SARAH HOLLIS (trainer of Escorial aka Pony)grew up just outside Philadelphia and started riding at the age of three. Sarah’s interest soon turned to dressage with its same elements of concentration and discipline that were required for her fine art courses she was studying in school. The combination of technical knowledge and creative intuition required for both subjects appealed to her innate artistic sense as well as her love of the sciences. The penchant for disciplined challenges soon gave Sarah the reputation for handling the most difficult of horses. These experiences made Sarah aware that most of the behavioral problems she was seeing had their source in physical discomfort somewhere in the animal’s body. Sarah was one of the earliest people to use veterinary chiropractic and acupuncture with great success. This led to attending clinics on muscle therapy and studying alternative therapies like homeopathy and herbs. All the while Sarah continued her dressage studies under coaches of different schools. Sarah then attended college for Animal Studies studying physiology, anatomy and nutrition in depth. She was then fortunate to find a British dressage teacher named Jill Wilcox who was ahead of her time in focusing on the horse’s body and it’s interaction with the human body. This new and classical approach led to a new study of the classic masters of France and Portugal. This, combined with her modern understanding of anatomy, led her to know what techniques would work on a horse and WHY, a truly holistic approach to riding. Sarah was always a fan of the circus arts and attracted to the animal acts that expressed the inner beauty of the animal and the deep partnership that was apparent in the best trainers’ acts. At the age of six she was teaching the neighborhood dogs to climb trees and pull sleds and a variety of “odd” dog tricks. Her equine trick training started when her veterinarian told her about her old lame horse “you’d better teach him tricks because he’ll never be good for much else.” That was almost twenty years ago and Sarah’s skills have developed and honed over the years and she now has trained dozens of horses in a variety of tricks and acts. Sarah also realized the physical and mental value in tricks because even a lame, stall bound horse can be trained which not only keeps them mentally stimulated but acts as gentle stretching for them physically.