Equilab: Horse Riding App 4+

Amazing!

The most detailed and best horse riding app I’ve ever tried, I love how exact it can get! You can use this app for all levels of riding, say, you’re only taking lessons or you only lease a horse, it works so well! Of course, there are a few tweaks that need to be made, but it’s never going to be perfect. Personally, I think safety tracking and the Apple Watch version should be free. Safety tracking is very important, if you’re hurt and you cannot reach your phone to call, the person/people tracking will help you if they notice. I think it is a very good feature, but it should be free. The Apple Watch is so helpful, because you can wear it any time without having to put your phone in your pocket or in a pouch or something. But it’s not free to track from your watch either. It’s such a useful tool that could be used so much more if it was free. Other than these small things, I definitely recommend getting this app if you’re looking to see how far you’ve come or where you’re going with your riding experience. This app is great!

Pretty good, but some features need improvement

I’ve been using the free version of this app for about 6 weeks. I have 2 horses and ride them every day (except on their days off of course). I love the GPS tracker and also that you can have multiple horses and disciplines to track. I do a lot of trail riding and fox hunting and like to see how far we went.
My biggest issue with the app is that it doesn’t “remind” you if you forget to finish the ride when you get off, so quite frequently I’ve already untacked and been to the wash stall before I remember we aren’t riding anymore. I really wish it would recognize that there is no action and pop up a notification to ask “are you still riding?”
Also, one thing I’ve noticed is that it really doesn’t always get the gaits right, for instance, I did 30 minutes of trot and canter sets on my Foxhunter yesterday and it says I walked for 20 minutes and only galloped for less than 2 minutes. I didn’t forget to end the ride, and I only walked for about 10 minutes total, so I know it wasn’t calculating walking while I was untacking.
Finally, and others have mentioned this too, there aren’t enough options within the discipline. I’m a foxhunter and there’s no choice for that which is a pretty popular discipline and really what I downloaded it for. I want to upgrade to the paid version, but I would want some improvements first.

Developer Response ,

Hello - thank you very much for this feedback! We are currently working on making the improvements you suggested, both of which make perfect sense (with regards to notifying you to end your ride when you stop, and adding more disciplines including fox hunting). Our team hopes you continue to enjoy using Equilab. Feel free to reach out to us at feedback@equilabapp.com with any additional comments or questions you have.

Driving

I do a fair amount of riding my own appendix horse, and driving a lot of different horses for CDE. So far, I’ve only used the app a handful of times with my Apple Watch, and I think I like it. I’ve used the app once for my own horse and twice for driving two different VSE (Very Small Equines). The app didn’t pick up trotting vs walking for the little guys, but I’m not entirely sure if that was because the route was in close quarters (as in, not over a long distance) or if because VSE paces are just too small for the app to pick up. I’ll keep using the app and if it’s easier to register the paces over a longer distance, I’ll update my review.

My initial critiques so far: Since I work different sizes of horses for driving, I wish it were a little easier to toggle between the individual equines. Right now, I’m adding new horses based on competition size categories rather than name (eg, VSE single, Horse pair, Lrg pony single, etc). It would be nice if the Apple Watch interface had small squares or something to choose horses from before initiating a ride. I know it’s an extra step but, since I am usually called upon to drive different horses in a particular event, it’s easier for my own record keeping.

So far I like this app and look forward to using it more!