Stride Performance Equine Therapy

02/25/2026

This!! I can vividly remember making my “saddle dreams” come true with a BEAUTIFUL saddle that was everything I’d ever wanted and more and was so comfortable for ME to ride in, only to find out after the fact that it was unfit for what my horse actually needed

How much of what we do or use is to suit our needs or wants and not the horses?

Horse Welfare Is Not a Sales Strategy.
ITS. THE . BASIC. STANDARD.

I want to take a moment to talk about something important in our industry. This is a recent saddlery’s post looking for reps that has a lot of us raging- and rightful so.

The normalization of “saddle sales jobs” without fitting qualifications should concern every horse owner and raise a major red flag.

There is a significant difference between a saddle sales representative and a trained, independent saddle fitter. (Please read that sentence again!)

A sales role is designed to move product.
A qualified independent fitter’s role is to evaluate the horse first — conformation, muscle development, asymmetry, movement, rider balance, and long-term comfort — before ANY brand or sale enters the conversation.

When a saddle appointments become primarily sales-driven:
• Brand loyalty can override fit suitability
• Inventory can influence recommendations
• Pressure can replace patience

That is not horsemanship. That is retail.

If your saddle professional cannot explain:
• Tree geometry
• Panel pressure distribution
• How the horse moves differently left vs. right
• Why a specific tree angle matches your horse’s shoulder
• Girth placement
•etc.

Then you are likely receiving a sales appointment — not a fitting.

A saddle is not just a product. It directly affects:
• Back health
• Muscle development
• Behavior under saddle
• Performance longevity
• Pain response and compensation patterns

When sales goals are prioritized over biomechanical assessment, horses can suffer — and often quietly.

Independent, trained fitters:
✔ Work brand-neutral when possible
✔ Assess the horse in motion and at rest
✔ Understand pressure mapping and panel balance
✔ Recommend what fits — not just what sells
✔ Sometimes advise not buying anything at all and knowing when to walk away from a potential sale for the benefit of the horse.

That is not anti-business. That is ethical horsemanship.

If you are investing thousands of dollars in a saddle, make sure the person evaluating your horse is trained in fit — not just trained in closing a sale. This also goes for tack & saddle repairs!

A saddle is not a handbag. It is orthopedic equipment for a living athlete.

Horses are absorbing the cost of industry shortcuts and it’s time the standard be raised.

— Nicole
Between The Tree LLC 🖤

02/16/2026

And not because the exercise is or was bad, but because his body wasn’t ready for it

The biggest crutch we face as equestrians is that horses will do everything they can for us which makes it extremely hard to know when something is working for them vs working against them

In this video I am taking Chip (the LOML) over an exercise to support his stifles through medial glute strengthening. While this is a great exercise and seems quite simple, the maneuver is actually quite advanced.

And because of this he is compensating through the exercise — this is what encourages compensatory tension patterns and muscle imbalances as horses will use whatever muscle they have the easiest access to. Which isn’t always the best functional choice.

Signals that this exercise was too much for him, that his body wasn’t ready and that his body was under stress:
Chewing on the bit
Using his neck to lift the forelimbs
Tense through his neck
Drops out of the contact and almost BTV
Knocks pole with right forelimb
Struggles to lift the hind limbs and braces his lumbar to compensate

The problem is not usually the exercise or training we are doing — it is often that the body isn’t as ready as we think it is

Had I done this exercise after I had spent time training his deep stabilizers and working through tension guarding we would have yielded a much different outcome

He became tense standing in front of a pole no wonder he was tense going over them!

02/15/2026

I have been having a lot of really great conversations with horse owners lately that make me excited for where the horse world is heading

——

We have spent a lot of time connecting things together but almost always compartmentally

As the horse world evolves more questions arise of “why is the body doing what it’s doing?” and rather than looking in compartments, we are tending more and more to look for a bigger picture answer

The physical body does not work in isolation — it works in layers

A horse who has chronic poll tension does not just need bodywork, they also need to stop entering the neural loop that feeds the physical pattern creating the poll tension, to stop entering this loop they need to feel safe, to feel safe we need to be attuned to when their body begins to tip into activation

As we have more and more of these conversations we really get to see:

We can’t have one without the other — regulation, structure, and performance are inseparable.

02/15/2026

Served on the ground just as he likes it 🫶🏻

02/14/2026

No cats were harmed in the making of this film * 😅

This horse has always had an obsession for fur of other animals and loves to see how far he can get with whatever animals is attached to said fur 🙈

02/14/2026

My forever valentine 🫶🏻🫶🏻

02/14/2026

Sensitivity isn’t resistance.

When a horse reacts to touch, it’s often the nervous system protecting compressed, overloaded tissue — not a behavioral issue to push through.

Working within the body’s threshold allows the system to de-arm, soften, and eventually accept deeper work without triggering protective responses.

🛟 Save this if you work with sensitive horses.

02/12/2026

He was on a sniffing MISSION tonight — and I loved every second of it

One of my favourite things about taking time off from riding has been the relationship we’ve built and the genuine personality I have gotten to see in him

There is nothing more I love in this world than this soul right here 🥹🫶🏻

02/12/2026

hate the cold but love seeing the ponies breathing like dragons

And I was under a heat lamp so life was good 🫶🏻

02/10/2026

Horses are extremely good at putting themselves into the positions we ask of them.

This is why it is not so much about the position they are in, but rather it is about how they got there and how they are maintaining it

A horse can stretch, lift, round, or “look correct”
while still holding tension through the neck, chest, and trunk

When the system is braced, the body can’t truly organize

This is why details matter.
Not just what the horse does, but how they do it.

If your horse is stretching and responsive but still tight — it’s less about the neck position and more about how the body is getting there and how it is maintaining to stay there

02/09/2026

Horses don’t have a clavicle which means however the tissue underneath and around it move, it moves

The most influential connections in the shoulder come from the neck and chest

When the neck and pectorals are tight or braced, it changes how the shoulder loads, stabilizes, and moves

What looks like a “shoulder problem” is often the body compensating for tension higher up the chain

This is why addressing the neck can change shoulder comfort, stride quality, and ease of movement

The body is never working in isolation — a shoulder problem is almost always compensatory