Dr. Sarah Cohen grew up in New Jersey showing in the hunters and equitation before attending Purdue University for her undergraduate training. She graduated from Ross University in June of 2007, having completed her clinical training at Iowa State University. Sarah then joined Merritt and Associates Equine Hospital outside of Chicago for a one year intensive internship then joining Miller & Associates in 2008 and finally launched Equity Performance Equine in the fall of 2020. Over her decade plus in practice, Dr. Cohen has developed a client base consisting of some the most well regarded in the hunter and show jumping community in the country. Dr. Cohen believes passionately in evidence based medicine and putting the horse’s needs at the fore of all decisions. Since 2010 she has been a regular on the international scene serving as the USEF show jumping team veterinarian in competitions in Spain, Slovakia, Belgium, France, Wellington and other international competition locales. Sarah is a past President of the Northeast Association of Equine Practitioners, having served on the Board of Directors for six years. She is a member of the USHJA’s Horse and Riders Advocates Committee and speaks regularly at conferences on her favorite topic, equine sports medicine. She lives in Wellington, Florida and spends her summers in Traverse City, Michigan with her husband Lance, two young daughters Evelyn and June and three crazy dogs Puck, Pony and Applesauce.

Dr. Stephannie Gibson joined Equity Performance Equine in the summer of 2022 and will divide her time between Wellington, FL, Traverse City, MI and be the primary representative of Equity Performance Equine in Ocala as well as the busy horse show circuit throughout the spring, summer and fall.

Stephannie grew up in Illinois showing in the hunters and equitation classes and then turned her passion for horses into a career path pursuing her undergraduate studies at St. Andrew’s University followed by North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine. She interned at Kendall Road Equine Hospital before beginning her professional career at Brazos Valley Equine Hospital followed by service at Rabanal Equine 2018-2020 and Kentucky Equine Hospital 2021-2022 and then finding her permanent home working with Dr. Cohen here at Equity Performance Equine.

Stephanie is married to the well known farrier Ian Curry and while they have a busy household with two successful equine careers she’s hoping to find more time to ride soon and continue to spend quality time with their two squish faced dogs, Mighty Mouse and Heifer.

Dr Bryan Stallings grew up in rural Northeast North Carolina, the son of a farmer and a nurse. Growing up, his passion for horses started at young age when he began competing in 4-H in all-around Quarter Horse events and barrel racing. He attended North Carolina State University for his undergraduate and doctorate degree in veterinary medicine. While in undergrad he competed on the IHSA western team and was a semi-finalist in Logan, Utah. During veterinary school, he was very involved in anything equine which led him to cross paths with us. While attending a conference as a student scholar, he met both Drs. Cohen and Gibson by coincidence, then spent a week in Wellington that winter and one thing led to another. He accepted the offer to come join the team at Equity Performance.

During his free time, you can catch Bryan doing anything outside, especially going to the beach or lake! He enjoys riding his horse Elliott as well as starting young horses as time permits.

Dr. Erik Edwards is a human and animal chiropractor, he joined the team at Equity Performance Equine in the summer of 2024. Prior to joining EPE he worked in a busy chiropractic office seeing upwards of 200-250 ppl a week with some animals sprinkled in the mix as well.

Dr. Erik is from a small-town northern Michigan called Bellaire. He did some local 4-H horse events and ranch riding when he was younger. It wasn’t until he met his wife that he found a passion for horses again, a simple date turned into buying, riding and showing Quarter Horses. Getting back into the horse world, Dr. Erik looked into providing chiropractic care to animals. After seeking some guidance from Dr. Cohen and other respected people in the industry, he went on to attend Options for Animals College of Animal Chiropractic in Kansas. Upon completion of the program Dr. Erik sat for the International Veterinary Chiropractic Association (IVCA) certification which holds him to a higher standard for animal chiropractic education.

When not working seeing people or animals Dr. Erik enjoys working out, riding his horse Jackie, and spending time with this wife Dayna 2 kids Evan and Eva, and their family dog Zeke. When they are back home in Michigan you can find them out on the lakes enjoying the sunshine and fresh water.

Sara Cole is Equity Performance Equine’s Practice Manager. She has spent her life caring for the equine athlete in various capacities. She has worked with many top tier trainers and riders and has followed the United States Equestrian Team and Saudi Arabian Team on international competitions. For more than a decade Sara worked for Dr John Steele as his veterinary technician.

Sara began riding as a child in Des Moines Iowa doing the hunters and equitation before wanting to expand her world a little bit by joining the grooming side of things with many international competitors.

In her off time you will find her behind the camera at various sporting events, polo matches and Grand Prix classes around the Wellington area.

Carlos A. Montoya is from Colombia where he attended Veterinary Medicine and Zootechnics School at la Universidad Technologica de Pereira, Risaralda Colombia, He completed one year of Clinical training at the large animal clinic San Luis located in Medellin, Colombia and graduated in 2019. From there, Carlos A. Montoya joined Equity Performance Equine in 2020 as a Veterinary Technician.

