Top 5 Horse Riding Apps in 2024

In the digital age, the integration of smart technology and data analysis in sports continues to be on the rise.

This is particularly evident in the equestrian industry, where the relationship between horse and rider offers numerous opportunities for innovative applications to improve the way riders care for their horses’ health, while educating themselves and developing their overall ability.

In this post we are going to explore five of the best horse riding apps currently available to every equestrian enthusiast to use on their smartphone. These apps can enhance the riding experience, making it safer, more enjoyable, educational and overall improve the health and wellbeing of your horse.

Here’s what we found.

The 5 best Horse Riding Apps

• Enduro FIT for advanced ride & fitness tracking
• Equilab for its vibrant social community
• Horse Riding Tracker for tracking on a budget
• Ridely for quality training content
• Rider Guider for audio-guided learning

What is a Horse Riding App?

In this post we are defining horse riding apps as mobile software used on a smartphone to support the activity of horse riding and its many disciplines (leisure riding, endurance, dressage etc.). Apps in this space can help serve a variety of functions including fitness tracking, safety monitoring, supporting a social community, assisting education or facilitating data analysis.

What makes a great Horse Riding App?

Selecting Horse Riding Apps for inclusion in this list is a complex and somewhat subjective task, given the wide range of functionalities and purposes they serve. The apps featured here are chosen based on fulfilling one or two of the following quality criteria:

• Equestrian functionality: Each app must cater to horse riding and equestrian activities, providing a specific benefit, such as fitness tracking, GPS and location, data analysis, educational value, or access to a vibrant social community.
• Value/Monetisation: How well does the app’s price reflect the value it offers? For free apps with in-app monetisation, this should be implemented in a way that adds value and enhances the overall user experience, without penalising those who choose not to make purchases.
• User experience: Is the app easy to use? Users should be able to access any feature they need without difficulty, ensuring a low learning curve.

The best Horse Riding Apps at a glance

Best Horse Riding App for Ride & Fitness Tracking

Enduro FIT

Enduro FIT pros:

• Real Time HR (Heart Rate) Monitoring when paired with Enduro Equine Heart Rate Monitor
• Real Time GPS Ride Tracking
• Smartwatch support
• Reasonably priced subscription

Enduro FIT cons:

• Audio guidance and multi-horse live tracking require subscription
• Heart rate features require heart rate monitor

Enduro FIT is the ultimate Equine Ride Tracking app for mobile devices and smartwatches.

It allows Riders and Trainers to track live location, speed, distance, and calories burned during their rides. They can replay and review the satellite view of the ride, monitor session history for multiple horses, analyse data trends over specified time periods, and much more.

When used in conjunction with the Enduro Equine Heart Rate monitor, Enduro FIT provides real-time heart rate monitoring. This feature enables you to keep track of your horse’s health, exercise intensity, and performance levels. Convenient access to heart rate and recovery information offers genuine insight into your horse’s fitness, stress, and fatigue levels. These features do require the additional purchase of the Heart Rate Monitor to fit to your horse during rides using the comfortable girth sleeve or wrap.

Enduro FIT pricing: Free, Standard Monthly (£4.99/month), Standard Annual (£54.99/year), Premium Monthly (£8.99/month), Premium Annual (£99.99/year), Pro10 Monthly (£29.99/month), Pro20 Monthly (£54.99/month), Enduro Equine Heart Rate Monitor GS or GW (£249.99).

Best Horse Riding App for social community

Equilab

Equilab pros:

• Thriving community
• Engaging Fitbit-style challenges and badge system
• Feature rich with weekly planner, documents and customisable audio coach
• Reasonably priced

Equilab cons:

• Tracking isn’t as feature-rich as some competitors
• Many features require premium subscription, unlimited horses, safety tracking, rewards, audio coach, gait detection, smartwatch support, trends, calendar, advanced reports and data exports.

Equilab is a leading application for horse riders and trainers, boasting a vibrant social community. It allows equestrians to track the distance, speed, and gait of their horse during a ride. The app’s community features, which include challenges, achievements, a social feed, and chat functionality, enable riders to stay connected with friends, trainers, farriers, and owners. They can share their progress and develop as equestrians.

Equilab is one of the most widely used horse riding apps, with over 1 million users in 50 countries. As a socially-focused horse riding platform, its features are geared more towards individual horse owners and riders and how they communicate and manage relationships within their community. The app is carefully designed with user experience in mind. Its smooth user interface, engaging illustrations, and interactive elements make it one of the most compelling apps in the equestrian space.

