Ride iQ

Ride iQ operates a mobile application (iOS and Android) that delivers on-demand audio lessons for equestrian riders. Lessons are recorded by coaches while they ride, narrating the exercise, timing and position cues, so that a subscriber can press play at the start of their own ride and follow the coach's instruction through headphones or a wearable speaker. Content can be filtered by trainer, level, discipline, duration and goal, and lessons can be downloaded for offline use at barns without cell service.

The library covers English disciplines — eventing, hunter/jumper and dressage — and spans all-walk beginner material through upper-level movements. Alongside audio ride-alongs, the app includes short lesson-support video clips (1–6 minutes), full video lessons (5–20 minutes), dressage "Playbooks" with movement-by-movement tips from a judge, test "Read-Throughs" for memorization, coach-curated multi-lesson programs, and a podcast archive. Membership also includes weekly "Ask an Expert" live events (recorded and posted in the app's podcast section) and a private member community on Facebook. New lessons and podcast episodes are released every Tuesday at 10am ET. Beyond riding coaches, contributors include veterinarians, sports psychology coaches, farriers, judges, grooms, strength and conditioning coaches, and groundwork and natural horsemanship experts.

Founding story

Sisters Jessa and Mckinsey (Kinsey) Lux grew up in Minnesota without horses and came to riding and eventing through Pony Club. They spent summers as working students at upper-level farms in Virginia and, lacking a coach in Minnesota, moved their horses to Canadian Olympic event rider Kyle Carter and his wife Jen Carter's farm in Ocala, Florida; Kinsey transferred to online high school to live near the farm. Both sisters competed to the 2* level before selling their horses and leaving the sport for college and careers — Kinsey earned a finance degree from New York University and spent five years on a real estate trading desk at Blackstone, while Jessa studied entrepreneurship and marketing at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and worked in marketing, community management and web design. In January 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the sisters began interviewing riders about unmet needs and settled on the problem of unstructured independent riding, noting that riders ride alone roughly 80% of the time and that in-person lessons are costly, time-consuming and often require travel. They designed a solution modeled on guided-audio apps such as Nike Run Club and Headspace, then recruited their former coaches the Carters as partners and coaches, reuniting the four roughly a decade after the sisters had left the sport.

Business model

Direct-to-consumer subscription. Riders subscribe to the Ride iQ app for access to the full content library, the member and coach online community, weekly live expert sessions and the podcast catalog. Content is produced with a roster of contracted elite coaches who record lessons for the platform.

Recurring membership fees: $29 per month, or an annual plan listed at $299 (from $348). Every user receives an automatic 14-day (two-week) free trial, can browse the library before subscribing, and can cancel at any time; a refund guarantee is advertised.

Traction

Exceeded first-month membership goals within days of its August 2021 launch; members in 50 states and 40 countries; over 400 on-demand audio lessons with new releases every Tuesday; 19 coaches across eventing, dressage, Pony Club, sports psychology and groundwork; numerous published member testimonials.

Latest developments

As reported roughly 16 months after launch, the company had expanded to 19 coaches and stated it would add coaching teams in other countries, including the UK and Australia, in 2023.