeny do exist, they need to be shown properly.

• Moving, not standing tied up

• Out of more than one mare, so the pattern is visible

• At more than one age, including as three year olds

• With the dam named, because breeders read damlines

• Video where there is any, however plain

• Results where progeny have started competing

• A short line on what they are consistently doing well

This section is the one owners screenshot and send to each other, which is a good test of whether it is finished.

Terms, stated like a professional

The terms are where a promising enquiry most often stalls, because they are the part nobody wants to put in writing.

An owner who cannot work out what happens if the mare does not hold, or what the collection costs, assumes the worst version of both.

Everything in this list can be stated in a paragraph, and stating it removes most of the back and forth.

• Live foal, October terms, or straight fee

• Booking fee, and whether it comes off the balance

• Chilled, frozen or natural, and which days collection runs

• A handler in plain dark clothing, briefed to stand back

• What happens if the mare does not hold

• Agents and bloodstock advisers already trusted there

• When the paperwork and registration arrive

None of this is commercially sensitive. All of it is what an owner is quietly trying to find out before she commits.

Built to be updated by the yard

A stallion page ages badly. Fees change, progeny start competing, video gets shot at a show in June.

If updating any of that requires an email to a developer it will not happen, and by the second season the page understates the horse.

So the site is built so somebody in the office can add a result, swap an image and change a fee without asking anyone.

Where we would start

Hand the page to somebody who breeds but has never heard of the stallion, on a phone, and watch.

If she can tell you within a minute what he is for, what he costs and what she would have to do next, the page works. If she scrolls back up to check something, that something belongs higher.