“Sometimes we spend our whole lives searching for something, only to realise it was quietly making its way towards us all along.”

It started with one horse. His name is Ezz El Hassan.

In 2023, I went for a ride at a stable here in Egypt. It was just another ordinary day, or so I thought. After we left, the owner called my husband and said something unexpected. “You both seem like good people. I have a horse available.” I smiled, but before hearing anything else, I said to my husband, “If this horse is dark brown, a stallion, a purebred Arabian, and seven years old… then he is my horse.” A few moments later, the owner replied, “Yes… he is.”He had no idea those were the exact words I had just spoken.

In that moment, I knew. Some people would call it coincidence. I don’t. A few days later, Ezz arrived. The first time I saw him, I cried. The first time I sat on his back, something inside me became still. There are moments in life that don’t need explaining because your soul recognises them before your mind does. That was one of them. I had waited my whole life for this horse without even knowing I was waiting.

Our journey together was anything but simple. As time passed, I discovered that Ezz carried a painful history. He had been overworked. Neglected. Misunderstood. There were scars you could see, and many more you couldn’t. The more I came to understand his story, the more I realised something extraordinary. He recognised my wounds just as clearly as I recognised his. Healing was never happening in one direction. We were healing together.

Over the years, several people with intuitive gifts shared something with me without ever knowing about Ezz. They would say, “I see a dark brown horse standing beside you, I see is eyes on you.” When I told them about him, every single one said something remarkably similar. “He loves you very much. He understands everything you have done for him. He is always watching over you.”

Whether you believe in those experiences or not isn’t what matters most to me. What matters is what I felt. I never doubted our connection.

Ezz saved my life as much as I saved his. Grief is difficult to describe to someone who hasn’t lived it. It isn’t just sadness. It lives in your body. For me, grief settled in my lungs. Every breath became a reminder of the life we no longer shared. There was guilt. The unbearable question of why she was taken and I was left behind. There was longing. There was silence.Yet somehow, every time I was with Ezz, I could breathe again. He became my oxygen mask.When I was with him, I felt closer to my sister. Closer to myself. Closer to life. He never asked me to explain my grief. He simply stood beside me until my body remembered how to breathe again.

Then, in early 2025, something happened that changed everything. I was standing with Ezz when I felt the clearest message I had ever received. Not through words. Through knowing. It was as though he said, “It’s time.” “It’s time to do for others what I have done for you.” That moment became the beginning of Healing with Horses. Not because I suddenly decided to create a business. But because one horse showed me what true healing looked like. Healing isn’t about fixing people. It is about creating a space where they feel safe enough to remember who they have always been. Everything Soul Stride is today began with one horse who walked into my life exactly when I needed him most.

People often tell me that I rescued Ezz. The truth is… I think he rescued me. Today, every person who stands beside a horse during one of our sessions is experiencing the ripple effect of one extraordinary relationship that began with a wounded woman and her wounded horse who found one another at the divinely appointed time.

Ezz is more than my horse. He is the heartbeat of Soul Stride. And for that, I will be forever grateful.

“Thank you, Ezz. For choosing me.”

With love, Nicole