An Update On SADDL: The Digital Tool Helping Barrel Racers Compete Smarter

Kait Lindner, SADDL

11 minutes ago

7 min read

Black-and-white horse stands under leafy trees in a sunny paddock; text reads From Control to Trust: Lessons from the Pasture.

Just one year ago, SADDL entered the barrel racing industry with a simple goal: give riders a better way to keep track of their runs.

Today, SADDL has grown into the #1 App for Barrel Racers, built around a simple reality of the sport:

A barrel run can often be over in less than 20 seconds... but keeping track of everything surrounding it takes considerably longer.

The video may be buried in a camera roll.

Official results might be posted to Facebook or saved as a PDF.

Earnings are tracked somewhere else entirely.

Upcoming races live in screenshots and text messages.

Notes about a horse's performance may exist in a notebook, spreadsheet or simply rely on a good memory.

Phone app showing horse run log beside an ad with a racing horse and the text YOUR SEASON IS MORE THAN A LIST OF RUNS. JOIN SADDL FOR FREE.

And when a rider wants to answer a bigger question, such as whether a horse is becoming more consistent over the course of a season, finding the answer can be even harder. That fragmentation is exactly what SADDL was created to solve.

What began as a simple run-tracking platform has grown into an increasingly connected digital home for barrel racers. Today, more than 650 riders across the United States, Canada and Australia are using SADDL to find races, manage horses, document runs, save videos and official results, track their LTE, and better understand the seasons they're building. But the most significant evolution of SADDL isn't how many features have been added.

It's what those features are beginning to help riders see.

TURNING RUN HISTORY INTO SOMETHING MORE USEFUL

Most barrel racers already collect an enormous amount of information.

Every competition produces a time. A placing. Sometimes a check. There may be a video, notes about the run, official results and information about the arena.

Over the course of a season, those individual pieces can tell a much larger story, but only if a rider has a way to bring them together. That became the foundation for SADDL Performance, the platform's optional performance analytics upgrade.

Instead of simply showing riders a list of previous runs, Performance begins surfacing patterns across them. A rider can look at competition trends, compare different periods of a season, see performance by arena, monitor clean run percentage and check rate, evaluate consistency, compare horses, track goals and log riding activity.

Horse-specific profiles make it possible to separate those patterns when a rider is competing on multiple horses.

Bold black poster with white and pink text: Your season is more than a list of runs.

The goal isn't for technology to tell a barrel racer what to do next. It's to give the rider better information when making decisions about how they can improve.

A rider might discover that a horse is running more consistently than it was three months earlier, even if its fastest time hasn't changed dramatically. Another might see that one horse performs particularly well at certain arenas. A rider going through what feels like a difficult stretch might zoom out and discover that her clean-run percentage or check rate is actually improving. Those patterns can be difficult to recognize when each run is experienced individually. SADDL helps bring them to the surface and honor the entire journey.

BUILT AROUND REAL RIDER PROBLEMS

That approach has shaped nearly every feature added to SADDL.

Dark-mode horse app screens: upcoming barrel racing events with Save and Calendar buttons, and a Ride Calendar showing 5 rides.

Event discovery (pictured above left) came from the reality that finding barrel races often means searching Facebook pages for screenshots and showbills. Riders can search SADDL by date or location, save events they're interested in, add them directly to their calendars and even share them with friends. No social media required.

The Ride Calendar (pictured above right) came from an equally simple problem: not every ride needs a detailed training log, but riders still want to know whether they're putting in consistent time on each horse. Performance members can quickly mark the horses they rode and look back at their activity over seven, 30 or 90 days or throughout the year.

Shareable Horse Profiles (pictured below) solve another familiar frustration, particularly when selling a horse. Instead of repeatedly searching through a phone for videos and answering the same performance questions for every potential buyer, riders can selectively share run videos and performance information through one organized horse profile.

Even Run Logs themselves have continued to evolve around how riders actually use them. Videos, notes, placings, lifetime earnings and official race results can stay connected to the run they belong to rather than being scattered across multiple places.

These are just a few examples of features in SADDL - from problems that aren't uncommon - and solving them has become central to SADDL's development.

LISTENING TO RIDERS AT EVERY LEVEL

Some of the most valuable direction for SADDL has come directly from the riders using it. That's how SADDL started, and it's how the platform continues to grow. That includes competitors at the local and regional level as well as WPRA members like Loralee Ward, whose feedback has helped shape how SADDL can better support riders managing larger competition schedules, multiple horses and extensive run histories. That feedback matters because barrel racing isn't a sport that can be fully understood from behind a computer.

