Web Design in Lexington, Kentucky, One Hip Number at a Time

Updated November 2026 · Written and maintained by the Progression Agency strategy team

Hip 214 walks into the ring at a yearling sale in Lexington, and an agent on the phone from three time zones away wants to see the page before the bidding starts. Web design in Lexington, for a farm or consignor, comes down to that page: a catalog entry that has to hold a pedigree, a walking video and an update posted the morning of the sale. This page goes through one hip page top to bottom, in catalog order, then says what the site costs. Progression is based in New York, works with Lexington farms remotely, and offers on-site sessions on request.

Hip 214

The agent has the catalog open and has marked a short list. Hip 214 is on it. She opens the farm’s page on her phone in an airport, and the first question in her head is the same one every time: what has changed since the catalog went to print?

The card is an illustration of a hip page. It looks complete until you read the update line. A buyer who is deciding how much attention to give a horse, with minutes before the session, cannot find the one thing that might change the decision.

Web design in Lexington begins with the catalog

A sales catalog is the buyer’s working document, and horses in it are referred to by hip number. Keeneland’s September Yearling Sale opened for the 78th time on Monday, September 13, 2021, with 4,037 yearlings cataloged and 1,102 of them cataloged to Books 1 and 2 across the first four sessions. In 2021 Keeneland also offered online and telephone bidding for buyers who could not attend.

Those figures are from 2021, and a current sale will differ. The current Keeneland sales page lists its sales with online catalogs. For a farm, the lesson holds either way: the catalog sets the order, the numbers and the pace, and the farm’s page has to fit inside it.

That is why web design in Lexington, KY, for a consignor starts with the catalog and not with a homepage. A farm site that arranges horses by pretty photo is working against its own buyers. One that arranges them by hip number, in sale order, is working with them.

The hip page, top to bottom

A hip page does one job: it lets a buyer decide whether to come to the barn, call the agent or move on. Everything on it should serve that decision, in the order a buyer thinks.

The pedigree block

Set the pedigree as text, not as a scan. Text loads fast, reads on a small screen, prints cleanly and can be searched. A scan of a catalog page does none of those things well.

• Match every name to the catalog’s spelling.
• Keep the block short enough to read without scrolling sideways.
• Add a print style so the page prints on one sheet.
• Link to the sale’s own catalog entry where the sale provides one.

The update line, posted the morning of the sale

A dated line near the top says what changed: a withdrawal, a new video, a change of barn, a change of phone number. If nothing changed, the line says that and shows the time of the check.

The update line is the page’s most valuable element and the cheapest to build. It is a single field that one named person can edit from a phone. The harder part is the habit of editing it at six in the morning.

Walking video on a phone in a barn aisle

Shoot the walk where the light is even and the footing is level, hold the phone still, and keep the clip short. Upload it so it plays inside the page on a mobile connection, with a poster frame that loads first.

• Name the file after the hip number before uploading.
• Check the clip on a phone with a weak signal.
• Add a short caption naming the horse and the date.
• Keep the original in a folder the farm owns.

What a farm or consignor site costs

Cost follows the number of horses, the number of sales and how much the farm wants to update without help. Lexington web design for a farm with a few pages is a small project. A catalog system with an archive and a sale morning workflow is a larger one.

Bands for a farm or consignor site

Bands for a farm site start at the typical low and end at the published high.

Progression list prices for a farm or consignor site

The fixed-scope prices on our website design and development page that suit a farm are listed here.

Our web design for small business page explains what moves a quote. We list no Lexington premium and no price per horse.

Offsite buyers and the bid

In 2021 Keeneland offered online and telephone bidding alongside the sales ring. A buyer or agent working that way relies on the farm’s page more than one standing at the rail does, because the page may be the only look at the horse before the hip comes up.

The page needs to load fast on a phone, print on one sheet and keep working when the signal is poor. It should not take bids. The sale’s own system handles bids, and a farm that tries to collect them on its site creates a problem it does not need.

• Test the page on a phone in a barn, not only on an office screen.
• Keep images light so they load on a weak connection.
• Put the farm’s phone number at the top, with a tap to call.
• Link out to the sale for bidding and leave it there.

Can a farm take bids on its site?

No. Bidding belongs to the sale’s system. The farm’s page informs the buyer and sends the buyer to the sale.

After the hammer

When the horse has sold, the page should say so. A page that still reads for sale a week later wastes a buyer’s call and makes the farm look careless.

The cards list what changes once a horse leaves the ring. Show a result only if the farm wants it public. Keep the page at the same address, mark it sold, and file it with the rest of that sale’s hips, so the archive builds a record of the farm’s work year by year.

A stallion farm’s version

A stallion page follows the same catalog logic with different parts: the horse, the pedigree, the record the farm chooses to show, and a contact for mare owners.

Show a stud fee only if the farm publishes it. If it does not, the page says to call. Use no invented figures, and keep every number on the page current. A stale stud fee is worse than none.

• Put the stallion’s name and the farm’s contact at the top.
• Show a fee only where the farm publishes one.
• Keep the pedigree as text, as on a hip page.
• Date every update, as on a hip page.

A brief for a Bluegrass farm site

Copy this card into a document and fill it in before the next sale. Lexington farms that start from a completed card can brief a designer in an afternoon, and the build starts from a written scope.

Send the finished card with a link to your current site. Our website design and development page describes the build that follows. For the wider state, see SEO company in Kentucky.

Who writes what on sale morning?

Sale morning is when a hip page earns its keep. Settle who writes, who posts and who answers the phone before the week begins, because no one will have time to decide on the day.

• Give every person who posts a login the week before.
• Practice posting an update on a phone in the barn.
• Keep a printed list of hip numbers and their page addresses.
• Write the update line template once, and fill it in each time.
• Name a backup for every role.

What should a farm do before the catalog closes?

The weeks before the sale are quiet compared with the sale itself, and they are the time to draw pages and check facts. Do the slow work then.

• Draft a page for every horse entered, with status and contact.
• Match every name and number to the catalog entry.
• Shoot and trim a walking video for each horse.
• Test every page on a phone and on a printer.
• Set the update line to the placeholder text you intend to use.
• Tell regular agents the page addresses ahead of time.

What does a buyer see on a phone?

A column: the number, the farm, the pedigree, the video, the update line and the phone number. No sliders, no pop-ups and no side menus in the way.

Should a hip page have a form?

A call button beats a form for buyers on sale day. A form is useful for the days after, when a mare owner or agent wants a reply by email.

What if a farm has only a few horses in the sale?

The same logic applies at a smaller size. Three good hip pages beat thirty rough ones.

Related services and guides

Pages that sit beside this hip page:

• Website design and development
• SEO company in Kentucky
• Web design by city
• Web design for small business

Frequently asked questions