What is the portal?
A show secretary can publish a private link that lets you enter your animals yourself instead of emailing them in. You fill out a short form — your contact info, your rabbits or cavies, and which sub-shows you want each one in — and submit. The secretary reviews each submission before it goes live.
1. Sign in
Open the portal link the secretary sent you. Type your email and click the button — you'll get a sign-in link in your inbox within a minute. Click it to sign in. The link expires in 60 minutes; if it does, request a fresh one. If you requested several links, any of them still inside the window will work.
The email you sign in with becomes your contact for this show — that's where approval and change emails go. Pick the address you check most often.
2. Fill out your information
First time through, you'll be asked for your name, email, phone, and mailing address. Name and email are always required; some shows require phone and address too. Required fields are marked with a *.
Leave the Exhibitor # blank (the box says Leave blank to auto-assign). The secretary assigns the number when they approve your submission. If you type one in yourself it can collide with another exhibitor's number, so the easier rule is just to skip the field.
3. Add your animals
Entered with HARES before? At the top of the form, Bring in animals you've entered before lists the animals you've entered at other shows. Tick the ones coming to this show — from any mix of shows — and press Bring in: they're added to the form, and anything you've already typed stays. Check each one's class (it's what it was entered as last time, and a junior may have grown into the next class), then tick its shows.
For each animal, fill in:
- Ear # / Tattoo — letters, numbers, and spaces.
- Breed — pick from the dropdown. Breeds ARBA has a working standard for are listed too, marked (Exhibition).
- Variety — appears once you pick a breed. Required for breeds that have varieties. Colors marked (Exhibition) can be shown and judged but earn no legs or points.
- Can't find your breed or color? Ask the show secretary — they can enter it for you. The write-in box was retired so that entries match what the judge and the reports expect.
- Class — Senior Buck, Junior Doe, etc.
- Also enter in Wool/Fur class (rabbits only) — check it to show the animal in the wool/fur competition too. It's a separate entry with its own fee. If the animal is in more than one show, a box for each show appears under it, all checked — uncheck any show it shouldn't be in Wool/Fur. Shows that run Normal Commercial Fur offer a second checkbox the same way, for breeds with that kind of fur.
- Enter in which show(s)? — check the box for every sub-show you want this animal in. One animal can be shown in several sub-shows on the same day.
Need to enter another animal? Click + Add Another Animal for a fresh row. The new row will pre-fill the breed and class from the row above to save you typing — change anything that doesn't match.
Meat classes
If the show runs meat classes, the entry page has a Meat Classes section below the regular Breed Entries section. Instead of a class picker, each meat row uses a Category dropdown:
- Meat Pen — three rabbits sharing the same breed, entered as a single entry with three ear numbers (Ear #1 / #2 / #3 fields all show up).
- Single Fryer, Stewer, Roaster — one rabbit each, just Ear #1.
Meat classes have no variety and no sex — just pick the category and breed. Breed entries and meat entries go in on the same submission: fill in whichever sections apply and submit once.
Made a typo and the form gave you an error? Don't worry — your typed values stick around so you only have to fix the field that's flagged.
4. Submit and wait
Click Review My Entries. Nothing is sent yet: the next page shows everything you entered so you can look it over, and ← Go back and change something takes you back to the form. When it's right, click the Send button (it says how many entries you're sending). You'll land on a confirmation page showing what you sent. The secretary gets notified instantly and reviews each submission in their queue.
You'll get an email when they decide:
- Confirmed — your entries are live in the show. No further action needed; pay at check-in.
- Partial approval — some of your entries are in, but the secretary rejected one or more animals. The email lists them under Needs your attention, with the secretary's note.
- Action needed — the secretary rejected your submission (e.g. wrong sub-show, animal isn't eligible). The email lists which animals and the secretary's note.
Either way, just edit and resubmit: sign back in, edit the flagged animal, save — that puts it back in the secretary's queue automatically.
If you don't see the email, check spam — magic-link and decision emails come from the same address as the sign-in link.
5. Edit or resubmit
Sign back into the portal anytime entries are still open. The confirmation page leads with a Go to My Entries → callout — that's where you change details on an existing animal, withdraw one, or add more, with all your shows in one place. Right below it, Add more (same person) tacks on more animals under the same name. Once you're signed in, a My Entries → button sits at the top of every portal page, and Edit my info on a show's card there fixes your name, phone or address.