A feature only becomes valuable when it works for REAL riders - especially the rider hauling several horses, competing every weekend, trying to find a run from three months ago or deciding which horse to enter next. SADDL's approach is to build technology around those realities rather than asking riders to change their routines to accommodate the technology. That same thinking extends to SADDL's partnerships. The goal isn't simply brand exposure. It's to get SADDL into the hands of riders who can use it, benefit from it and ultimately help shape what it becomes. That's what made a recent partnership with Connie Combs, an accomplished WPRA rider and her #NoExcuses Clinics such a natural fit.

Three smiling women in cowboy hats and jeans pose in a barn, wearing turquoise shirts and large belt buckles.

Combs and Natasha Sanchez (pictured above right) have built Connie’s clinics around riders who are actively investing in their improvement. Through the partnership, one rider at each of Connie’s #NoExcuses Clinic receives a complimentary full year of SADDL Performance. It gives one lucky rider the opportunity to take the work happening at the clinic and continue tracking it throughout her season, from the ordinary rides at home to the runs that eventually put that work to the test.

It's also a reflection of what SADDL believes about progress: it doesn't begin when the timer starts. Sometimes it shows up on the clock.

Sometimes it's built in all the rides that came before it.

CONNECTING OFFICIAL RESULTS BACK TO THE RIDER

Across barrel racing, race organizations and producers spend significant time calculating points, maintaining standings and publishing results - especially at a local level. Those results frequently spend their life as a spreadsheet, PDF, website posting or social media graphic. Meanwhile, the competitor often turns around and manually records the same information somewhere else. SADDL is going to connect these two experiences. A pilot season of this program is near completion with a local barrel racing district in Indiana. The goal is to give barrel racing organizations tools for managing official results, points and standings while creating a direct connection back to the riders competing at their events.

View from horseback in an indoor rodeo arena, with a braided mane in foreground and banners reading SADDLE PROGRESS LIVES HERE.

The long-term experience is simple:

The organization records the official results - including payout and points. Once official, those results connect back to the rider's SADDL account. No manual entry required! For riders, that means less administrative work and ultimately better kept records. For organizations, it creates a more useful way to deliver the information they're already producing and a better experience for their competitors. And for SADDL, it moves the platform closer to connecting what happens at the race with what the rider does with that information afterward.

MOMENTUM BEHIND THE MISSION

SADDL's first year has been marked by a series of milestones that are quickly moving the platform from an emerging idea to a growing presence within the barrel racing industry. In 2026, founder Kait Lindner was selected to receive a $5,000 Business & Education Grant from Boss Mares, providing both financial support and meaningful validation for SADDL's continued growth. That momentum is carrying SADDL into increasingly visible spaces within the sport. This fall, the company will make its first major vendor appearance at Pink Buckle at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Oklahoma, putting SADDL in front of some of the industry's most competitive riders and marking a significant step for a brand that, until now, has grown largely through digital channels and word of mouth.

SADDL is also preparing for another major milestone: its arrival in Apple's App Store and Google Play. The move takes SADDL beyond its web-app beginnings and makes the platform even more accessible to riders wherever their season takes them.

Alongside these milestones, new partnerships, professional rider relationships and opportunities within the organizational side of barrel racing are continuing to expand SADDL's reach. For a platform barely a year old, the pace of growth is significant. But perhaps more important is what that momentum represents: SADDL is no longer simply proving that the idea can work. It's beginning to show what it can become.

BUILDING THE DIGITAL HOME FOR BARREL RACERS

Barrel racing doesn't need technology simply for the sake of having more technology. It needs technology that makes the sport easier to navigate while respecting the people, horses and horsemanship at its center. That distinction has guided SADDL from the beginning. SADDL isn't designed to tell riders what decisions to make. Instead, it brings their information together, surfaces patterns and gives them more context to make informed decisions for themselves.

One year ago, that started with a Run Log.

Today, SADDL connects races, horses, results, videos, ride activity and performance insights around the rider and their equine athletes. And as SADDL begins working alongside organizations, there is an opportunity to make the information already being generated throughout the sport even more useful by connecting official results back to the riders and horses behind them.

The vision is bigger than tracking runs. It's creating a place where a rider's competition history can live, grow and become more valuable with every season.

A rider's season has always been more than just a list of runs.

SADDL is building the place where the whole story comes together.

Riders can join for FREE at https://saddl.app/ and start tracking your season!

Smiling woman in pink SADDLE cap and toddler strapped in car seats inside a beige SUV, with bright daylight outside.

Kait Lindner

CEO & Founder of SADDL

Kait is a lifelong horsewoman and competitive barrel racer based in rural Indiana. A wife and mother of four, she balances family life, horses, and entrepreneurship while bringing more than a decade of experience in technology, product management, and marketing to the western industry. SADDL was built based on her personal need for a platform to capture her own journey in the sport, and sharing it with others has now become a passion.