Like most riders, I’m always keen to learn more about riding and horse care, so I was delighted to be able discover more about the popular digital riding coach and planning app directly from the team at Ridely. Read on to find more about Ridely, what it is, and how it works to help improve horses and riders all over the world.
Tell us about you
In 2017, Ingrid Sundqvist, Totta Ogander and Erika Hjertén decided to build Ridely – your complete tool to improve together with your horse, in Sweden. They felt that there was a huge community of equestrians across the world without a digital tool to help them on their equestrian journey, whether they were competitive or just wanted to have fun with their horse. Ridely mission is to do anything to help equestrians and their horses develop and become as great as they possibly can during their journey together.
Since 2017, the app has continuously been developed and improved, expanding to a worldwide platform with something for all equestrians.
The Ridely Team consists of individuals from all over the world from all walks of business, but that are all equally passionate about horses as well as the app. Our team members have a vast interest and knowledge of horses and use the app in our daily equestrian lives including our UK Social Media Manager Sammy Willson who competes internationally in dressage under the GBR flag. Between the team, we are able to educate one another and bring a vast range of knowledge to the app!
What is the Ridely app?
The Ridely app is a unique digital tool to help equestrians progress on their journey with their horses. There are two dynamic parts of the app that work seamlessly together. One major highlight of the app is the video library with over two hundred training videos in various disciplines including dressage, jumping, US hunter/jumper, western, and horsemanship. These videos range in level of difficulty from basic to advanced, and there is something for everyone. Ridely features Olympic and world-class riders and trainers including Carl Hester, Meredith Michaels Beerbaum, Gareth Hughes, Helena Stormanns, Nicola Buchanan, and so many more. Training videos from Olympic gold medallist and world-record holder Charlotte Dujardin CBE are also coming very soon!
Ridely also has an innovative digital journal created especially for equestrians. It has a calendar to plan and log all of your equestrian activities from training sessions to physio, farrier, and veterinary appointments, showing, and even to your own personal gym and fitness sessions. Within the calendar you can provide written comments about how your activity went, you can add statistics that give you weekly and monthly reports and you can also add photos and videos. This tool provides a simple way to track your progress with your horse and plan for the future in an organised way.
The app doesn’t stop there! Among its many other features, there is a tool that allows you to track your hack on GPS so you can visually see where you went and view statistics about your hack. There is also opportunity to receive feedback from world class trainers and riders across many disciplines in the “Ask The Expert” feature where you send a clip of your own riding with questions and comments, and receive specific expert advice and feedback from a rider or trainer of your choice within the app.
Whether you just want to have an organised calendar in your pocket or you want to work towards large competitions, pick up tips from the training videos or simply just watch some beautiful riding, there’s something for everyone!
The app can be described as a digital journal, containing a calendar to plan and log all of your equestrian activities from training sessions to physio, farrier, and veterinary appointments, even to your personal gym and fitness sessions. Within the calendar you can provide written comments about how your activity went, you can add statistics that give you weekly and monthly reports and you can also add photos and videos.
This tool provides a simple way to track your progress with your horse and plan for the future in an organised way. The app doesn’t stop there! Amongst many other features, there is a tool that allows you to track your hack on GPS so you can visually see where you went and view statistics about your hack. There is also opportunity to receive feedback from world class trainers and riders across many disciplines in the “Ask the Expert” feature where you send a clip of your own riding with questions and comments, and receive specific expert advice and feedback from a rider or trainer of your choice within the app.
The highlight of the app is perhaps the video section. Here, you can find over two hundred training videos across almost every discipline. These videos range in level of difficulty from basic to advanced and include something for everyone. They include the riding and teaching of world class riders and trainers such as Carl Hester, Meredith Michaels Beerbaum, Gareth Hughes, Helena Stormanns and many more. This app definitely has something for everyone. Whether you just want to have an organised calendar in your pocket or you want to work towards large competitions, pick up tips from the training videos or simply just watch some beautiful riding, there’s something for everyone.
How did the Ridely app come to fruition?
Ingrid Sundqvist, Totta Ogander and Erika Hjertén worked hard to develop the Ridely app in Sweden, to provide this necessary digital tool for equestrians. With the collaborative efforts from app designers, the tech team, the creative team and of course a group of people hugely passionate about riding, the app came together in 2017. Receiving great popularity in Sweden, Ingrid Sundqvist decided to launch Ridely in the UK and was advised to approach Harvey Buchanan, now UK Country Manager. The app has most recently expanded to the US under US Country Manager Nicole Graf. The rest is history! The app continues to develop and improve based upon the feedback of our users and is quickly spreading across the globe.
How do we use the Ridely app?
The Ridely app is free to download. You can create a user profile and add profiles for your horses where you can then plan activities for them in your calendar. You can also set goals, break them down and create a plan to work towards these goals, no matter how big or small they are. Every time you ride or have an appointment, log your feedback and statistics in the app, then every time you reach a new month you can look back on how last month went, what to work on and change and what to keep doing! This can help your progress massively, as we all know how easy it is to forget the bad days and the learning days especially! Ridely helps you structure your equestrian life to maximise it and help you reach your goals. You can be an equestrian of any discipline in the Ridely app and make each activity completely specific to you. You can watch training videos that are separated into categories based on their targeted discipline and level of difficulty. Save these to your calendar and try out some of the great exercises yourself to help your training!
How can we access the Ridely app?
The app is free to download in the App Store and on Google Play. You can visit the website for more information at www.ridely.com. You can also keep up to date with what’s new in the app, how members of the equestrian community are using it and information about all the great new features and updates on social media. On Instagram you can follow us at @ridely.app“https://www.instagram.com/ridely.app/” and on Facebook we are Ridely App“https://www.facebook.com/RidelyApp”
What is the difference between the two levels of the app?
The app is absolutely free to download and has many free tools that you can use. The calendar is completely free to use, as well as the ride tracker and many of the training videos. To access all the features, you can upgrade your subscription to Ridely PRO. This includes gaining full access to every single training video and masterclass, being able to add specific tags to your calendar and colour coding to maximise how you use it, being able to set unlimited goals and upload up to 10 minutes of video per activity rather than just 1 minute in the free version. Many of our longer masterclasses with trainers such as Carl Hester, Gareth Hughes and Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum are only available in the PRO version so it is definitely worth upgrading! And all for less than a carrot a day!
You can choose to pay for PRO with three options: a 3-month subscription is £29.99; a yearly subscription is £49.99 or you can purchase a lifetime subscription for £219.99. You can cancel at any time you like too, so there are no commitments if you find it is not for you.
What clinics and classes will we find on the app?
In the video section, we have some world class trainers and riders including: Olympic dressage medallist Carl Hester MBE, Olympic show jumping medallist Meredith Michaels Beerbaum, Olympic dressage rider Yvonne Losos de Muniz, 5* International Event rider Ariel Grald, Olympic travelling dressage reserve Gareth Hughes, world-class show jumping trainer Helenna Stormanns (formally known as Helena Dickinson), US western specialist Bryan Penquite and recently added Equestrian Mind Coach Annette Paterakis which includes a series on mind coaching and working on sports psychology. We have many more riders, trainers, and specialists in the app- this is just naming a few! We are just about to premiere rider fitness exercises in the app, and we are super excited to start filming with Charlotte Dujardin next week, so stay tuned!