Founder’s Story

Hi there! If you’re reading this, I want to thank you for visiting us and taking the time to read our story. My name is Claudia and I’m the founder of EverythingEQ.

My passion for horses began in childhood, when a really good friend of mine went to horseback riding camp one summer and would tell me all about it every afternoon as we played outside our houses. As an animal lover, I grew fascinated at the thought of making friends with horses and learning to ride.

My family and I lived on the outskirts of Toronto, Canada and that year, not long after my friend had shared her riding camp stories with me, one of the local channels began broadcasting the Spruce Meadows Grands Prix. To this day, no word does the emotion I felt that day any justice. I was caught between fascinated disbelief and heart-pounding excitement. Watching those riders navigate huge obstacles on the back of a horse in total partnership… I wanted to do that! So, I asked my mom if I could take lessons and, a few weeks later, found myself doing just that. Long story short, horses have been my life since—25+ years—and my mare and I just celebrated 15 years together.

In 2013, after a friend taught me the ropes of web design and development, I founded EverythingEQ as a hunter/jumper media outlet, combining my passion for horses and content creation. But I never intended on pursing the media outlet route as seriously as it resulted. I wanted to have an outlet to write about the sport I loved to create a following for a different marketplace I was in the process of developing back then. Not long after, the developer I hired to help me took the marketplace hostage and killed it. I was devastated.

With my plans taken out from under me and my confidence waning, I wondered how I would overcome the Mt. Everest-sized bump in the road life had thrown at me. You know that saying, “when nothing goes right, go left?” That’s why I did. Well, sort of. I didn’t scrap my plans to work in the horse world, but I did make a rather drastic change in discipline. I had watched the Kentucky Derby a couple of times before, but the lingo was confusing and there was no way I could ever coherently write about it. Right? Challenge accepted!

With the big race right around the corner and zero knowledge of racing, I got to studying. I learned the lingo, read up on furlongs and odds, taught myself how to read past performances, and watched replays of the prep races. When a flashy chestnut colt by the name of California Chrome galloped onto my radar, I was struck with awe. There was something about the way he ran that caught my eye; and his underdog story was especially relatable. He lit a fire in me. After watching him win the Derby and the Preakness from my living room, I flew to New York to watch him attempt the elusive Triple Crown in the Belmont Stakes.

The silence in the grandstand when he fell short by just a length and three-quarters will forever be engrained in my memory. It was soul-crushing. Particularly because the underdog had lost to an elite, a horse bred for distance, with very well-known connections. You see, Chrome’s story was relatable to so many people, myself included, because it gave us hope that the little guy could prevail. But if will, determination, and passion hadn’t been enough to overcome the odds that evening, would they ever be?

I started questioning the future again. Where would California Chrome go from here? Where would I go from here? Was this the end of the road for both of us?

The underdog in me slapped the negativity right out of me. True underdogs don’t shy away from adversity, they look it dead in the eye, learn from it, and come back stronger.

While Chrome put in the work to bounce back from defeat, I put in the work to establish myself in the sport of racing. By the spring of 2015, EverythingEQ was in attendance as an official member of the press at Kentucky Derby 141. Five weeks later, our team of three stood at the gates of Belmont Park handing out our very own, fully sponsored, print magazine. We witnessed American Pharoah win the first Triple Crown in 37 years that evening. And the magazine that was meant to be a one-time issue grew to become Thoroughbred Today, a racing lifestyle, multi-issue, online and print publication, read and distributed around the world.

As for California Chrome, it took him a couple of years to find his stride again. But when he returned to the races as a five-year-old in 2016, he lit up the racetrack, winning multiple Graded Stakes, including the $1 Million Dubai World Cup.

The road to success is full of adversity. The trick lies in adjusting perspective and developing mental, emotional, and physical stamina to play the long game. I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe everything that has happened to me has purposely led me to where I am today, both personally and professionally, preparing me for this next chapter.

In late 2020, EverythingEQ hit the reset button to bring this marketplace vision to life. Our team has poured hundreds of hours into it, from concept to realization. The fact that we’ve finally launched is both surreal and extremely exciting. If you’ve made it this far, I am genuinely grateful for your attention and interest in me, my company, and our story. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for taking the time to visit and learn about us. I hope you enjoy shopping on our marketplace and look forward to watching it grow.

We are just getting started.

– Claudia L. Ruiz
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
EverythingEQ.com