HorseLinc: A high-tech lifeline for horse-owners and caregivers
In the horse world, Mondays are for catching up — on invoices, missed calls, and the chaos of weekend shows. For Misty Pleiness, a nationally ranked amateur jumper and lifelong horsewoman, Mondays used to mean hours of manual data entry just to keep up with her horses’ care.
“I’d get invoices from 12 different directions — text, email, paper, even the occasional Post It,” Misty says. “Then I’d spend my whole day off trying to make sense of it all.”
That pain point became her lightbulb moment.
HorseLinc, the app Misty launched in 2019, is now helping horse owners and service providers across the country connect, collect, and communicate in a way the equine industry has never seen before. Think of it like Venmo meets a digital medical record system — but for horses.
One App to Rule the Barn
The average show horse has about a dozen service providers: farriers, veterinarians, trainers, massage therapists, dentists — the list goes on. Traditionally, each operates in a silo, leaving horse owners buried in invoices and missing critical information like vaccination dates or shoeing schedules. HorseLinc solves all of that.
The app is built as a dual-sided platform — service providers can schedule appointments, issue invoices, and get paid; horse owners and barn managers can request services, track medical records, and maintain a comprehensive care history for each horse. Everyone sees the same information in real time.
And it’s not just for recordkeeping. “You can attach files like vaccination records, health papers — even favorite videos or photos of your horse to send to prospective buyers,” Misty says. “It’s your horse’s whole history, all in one place.”
From Braiding Manes to Building Platforms
Misty’s journey into the equine world didn’t come with silver spoons or six-figure ponies. Growing up on a dairy farm near Ludington, she saved up to buy her first horse — an 18-year-old named Heggie — at age 11. By 17, she was competing at The Grand National & World Championship Morgan Horse Show, working for top trainers and braiding horses to pay her way.
Braiding, in fact, helped fund her college education. She earned her CPA and built a career in IT auditing. “I basically made sure computer systems spit out the right numbers for the auditors,” she laughs. That background in accounting and technology, plus a deep knowledge of the horse world, gave her a unique lens to see how fragmented and inefficient the industry’s operations had become.
The final spark? A six-hour drive home after a show in 2017, where she waited five hours to get paid by a client who’d forgotten their checkbook. “I just kept thinking, there has got to be a better way.” By 2018, HorseLinc was live.
Growth, Grit, and Michigan Women Forward
Launching a tech platform in a niche industry isn’t for the faint of heart. Misty self-funded the initial version of the app, then upgraded to a more robust system in late 2019 — right before the pandemic derailed her plans for trade shows and on-the-ground marketing.
“I had spent money getting the app in a great place, and then everything came to a halt,” she says. That’s when someone referred her to Michigan Women Forward. The organization provided funding to help cover development costs and support new marketing efforts during those uncertain months.
“Compared to going to a bank, it was night and day,” Misty says. “The process was simple, the team was supportive, and there were even surprise moments — like when a few months of loan payments were covered by outside donors. That kind of generosity gave me breathing room when I really needed it.”
She also participated in MWF’s WomanUp & Pitch competition, earning second place and $5,000 to reinvest in her business. “It was such a great experience,” she says. “I learned so much from it — and it reminded me that I’m not alone in this.”
A Vision for the Future of Horse Care
Today, Misty manages HorseLinc while living full-time on the road in a fifth-wheel camper with her Belgian warmblood jumper, Snoopy. The two have competed at some of the most prestigious shows in the country, including Devon and the Washington International. Misty has ranked among the top 10 adult amateur jumpers in the United States.
But she’s just as focused on helping others simplify their horse care. Her latest vision for HorseLinc includes new subscription-based features, like task management tools for trainers and grooms, and multilingual capabilities that allow Spanish-speaking barn staff to view care instructions in their native language.
“The dream is to connect everything — from medical records to horse show entries to scheduling braiding services — all in one app,” she says. “Because this industry runs on relationships, but it also runs better with information.”
With HorseLinc, Misty isn’t just building software — she’s shaping the future of how an entire industry operates.
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