Equilab pricing: Free, Premium 1 Month (£12.99/month), Premium 6 Months (£64.99), Premium 12 Months (£99.99).

Best Horse Riding App for tracking on a budget

Horse Riding Tracker

Horse Riding Tracker pros:

• Siri and Apple Health Integration
• Low price subscription

Horse Riding Tracker cons:

• Tracking isn’t as feature-rich as some competitors
• Questions over some tracking reliability

Horse Riding Tracker is a straightforward iOS and watchOS app for tracking rides. Its seamless integration with Siri and Apple Health to provide heart rate data is a noteworthy feature. The app allows you to access data for maximum and average speed, distance, and duration, and review a GPS map of your route. You can also analyse data from current and previous sessions.

Though its interface is simple and its tracking features may not be as advanced as other market options, Horse Riding Tracker stands as an affordable choice for individual horse owners. While a premium subscription is required to access all the app’s features, it has the lowest subscription cost among all the apps in our list.

Horse Riding Tracker pricing: Free, 3 Months (£15.49), 6 Months (£19.49), 1 Year (£21.99).

Best Horse Riding App for training content

Ridely

Ridely pros:

• 450+ videos and training programs from professional riders
• Personalised training content
• Community feed

Ridely cons:

• Limited tracking features
• Premium price subscription

Ridely is an equestrian community training platform. It serves over 10,000 members with educational content and a space to share riding experiences. The aim is to learn from seasoned professionals, share progress, and encourage each other to enhance horse riding skills.

The app boasts an extensive library of high-quality tutorials and training videos from some of the world’s leading trainers and equestrian professionals. Users can access personalised training videos to improve their horse riding across various disciplines, including dressage and jumping. While the app may lack advanced tracking and reporting features, its primary focus is on educational content and community. In this domain, it is unmatched by any other app on this list.

Ridely pricing: Free, Monthly (£34.99/month), Yearly (£149.99/year).

Best Horse Riding App for audio guidance

Rider Guider

Rider Guider pros:

• Audio guide for warm-ups, groundwork
• Create your own playlist
• Download sessions to use offline
• Low price subscription

Rider Guider cons:

• No tracking features

Rider Guider is an app designed to assist equestrians with audio-guided warm-ups, groundwork, flatwork, and dressage sessions, adding excitement and enhancing training sessions. The app’s modern interface offers a variety of guided sessions that users can compile into a customised playlist to help achieve their training goals.

Sessions can be downloaded and played offline, allowing users to use the audio-guided sessions even in areas with poor signal or Wi-Fi reception. As a primary training app, its main feature is audio guidance, so it doesn’t include horse ride tracking features. The app has been helpful for riders with low confidence, enabling them to concentrate on riding while listening to the audio lessons.

Rider Guider pricing: Free, Monthly (£4.99/month), Quarterly (£14.99), Yearly (£49.99/year).

How to choose from the many Horse Riding Apps

Smartphones have transformed the way we engage with horse riding, and the above Horse Riding Apps are just a few of the many digital tools available to equestrians. Each app, in its unique way, enhances the riding experience, whether they ensure safety, provide valuable learning resources, foster a sense of community among riders, or offer innovative fitness and health tracking.

Yet, with so many options, choosing the right Horse Riding app can be daunting.

If you’re faced with this decision, consider the following steps to simplify the process:

1. Understand your needs as a rider.
2. Identify the features and functions you require.
3. Research the apps compatible with your devices.
4. Consider user reviews and the developer’s responses.
5. Use free features or trials to test different apps and find what suits you best.
6. If necessary, purchase a premium subscription to access advanced functionality.
7. Regularly review your app usage to ensure you’re maximising its benefits.

Don’t rush these steps. Every app has a learning curve and requires time to explore all features and integrate them into your routines. This is especially true if you’re primarily focused on fitness tracking and want to analyse trends over time. For this, you’ll need to invest time and use the app regularly to accumulate data for comparison. In this case, an app with advanced trend analysis and session history can be beneficial.

Additional Reading

If fitness or health tracking are your primary concern, below you will find a number of additional resources you may be interested in.

• The Power of Horse Tracking: How Smart Technology is Revolutionising Equestrian Sports
• Heart rate monitoring for the endurance horse
• Horse heart rate recovery in endurance horses
• Using an equine heart rate monitor in exercise training