Equestriad World Tour Beginner’s Guide: Tips, Tricks & Strategies to Become a Top Rider Without Breaking a Sweat

A developer team created around horseback riding enthusiast Craig Laughton, who is behind the world’s first computer horse game “Mary King’s Riding Star” launched back in 1996, has recently released a new mobile game called Equestriad World Tour. The new title has just left its Early Access phase and is now available for Android users to download, after being previously released on iOS platform.

Marketed as the first-ever fully-licensed equestrian mobile game by its creator GoGallop Studios, Equestriad World Tour offers equestrian fans a unique experience by encouraging them to acquire and train horses with the purpose of participating in equestrian competitions. The game launched with more than a dozen licensed riders onboard, who fans will surely recognize quite easily, for example, Ingrid Klimke and her stalwart partner, SAP Hale Bob OLD, Jessica Phoenix and her Pavarotti or Liz Halliday-Sharp and her Cooley Quicksiliver.

The game sees players step into the fast-paced world of eventing. The competitive sport consists of events where a single rider and horse set out to compete against opponents across the three discipline of dressage, cross-country and show jumping. To secure their spot among top riders, players will have to train relentlessly while also tending to their horse carefully. In addition, constantly striving to improve the specimens’ stats has the effect of increasing their chances of success during trials, and is something that will require their complete attention.

Equestriad World Tour also comes with quite a lot of customization features that enable players to create unique riding duos. Players can fiddle with most things including style of clothes, horse face markings and patterns, to suit their own testes and preferences.

Mastering the skills needed to successfully participate in the three equestrian disciplines is the first step players need to take in this game. Since there aren’t many mobile games like this one out there, most users will probably need a bit of time and practice to adapt and completely grasp the mechanics underlying the eventing challenges. If you’re finding it a bit hard to complete a trial impeccably in Equestriad World Tour, don’t worry it gets better with practice. Also handy to have, are a set of strategies that you should apply to get the best results during the competitions.

This is why we’ve put together a comprehensive Equastriad World Tour beginner’s guide where we detail all our observations regarding the game, as well as provide you with a set of tips and tricks to help you develop your abilities naturally so that you can do your absolute best during every discipline. If you still have questions regarding the game, or you’re simply looking for ways to hone your equestrian skills, keep reading below.

1. Get Acquainted With The Controls By Participating In Events

The bulk of Equestriad World Tour consists of events, so the sooner you start participating the better. Find the Events tab (lower part of the display) in the main screen and tap on it. Here you’ll notice three main choices: Wind Chasers, Grand Prix and Exhibition.

The first two have you competing against other players but if you don’t think you’re yet ready for that yet, you can simply enroll in some quick training sessions via Exhibition. This way you won’t feel any pressure not to make mistakes and will learn how to guide your horse at your own place.

Now, we should explain how things work in this game. Equestriad World Tour is based on an energy system and entering an event will usually drain a few energy points (going into Exhibition is 2 points, while participating in the Grand Prix subtracts 5 points). Therefore, you’ll need to take breaks from time to time to give the game a chance to regenerate some of that energy for you. Or you can take advantage of the ad watching option and get some free energy, if you really want to keep competing or training with your horse.

When you’re ready to start training go to Events and then Exhibition. At first, you will be only able to access the Qualifier Series, but don’t worry, as this section provides ample chances for you to practice your riding skills.

You will need to learn how to control your horse, before you can have any hope of mastering the trails in Equestriad World Tour. On the display, you’ll notice some buttons on the right side. Press the UP button to get the animal in motion and then to maintain the pace of the horse. Alternatively, use the DOWN button whenever you need to slow down. These buttons control your pace, which is very important element of all of the trials you’ll be faced with.

For instance, during the Dressage, players are required to nudge their horse to switch between various speeds, for instance, from trotting to canter in the space of a few seconds. This is why you need to keep an eye on the Speed meter above which shows you the speed you need to reach to make your next move.

On the left side of the display, there’s the navigation button, basically the button that allows you to change your horse’s direction. Use both your hands to control the animal’s direction, as well as adjust its pace on the track at the same time. This might prove a bit easier said than done, at first, but don’t give up right away. Keep training and you’ll start to get better at it.

Once you feel confident enough, you can try competing against other players via the Wind Chasers or Grand Prix competitions. It’s good practice, even if you don’t manage to finish among the first riders. Glory will come later, but only if you keep working on your goal of becoming the best horseback rider there is.

2. Focus On Improving Your Horse’s Stats

Obviously your horse is the most important piece of the puzzle here. In the beginning you start off with a level 1 horse that has pretty low-end stats including Speed, Acceleration, Endurance and Agility. These will need to be improved fast if you are to have better chances at beating your opponents in trials.

You do this by leveling up your horse, and yourself. By participating in events you ensure that you keep getting better not only at controlling your horse, but also allow the specimen to flourish by boosting its innate capabilities. Levelling enables your horse to grow faster, gives it more stamina, and so on.

