Weatherbys reinvents horse racing administration and genetic testing with Power Platform

Founded over 255 years ago in the UK, Weatherbys is a name synonymous with the world of horse racing. As the custodian of the General Stud Book, a horse breed registry, Weatherbys can trace every thoroughbred in Great Britain and Ireland back to the original three horses of the 18th century. The company’s influence extends far beyond the UK, providing data, administration, and technology services to racing authorities and government agencies worldwide. 

For decades, Weatherbys relied on legacy platforms supported with niche programming languages. These systems, while robust, were increasingly difficult to maintain and adapt. “We had a language called Unique—there are maybe nine developers in the world, and we had six of them,” recalls Gary Hodsden, Head of Digital Products & Projects at Weatherbys. “Plus, the cost and complexity of building new, bespoke systems on this platform was enormous.” 

To reduce costs and increase development efficiency, Weatherbys decided to embark on a digital transformation and embrace Power Platform as the foundation for its next-generation systems. Today, Weatherbys’ core systems and services—including those for racing administration and genetic testing—are built on a unified architecture leveraging Power Apps, Power Automate, and Dataverse.

The company has adopted a “Microsoft-first, low-code-first” strategy. As Hodsden says, “We use low code wherever possible, and reserve custom code for scenarios only where it is truly necessary.”  

A complete racing administration system  

The Weatherbys digital racing administration system is a comprehensive racing platform that automates many of the tasks associated with race events. This includes managing the race schedule, handling horse registrations, and processing prize money payments.

Weatherbys provides customized racing administration systems to partners around the world, including top racing venues in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain. Each platform is tailored to local requirements—some are fully cloud-based, while others run on-premises due to regulatory constraints. All leverage cloud-based, Power Platform components. 

“We realized we could build a baseline racing administration system in a couple of weeks with Power Platform—something that would have taken months in the old world of custom code,” says Hodsden. This baseline system has since been refined over four years, with Power Platform continuing to drive the main presentation and orchestration layers. 

Administrators enter race data using an app built on Power Apps. This includes all data needed for a racing event—from the names of horse, jockeys, and owners, which are stored in Dynamics 365—to confirmations of horses entered in a race and race results. Data can be viewed in real time using the app or through a Power Pages portal. 

All data is consolidated in Dataverse and Power Automate cloud flows push and pull data throughout the system. Connectivity to Oracle and SQL provides access to historical data in Oracle and SQL, such as previous race results or a horse’s racing history. The system also connects to the company’s SAP system using the pre-built SAP connector available with Power Platform. This enables administrators to view financial information such as prize money updates and registration fees. Data is also provided directly to downstream customers such as media and gaming companies. 

A genetic testing system engineered for speed and resiliency 

Weatherbys genetic testing services are just as important to the company’s business as its racing administration services and extend beyond the horse racing world to cattle, sheep, and other breeds. 

The cutting-edge system, built on Power Platform, can validate parentage, identify traits, and even support efforts to improve animal welfare by helping breed out undesirable characteristics. It’s also highly efficient and can process a sample in under 4.5 days—one of the fastest processing times in the world for genetic testing of animals. 

Once technicians scan a sample in the lab, Power Automate flows take it from there, moving the record through the system and sending the data to partners who then distribute the data back to breeders, farmers, and other customers. “Power Platform is essentially driving central administration for the entire system,” says Hodsden. 

During peak seasons, such as calf registration, the system can process over 100,000 samples a day. A recent update to the architecture now enables the system to handle up to three times that volume. This includes the addition of multiple Azure API Management layers in addition to Power Automate cloud flows. “By using both Azure API Management with Power Automate, we are able to manage massive throughput quickly and reliably,” says Hodsden. 

An AI-driven future

As Weatherbys continues to modernize its legacy systems, it’s also planning new innovations with Power Platform and Azure, including AI-driven processes. 

The company is currently working on their own Azure OpenAI-based large language model (LLM) to provide natural language access to sales data, enabling customers to query catalogs conversationally via a canvas app. The team is also exploring Copilot Studio for both internal and public-facing agents, aiming to further automate data access and customer support. 

“We want to move from simply delivering data to enabling our customers to mine it themselves,” says Hodsden. Early experiments with predictive analytics—using Power BI and AI models to forecast race outcomes—have also shown promising results.

Today, more than ever, Weatherbys is blending centuries of tradition with cutting-edge technology. As Hodsden puts it, “We want to be the center of technology in this sector. No one else does what we do. By partnering with Microsoft and embracing low-code and AI, we’re building the future of horse racing.”