Some shows set a date after which they take changes only. From then on you can still change an entry or scratch it, but you can't add animals or withdraw any. Some shows also charge a change fee for each animal you change after that date — the edit page tells you the amount before you save. Fixing your contact details is free.
If the secretary asked for changes (an "Action needed" email), open My Entries, edit the flagged animal, and save. Saving puts your submission back in the secretary's queue automatically and sends them a fresh email letting them know there's a new version to review — they don't have to keep refreshing the dashboard.
Entering for someone else
Showing as a family or for a friend? You don't need to log in separately for each person. After your first submission, the confirmation page has a button labeled Enter for someone else. Click it and you'll get a fresh form — but with the phone and address already filled in from your own submission, so you only have to type the new name and animals.
Each "someone else" submission is reviewed independently by the secretary. Approval and change emails about any of those entries (yours or anyone else's you submitted) go to your email — the one you signed in with. Check-in sheets and results go to the Email on each person's form, which starts out as yours.
Fees and the deadline
Many shows charge a higher late entry fee after a cutoff date set by the show. If you submit before that date, you pay the regular rate; after it, you pay the late rate. The cutoff (if any) is on the show's catalog or info page. Some shows also charge a higher day-of-show fee for entries taken on show day. When a late or day-of fee applies, a notice on the entry form says so.
The total bill is calculated by the secretary's system based on what you enter — entry fees, optional Wool/Fur, exhibitor and cleaning fees, etc. Pay the secretary directly at check-in, unless they tell you otherwise. Right after you send, the confirmation page shows your Estimated entry fees, and My Entries keeps showing it. It's an estimate: the secretary can still add, waive or adjust fees.
Seeing your results
Once judging starts and the secretary (or a writer at the table) records placements, sign back into the portal and open My Results. It lists each of your animals, where it placed in every sub-show, any awards it won (from Best of Variety and Best of Breed up to Best in Show, Reserve in Show and 2nd Reserve in Show), and any legs it earned — and fills in as soon as each placement is recorded, so you can follow along without standing at the table. Each animal also has a My notes box — private to you, saved as you type, and shared across that animal's shows, handy for jotting what the judge said.
If you keep a herd on HARES, the same standings show under My Entries → Results on your dashboard, and each win attaches to that rabbit's record automatically. Some secretaries also post a public results link anyone can open without signing in, to watch Best in Show and Reserve come in.
After the show, the secretary emails you your results as a PDF, with your ARBA leg slips attached — one PDF for each leg your animals earned.
Show-day alerts
Because you entered online, the free HARES app can tell your phone which judge has your breed, then when it's two breeds out and up next. Sign in to the app with the same email you entered with (never set a password? type that email on the sign-in screen anyway and HARES will help you set one), then allow notifications. Alerts follow the superintendent's online schedule, so keep an ear out for announcements too. How show-day alerts work
Common gotchas
- "Already entered" error. Each animal can be in a sub-show only once. If you're trying to re-add the same ear-number to the same sub-show, look for it in your existing entries — it's already there.
- Symbols in the ear #. Ear numbers can only contain letters, numbers, and spaces.
- Portal closed. The portal closes when the show's entries close, and the secretary can also close it early. If you see a "closed" message, contact the secretary directly.
- Wrong sub-show. If the secretary rejected an animal because of the sub-show choice, edit the animal and change the checkboxes — don't re-add it as a new entry.
- Not getting our emails? Yahoo, AOL, and Comcast sometimes filter HARES mail. Add [email protected] to your contacts and check your spam folder — see the email delivery tips for the fix.
- Want to see the competition? The show's entry page shows how many animals are entered in each breed, broken out by sub-show. It updates as entries come in and stays up after the portal closes. The Leg Forecast button above it shows which breeds are on track to earn legs from the current entries.
- Need to pull an entry entirely? You can withdraw an animal from My Entries up until entries close, or until the show's "changes only" date if it has one. After that you can still scratch it: it stays on the entry list and isn't judged, and the entry fee still counts. For anything else, contact the secretary.