Every time you complete in a trial you are awarded with the following. The higher your ranking, the better the rewards will be:

Silver Horseshoes – represent the currency in this game and can pay for things your horse needs to thrive like for example veggie snacks;
Reputation points – are the player’s XP;
Horse XP – this are the horse’s own XP points which, when accumulated, will allow the specimen to level up.

Levelling up your horse is essential, so keep going to events and remember, even if you don’t make it to the top 10 at the end, it doesn’t matter. You’ll be accumulating precious experience, as well as the currency that you need to buy your horse all the stuff it requires to deliver a top-notch performance.

Investing in attire for the horse or yourself might also help you get a better score during trials, as performance is also rated based on overall appearance, as well. The sleeker you and your horse look in front of the judges, the better. So our recommendation would be to start investing in upgraded attire, as soon as you secure a decent amount of Silver Horseshoes.

3. Become Your Horse’s Best Friend

To flourish, your horse needs excellent care. Sure, levelling up makes it more agile and energetic, but your animal also needs to be taken care of properly.

So after each event, we advise you to visit the stables and inspect your horse. Also make sure to check its Condition bar which appears on the right side of the display. If it’s not full, then it’s a good idea to tap the Care button and see what you can do to improve its condition.

Take a good look at it. Is it dirty? If you notice grime on its legs or body use a sponge to clean it up. Just be careful and gentle. Horses have a temper and so if you’re not attentive and rub them where you shouldn’t, their mood might flare up and prevent you from bonding with it. Which is the opposite of what you want. A horse that has formed a connection to its master will perform much better in competitions, so treat your horse right to increase its affection toward you.

Case in point, a very good way to do that is to feed it some tasty treats in the form of vegetables and fruits. These you can purchased from the Store in exchange for Silver Horseshoes. In addition, it’s advised to check your horse’s hooves after each trial. This means using up one Hoof Pick to clean the horseshoe and one Hoof Brush to clean the remaining part.

Depending on which form of care you apply, your horse will start a new competition with various boosts. To make it more clearing, cleaning the hooves improves Agility, while brushing the horse gives you more Speed points. Try all the options and see what benefits they bring about.

Take note that the goods you purchase from the shop take a while to be delivered, so we suggest you order in advance to avoid having to wait for the stuff you need. Or you could watch an ad and cut that time down considerably. Each day, the game renews its reserve of ads which you can take advantage of to reduce the waiting time for several activities.

Alternatively, you can pay Gold Horseshoes to have the items delivered to your stables instantly. These premium Horseshoes can be acquired by swiping your real-world credit card. It’s also possible to win some, when you level up, or through the Season Pass (discussed in section 7).

4. Train Your Horse Constantly

Leveling up your horse is not the only way you can improve your animal’s stats. These can be viewed in the stables under the Horse tab. Here you can also choose to Train your horse. This costs Silver Horseshoes and in the beginning takes only a few minutes to complete.

As you continue to train and train your horse, the time span will increase considerably and so the sessions will turn into up to two hour waits. While a horse is training you can’t use it to engage in trials via the Event tab. Fortunately, there’s a way around that. Take advantage of your ad reserve to cut down the time you have to wait until the training session is finished. At the end of each interval you’ll be able to raise your horse’s stats thus boosting its potential greatly.

Keep training your horse daily. If you run out of ads, don’t worry. You can take a longer break from the game, while the training session is going on. Or if you have acquired another horse, you can use it to enter trails, while the other horse(s) train.

5. At First, Concentrate On Improving Only One Specimen

Speaking of buying an extra horse, in the shop you’ll probably notice that you can purchase additional animals. When you finally gather enough Gold Horseshoes you can go ahead and invest in a new horse. Check to see their stats and weight your options and invest in the best horse available. Or if you don’t find anything interesting in the Shop at one point, wait a bit and check the store again later to see what else has appeared.

Although it’s tempting to buy a new horse, we recommend against it, at least at first. Try and focus all your efforts on growing and improving one specimen. Levelling up a horse and training it takes time, so if you want to get better at trails quickly, the surest way to do that is to pick a horse (the default specimen will do) and work with it for a while.

As you progress in improving your equestrian skills, you should, at the same time, concentrate your efforts on training your horse and making it the best specimen it can be. Later on, you can look into buying more horses and selling the old ones. But during the initial phase, we recommend that you focus your attention on one animal.

6. Don’t Forget To Redeem Challenge Rewards

Challenge rewards can be unlocked simply by playing the game. You don’t have to do anything special, just participate in trials, upgrade your horse and look after it properly and the rewards will flow.

You can check the Challenges list by tapping on the dedicated button located in the upper left side of the display. There you can check what’s available. For example, completing 3 training sessions can unlock 35 XP, while accepting a friend request brings you extra 15 XP.

XP helps you level up, so the more of these Challenge rewards you can redeem the better. You’re usually alerted via your inbox when a new reward is available, so make sure you check your mail box every day, so you don’t miss out on the bonus.

7. Check The Seasons For More Free Rewards

Don’t forget to check the Season tab to view the current Season Pass. All you need to do is to complete Challenges to get even more rewards.

As we explained above, playing the game and progressing will have the effect of unlocking various Challenge rewards. When this happens, your Season Pass will serve up even more goodies. These can be items like Gold or Silver Horseshoes, food or stuff you need to keep your horse in good shape like brushes.