He is studying to obtain his Doctor in Veterinary Medicine in the United states at the ECFVG (Educational Commission for Foreign Veterinary Graduates) to achieve his goal and practice as a DVM in the USA. Meanwhile, he is working as a Veterinary technician to maintain his knowledge, keep up to date and learn more techniques.

In his free time Carlos enjoys spending time with his family, traveling and doing BBQs. He has always been passionate about horses and working with large animals.

Stephanie was born in Mexico where she lived until she was 11 and her family moved to the United States. Growing up, her dream was to become a veterinarian and Joining Equity is a step in her development to make that dream a reality. Stephanie joined Equity Performance Equine in 2021 serving as admin support for the entire team. In the role she holds numerous strands of the practice together with a focus on inventory management. Stephanie is multilingual, gifted with humans and animals and a master multitasker and admin whiz. Her husband Juan works with one of the most prestigious sport horse operations and has known Dr. Cohen for over a decade.

Tiffany’s love of horses began as a working student at a local stable when she was 13 years old. Here is where she learned to ride and horse fundamentals. She was first introduced to veterinary medicine while grooming for a jumper rider, and this piqued her interest as a way to provide better care for the horses in her charge. Not long after she went to work for John R. Steele and Associates as a vet assistant. It became clear to her that she needed to become a certified Veterinary technician if this was going to be her career path. She enrolled in Manor College to earn her associates degree in veterinary technology. She grew her skills with Steele and Associates for a decade. In that time, she was aware of a need to give the equine athlete some much needed relief after they had given their all in the show ring so she enrolled in an equine massage course at Animal Rehab Institute to become a Certified Equine Massage Therapist. Currently, she has branched out on my own, using the knowledge she’s learned over the years to create an equine massage business and assist veterinarians as a freelance certified vet tech. At Equity Performance Equine She is in charge of running the laser and Functional Electrical Stimulation treatments as well as providing equine body work.

Laura Sheridan began working for Equity Performance as an administrator in the summer of 2022. She hails from central New Jersey and continues to divide her time between New Jersey and South Florida.

She attended Lehigh University where she graduated with a degree in Accounting. She has worked in multiple fields, including small animal veterinary offices and doctors offices performing bookkeeping and management tasks.

Laura has a deep passion for all animals, nature and her adorable Miniature Dachshund, Poitier (Potter). If her face is familiar to you that’s because she may also remember your favorite coffee drink from her stint at Starbucks.

Sara started riding horses at a young age and knew right away how much love and passion she had for them. She competed as an amateur show jumper until she went to the University of Kent in England to obtain her bachelors degree in marketing followed by a masters in value chain management.

For 7 years she continued working in her field while still riding horses. She realized how much she wanted to be more involved in the equine industry especially when she was in California so she decided to take a break from the office to go train with Holger Hetzel in Germany and focus more on riding. She took her first grooming job with a professional US rider in 2018 and got the chance to work with some of best horses at the top sport, work with some of the best veterinarians and to travel to the best shows. Grooming horses was an amazing experience to her; it took her passion of horses to a new level. She wanted to do everything she could to make sure they were happy, sound and have the best results. Now she has joined Equity performance equine as a veterinary technician and is looking forward to expand her knowledge and gain experience from some of the best veterinarians in the country.

In her free time she loves to go hiking She loves traveling especially to cold weather destinations and also loves cooking.

Please meet Silvia A. Alejos. Her favorite color is black and green.
She looooooves candy, the beach and her siblings. She’s from Louisiana but was raised in Guatemala on a nice ranch, riding horses and doing cowgirl stuff with her family.

At 15 she moved to California and finished school online and started riding and grooming for different people and that helped her so much in all aspects of life.

After high school, she took a break from riding/grooming to go to OSHS, (Oklahoma state Horseshoeing School) to get a little knowledge about horse’s feet.

She feels very lucky to keep running into some of the best professionals in the equine industry and learning from all of them and we feel very lucky to have her on our team!

Lance has been Dr. Sarah Cohen’s partner and life tech since meeting her in 2012. Lance’s background is in building and leading live event and multimedia businesses. Lance currently serves as the CEO of Fanatics Events, a division he created for the sports apparel, e-commerce and content juggernaut, Fanatics, Inc and its founder Michel Rubin, the business is a joint venture with IMG Endeavour. Lance has steadily increased his knowledge of the equine world and is proud to help Sarah develop Equity into a practice with sound business principles, a culture of respect, equality and collaboration that puts the horse, rider and teammates at the center of all decisions. Lance & Sarah split time between Torch Lake near Traverse City, MI and Wellington FL with their two daughters, Evelyn and June and a gaggle of smelly dogs with funny names.