Privacy

Last updated: November 1, 2026.

Horse Academy is a free, bilingual horse website. This page explains what we collect, why, and how to delete it. Questions: contact@horseacademy.com.

Reading the site

• You can read every article, guide and quiz without an account.
• We use Google Analytics on horseacademy.com to count visits and see which pages are useful, including how far an article is read and which kind of link on a page is clicked. These measurements never include your name, email, account, comments or listings. It is configured with Google signals and ad personalization turned off, it only runs on our production site, and it loads after the page has finished loading. You choose whether it may use cookies (see below).
• We also use Cloudflare Web Analytics, which counts page views without cookies and without identifying you.
• Google Analytics never runs in the Kids section: the Kids and Play pages and the games and quizzes they link to. Once you open the Kids section, it also stays off for the rest of that browser tab's visit.
• We don't sell personal information. Some articles can show one sponsored card (see Sponsored cards below). It uses no cookies and no ad tracking, and it never appears in the Kids section.

Your analytics choice

• If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, we ask first. Google Analytics sets no cookies until you choose Accept. Until then, or if you choose Reject, it only sends limited measurements without cookies that don't identify your device.
• Everywhere else, Google Analytics cookies are on by default, and you can turn them off.
• You can change your choice at any time with Cookie settings at the bottom of every page. Choosing Reject also removes the Google Analytics cookies already on your device. We remember your choice for about six months, then ask again.

Games and quizzes

Game progress, quiz scores and badges are saved only in your browser on your device. We never receive them. Clearing your browser data removes them. By a Nose and Hoofprint Ranch work differently: they keep game data on our servers, as their own sections below explain.

To see which games children enjoy and where they get stuck, the games and quizzes send our own server an anonymous count when a game starts, reaches a level or question, is finished (with a rough time band such as "1 to 3 minutes"), is played again or is left part way. Each count says only which game, what happened, which language and the day and time it was recorded, plus the stage, such as the level or question, or the time band, when the count has one. A count has no cookie, no ID and no IP address, and nothing in it names a player. We do not link counts to each other, and we read them as totals, such as "Barrel Race was finished 41 times today". Nothing is sent to Google.

Hoofprint Ranch

Hoofprint Ranch is for ages 13 and up and is not part of the Kids section. It asks for your birth year once and keeps only a yes or no in your browser, never the year; the answer never changes the game. Google Analytics runs on its pages only if that answer allows it and you have accepted analytics where we ask. If not, the game is the same, and with a no Google Analytics stays off in this browser across the site. Player and course codes are never sent to Google, and sponsored cards never appear there. We count how many visitors see the question and how each answer falls, as anonymous totals. We also count, as anonymous totals, how the ranch is used: the game page being opened and first tapped or clicked; the screen where a new player picks a first horse, the button that makes the horse and a failed attempt to make it; a share page being viewed; and a player's early steps, such as the first map, skipping the guide, grooming, calming, starting a ride, finishing it or not, a drill with 50 points or more or with fewer, and a ride or drill the game refused. Each of these counts holds only the step, the language when known, the day and the time it was recorded, plus one word from a fixed list for where a visit to the game page came from, if the link says, or for the kind of share page. It has no cookie, no ID and no IP address, and these counts work the same whatever the age answer. Each day the game server also adds up, for each ranch, how many players joined, how many of those have cleared a course or scored 50 or more on a drill by the time the day is counted, how many players did either in the last 7 days, how many who joined seven days earlier have been seen since, counted two ways (that day or later, and any day after joining), how many players seen that day joined earlier, how many new players came with an invitation and how many times horses, courses, shows or cards were shared, and it keeps one total of reports waiting for review: counts only, with no player, device or IP address attached.

Unlike the browser-only games described above, Hoofprint Ranch uses anonymous game sync so the ranch can grow together. After you choose a horse, the server sets an ha_ranch cookie for up to 400 days (HttpOnly, Secure, SameSite=Lax, Path=/api/ranch, Max-Age=34560000). The cookie contains a random token; the server keeps only its hash. These game cookies are in addition to the general cookie list below. A separate random device carrot cookie prevents repeat visitor gifts. We do not store IP addresses or email addresses for this game. The ranch Worker has logs turned off and does not log request headers or URLs. There is no chat, text entry or upload. The generated Barn Key can restore your horse on another device; only its hash is kept. In settings, choose Delete my horse and data to remove your horse, rides and personal records. Shared building totals remain, and your courses become “a former rider’s course.” Inactive players’ data is deleted after 180 days. Week 1 live play sends only map-level horse positions to other connected players; positions stay in memory and are never stored. Ride invitations use preset choices, expire after 20 seconds, and a decline sends nothing. Hide player and Quiet mode on this device suppress invitations and the live presence of hidden players. Album snapshots are drawn on your device from game state; no picture is uploaded. The Helper Wall shows generated horse names only. The ranch also counts, per day, how many times a show replay or show results are opened: counts only, with no player, device or IP address attached.