8. Join A Team

Equestriad World Tour is a social game, and you can join a team by tapping on the Teams tab. Some of these teams have various requirements for joining like, for instance, being a certain level. You might not qualify for all, but if you look hard enough, you’ll probably find one that will welcome you into the fold.

Once you become part of a team, you’ll notice that Team points will be added to the list of rewards you gain after completing a trial. If you and your team members become successful enough, you might get to see your team make it to the game’s global ranking. Each week’s rankings and best team tops can be viewed by tapping on the world globe icon next to Settings in the right corner. You can also participate in various events as part of a team, so if you want to do that, go find yourself a group.

9. A Few Tips To Master The Trials

Equestriad World Tour provides users with a realistic portrayal of the classical equestrian 3-day eventing sport of dressage, cross-country and jumping competition.

These phases make up all the events you will be participating in, so as we already explained above it is essential that you try your best to master the basics of controlling your horse before you head into competitions against other players.

If you already tried your hand a few times at trials, but found that you’re not getting the best of scores, in this section we’ll discuss some tips and tricks for improving your performance. During events, execution is evaluated based on timing, control, and even appearance.

Dressage

During dressage the number one rule is to keep an eye on the Speed meter above. This will show you the speed needed to perform a series of movements that have to be executed inside a marked arena. Sometimes you will be required to go slower and other times faster, so always check the Speed meter to make sure you’re not out of pace. The meter should always be maintained in the white area, so if you see that it isn’t, quickly adjust the speed by pressing on the UP and DOWN buttons.

Also keep an eye out on the markings on the ground which show you the direction you need to take. If they turn orange or, even worse, red you should know that your speed is off and you should do what’s necessary to adjust it quickly. Players have to press on the action button in the right side of the display, when they pass certain marked areas, and when doing so the speed must be optimal.

Dressage is not timed, so don’t rush. Take it slow and always be ready to adjust your speed accordingly. Keep tapping on the UP or DOWN buttons to maintain a certain speed. If left uncheck the speed of your horse will continue to decrease until the animal simply just walks and you don’t want to let that happen. Keep in mind that you must be extremely vigilant during dressage, if you want to get good scores.

Cross Country

During cross country players need to tackle a series of fixed obstacles that the horse must jump over without touching the barrier.

Cross country is timed, so your main goal is to complete the entire course as quickly as possible. To do that, you’ll have to rely on your horse’s galloping skills. There’s one important thing to be taken into account here – depending on the specimen’s level and condition, it will have a certain amount of stamina (or endurance). The amount of energy the horse has left can be viewed below the Speed meter in a separate mini bar. Once the specimen has galloped for a while, its energy will get depleted and so it will need a few seconds to recover its stamina. During these seconds, the horse will automatically revert to a canter instead of galloping towards the next obstacle.

This is why it’s important to level up, train and take care of your horse. A horse that is in excellent condition will have no problem galloping for a longer period of time. To win during cross country, it’s important that you minimize these periods when your horse goes in canter mode waiting for its energy level to get back up, because the trial is a timed one. So the players who finish the track fastest, will get the best scores.

On top of having to worry about time, cross country is all about jumping over the obstacles gracefully without stumbling upon them. Ideally, you should make the jump while your horse is galloping, but don’t worry if it runs out of stamina and slows down. You can still make the jump and get a good score (each jump gets a rating like Good, Great or Perfect).

The overall goal is to make all jumps perfectly and finish running the track in the shortest amount of time possible. Regarding jumps, make sure you wait until you get quite close to the obstacle before pressing the action button on the right to make the horse jump. Or else, you’ll miss the jump and get penalized. Fortunately, you can continue on the track even if you botched a jump, so you won’t be automatically disqualified for doing so.

Jumping Competition

The jumping completion is arguably the trickiest trial of all three. The jumping test is meant to demonstrate accuracy and agility and while you don’t require a certain speed to jump over the obstacles, it is important that you keep your horse between a canter and a gallop, as the trial is timed.

Ideally, you should jump over the obstacles while your horse is galloping, however, the tracks in the jumping competition make it hard to do so. This is because you’ll have to deal with numerous steep turns which your horse won’t be able to do properly while galloping. Hence, you’ll need to slow down in order to remain on the track and position yourself correctly as the next obstacle comes up.

Make sure you speed back again immediately after you’ve passed one of those tricky turns, if you want to finish the trial among the first. Penalties are given for knocking down the balanced fences, going off track or taking a long time to complete the course.

If you have a controller, you’re encouraged to try changing the Steering setting from rains to thumbstick to try and improve your steering. See if it works for you, if not you can revert back any time.

This sums up everything we have for you as far as our Equestriad World Tour tips, tricks and strategies are concerned. As new updates will be rolled out, some new content might become available, but for now there’s plenty of stuff to do as you continue to improve your performance during trials. We hope that our bundle of tips and tricks will help you achieve success in that sense. If you have some additional strategies for Equestriad World Tour you have stumbled upon and you wish to share them with the community, you can do so through the comment section below!