Kelly Townsend of Valley Mills, TX, spends much of her time with animals. She divides her time between breeding and selling Labrador Retrievers and Miniature Australian Shepherds, and caring for her eight horses.

Townsend has had a horse ever since she was eight years old.

"I have always loved horses from the time I could say horse," she says.

Townsend currently has three registered paints and five registered quarter horses. She recently downsized her horse farm but retained one brood mare and raises at least one colt each year.

Besides raising her horses and running her dog kennel, Townsend also manages to find time to fit in a barrel racing career.

"Barrel racing was a long time dream for me," she says.

Townsend has been barrel racing now for 20 years and attends many of the larger races, such as the World Barrel Racing and D&G Barrel events.

She further showed her dedication to the sport by serving as one of the directors of the Central Texas Barrel Racing Association for many years.

Her hard work has obviously paid off. At the 2006 National Barrel Horse Association's Cowboy Nationals in Waco, TX, Townsend finished in the top 25 overall out of more than 100 competitors on her mare, Dontcha Luv Mio (Mio).

Mio was an unexpected find for Townsend, who had been running her gelding, Snappy, for 11 years. Toward the end of his career, Snappy began to develop joint problems and had trouble in the alley.

"I really wasn't in the market or actually looking for a horse when I found Mio," says Townsend. "She has been a blessing and put the fun back in barrels."

"Mio is a lot of fun. She is very sensible and rarely gets bent out of shape."

Townsend also says that Mio expects a treat after every run, good or bad, and will get one for herself from the trailer if someone forgets to give it to her.

For Townsend, her horses provide much more than just good barrel runs.

"The greatest thing about having horses is that they are very therapeutic," she says.

"I used to have a really stressful job. When I would get home I wouldn't feel like going to the barn, but I would have to feed the horses. When I got to the barn it would end up making my whole day better. Horses are great stress relievers."

Using EquineMax has also helped to make caring for her horses an easy and stress-free task.

"EquineMax was the first software I looked at," says Townsend.

"I watched the demonstration on the website. It looked so easy that I didn't go to but two or three feature descriptions before I ordered it. I could tell it was easy to use."

Townsend uses EquineMax primarily to keep medical records on all of her horses. Previous to ordering the software, she kept track of her horse records on her calendar, making it difficult to remember to administer vaccinations for all her horses.

"I really like the alerts that come up to remind me for wormers and shoeing and things like that," she says.

At the end of the year Townsend also uses the EquineMax financial log and reports to manage her income and expenses.

To find out more information about Kelly Townsend's family owned kennel, visit www.riverbendkennel.com.