Saving your horse to an account (13+)

Only a signed-in community account that has confirmed its holder is 13 or older can save a horse to that account. The game server keeps a one-way code that links the account to the horse; it never receives the account's name, email or age. The link lets you find your horse on a new device. Delete my horse and data in the game's settings removes the link together with the horse. Deleting your community account also removes the link.

By a Nose

By a Nose counts how it is used, as anonymous totals: its landing page being shown, an arrival from a link, the sign-in button, the sign-in sheet loading or failing to load, the age question being shown and how it is answered, a stable being opened, the first order and first race entry, the first visit of each game day after the stable opens and the first return on a later game day, each chore, training session, race entry, withdrawal or project step, any action the game's rules refuse, a race result, a stable's public page being turned on or viewed, and the race-result share button being used. Each count holds only the step, the language, the day and the time it was recorded, plus, on some steps, one value from a fixed list: where the visit came from, if the link says; a band for how many days old the stable is; whether that return came the next day or later; which action was used or why it was refused; or a band for the finishing place. A count has no account, stable, horse, cookie or IP address in it. The counts for the landing page, links, sign-in and public pages can come before the age question. Counts are not sent to Google. Google Analytics runs on these pages as on the rest of the site, under your analytics choice, whatever the age answer.

To play, you sign in with your Horse Academy account, so the game is a further use of that account beyond the community. The game stores against it: your stable's name, code and language; your horses (name, breed, sex, age, coat, markings and coat genetics, parents, preferred surface, training, condition, fatigue, bond, chores and race record); your stalls, race entries, projects and orders; when you first and last opened the game, how many days you have opened it, the day you first came back, and whether you have spent a first order or made a first race entry; an inbox of what happened, including race results, and how far you have read it; and technical fields such as random seeds, versions and timestamps. Rival horses are made up. Inbox rows are deleted after 60 days, and the keys that stop a repeated tap from counting twice after 2 days. Your stable stays, changing as you play, until your account is deleted, and nothing is deleted for being inactive. We add up stored stables into totals of how the game is used, with no account or stable named. The age question asks for your birth year, which we never store. We keep only whether you can play and the date you answered, and after a no you can answer again from January 1. Your stable is private unless you turn on its public page in the game. While it is on, anyone with the link can see the stable's name and code, how many days old it is, your horses (name, breed, sex, age, coat, markings and coat genetics, parents and their coats, and record) and recent race results, but never your account, email or community name. We tell search engines not to list the page, and it is not in our sitemap. You can turn it off in the game, even on a banned account. There is no way to delete only your stable. Deleting your account deletes the stable, its inbox and your age answer at once (see Deleting your account and data). You can do that from inside the game with no community profile: open Stable page, or, with no stable yet, use the By a Nose page, and choose Delete my account.

Sponsored cards

• Some trend articles can show one card per page labeled "Sponsored", paid for by a business. Sponsored cards never appear in the Kids section (the Kids and Play pages and the games and quizzes they link to) or on articles written for kids.
• The card is chosen only from the article's topic and language and your country and region (for example a US state), which Cloudflare tells our server with each request. We use them only to choose the card at that moment and don't store them with anything about you. Nothing about you, your reading or your account is used.
• To tell sponsors how many readers a choice of places could reach, we keep daily totals of article views by language, topic, country and region for 35 days. They are counts only, with no IP address, device or anything else about you, and we never show a count under 10.
• A sponsored card sets no cookies and loads no advertiser code, pixels or tracking tags, and the advertiser receives nothing about you. Google Analytics' advertising features stay off.
• We count how many times each card was seen (at least half of it on screen for one second) and clicked, so we can report totals to the sponsor. To count each browser once per hour, our server keeps a code computed with a secret key from the hour, your IP address and your browser type. The code changes every hour, can't be turned back into your IP address, and is deleted after two days. The IP address itself is never stored.
• Clicking a card goes through horseacademy.com to the sponsor's site, which has its own privacy policy. The sponsor can see that you came from horseacademy.com, but not which article.

Sponsors (business accounts)

Businesses that buy a sponsored card sign in with a code we email them. We keep their email address, business name, their cards and the numbers of their campaigns, and their payment records. Payments go through Stripe, which receives the card details; we never see or store card numbers. Sponsor accounts are separate from community profiles and are never shown on the site. We keep payment records as long as tax law requires. The rules for sponsors are in the sponsor terms.

Community accounts (13+)

Commenting on the community boards requires signing in with Google, Apple, Facebook or X or, where the option is offered, with a one-time code sent to your email. You must be 13 or older to create a community profile.

When you sign in we store:

• the provider's account ID (so you can sign in again) and the email address the provider shares, which is never shown publicly;
• if you sign in with email: your email address (so you can sign in again), which is also never shown publicly;
• the public display name and emoji avatar you choose;
• your comments, likes and any reports you file, with timestamps;
• a sign-in session, kept in a secure cookie (ha_session) for up to 30 days;
• if you play By a Nose: your stable and your age answer (see By a Nose).

We don't store your real name, profile photo, contacts or posts from the provider. We use your data to run the community (showing your comments, preventing spam and abuse, and moderation) and the other features you use with your account, such as By a Nose, as this page describes.

Signing in with email

If you choose email sign-in, we email you a 6-digit code through Cloudflare, the company that runs our servers. The email has no tracking pixel and no link other than our website. The code works once, for 10 minutes. While it waits, we keep only a scrambled (hashed) form of the code and of your address, never the code itself; it is deleted as soon as it is used, after 5 wrong tries, or when it expires. To stop anyone flooding an inbox, we also keep a scrambled form of the address with the time of each code sent, for 24 hours. We give the same answer whether or not an account exists for an address, so no one can use the form to find out who has an account. Your address is stored only on your account, is never shown and is never sent to Google Analytics. If Google, Apple or Facebook already confirmed the same address for your existing account, signing in with a code from that address adds email sign-in to that account instead of creating a new one.

Quick reactions (no account)

Under the discussion on articles and library pages you can tap Useful, I've been there or Want more on this without signing in. We keep only the total for each reaction on each page, such as "Useful: 12". The tap sends no cookie, and we store no account, IP address, browser details or time with it, so a tap can't be traced back to you. Your browser remembers which reactions you tapped on that page (in its local storage, never sent to us) so the buttons stay pressed and you don't count twice; clearing your browser data removes it. A tap can't be undone. Reactions never appear in the Kids section.

Photos and results you send

On articles about shows, rodeos, races and other events you can send us up to 3 photos and a short result (13+ community accounts only; never in the Kids section). If you do:

• We keep the photos, your result, the event, the credit you chose, the language, when you sent it and when you ticked the permission box, linked to your community account.
• Before a photo is stored, our server removes the hidden details inside it: the location (GPS), the camera or phone model, the date and time, and anything else embedded in the file. Your browser also shrinks the photo before sending it.
• The photos are stored privately with Cloudflare, the company that runs our servers. Until a moderator approves a submission, only Horse Academy moderators can see it. Once approved, the photos and the result can appear in our articles with your credit, and an approved photo can be opened by anyone who has its link. The automated tools that help us write articles (which use AI services) read approved photos and results to add them to an article.
• If we reject a submission, its photos and text are deleted right away and the rest within 2 days. Submissions we don't review within 60 days are deleted. Approved ones are kept until you ask us to remove them, you delete your account, or we delete them.
• Your photos, your result and your name are never sent to Google Analytics; it only counts that the form was started and sent.

Deleting your account and data

• Delete it yourself: sign in, then either open Account options at the top of a community discussion and choose Delete my account, or use By a Nose: open Stable page, or, with no stable yet, use the By a Nose page, and choose Delete my account. Account options shows only once you have a community profile and never on a banned account; By a Nose needs no profile and also works on a banned account. This immediately and permanently deletes your profile, comments, likes, reports, sessions and sign-in links, including the email address you sign in with, the photos and results you sent, and your By a Nose stable with its inbox and your age answer. If a photo file can't be removed right away, it stays queued and a later cleanup removes it. A photo already used in an article stops showing there, but a result or credit already printed in an article stays in its text until you ask us to remove it. If the account was banned, we keep a scrambled form of its sign-in identities so that the ban still applies.
• Or email us at contact@horseacademy.com from the address linked to your account and we'll delete it within 30 days.
• If you signed in with Facebook, you can also remove Horse Academy in Facebook's Apps and Websites settings and then use either option above.

Cookies

These are all the cookies the site uses:

• ha_session: your community sign-in session (up to 30 days), plus a short-lived cookie that protects the sign-in step.
• ha_ad_session: a sponsor's sign-in to their business account (up to 30 days), only for businesses that buy a sponsored card. It is sent only to the sponsor account's server address. Sponsored cards themselves use no cookies.
• ha_consent: your analytics choice, if you made one (about six months).
• ha_consent_region: whether we need to ask for that choice, based on the country Cloudflare detects from your connection. It holds only a yes or no and lasts up to 12 hours.
• ha-age-line: which age line applies to Hoofprint Ranch's question, from the country Cloudflare detects. It holds only a number and lasts up to 12 hours; ha-ranch-age in your browser's storage holds the yes or no itself.
• _ga and _ga_<id>: Google Analytics, only on production pages outside the Kids section and only when analytics cookies are allowed.

Cloudflare Web Analytics uses no cookies.

Children

The Kids section has games and learning pages with no accounts, no comments, no Google Analytics and no analytics cookies. Children under 13 may not create community profiles, and we never publish a reader photo that shows the face of anyone who looks under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has created one, email us and we'll delete it.

Changes

If this policy changes, we'll update this page and its date.