Speaker 2 (00:39)
Welcome friends. Today I am interviewing Ariana Sikaris and I'm so excited because she is teaching at the fair the art of groundwork. And I just excited to learn more about your journey, Ariana. And and maybe maybe at the end, you'll be able to give us some key takeaways or some key thoughts that everyone can apply with their horses. So anyway, tell us a little bit about your story. Here. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:05)
Yeah, so,
right. So my journey with horses started when I was β five years old. And at the time, my family and I were living in Greece. So it was out in Greece where I got my first introduction to horses. And my mom actually was leasing a horse out at the barn out there. And so I started going with her and started learning how to brush them and, you know, all the very basic things that children learn when they're starting out. And
I really quickly started to get really hooked onto it and started loving going out there. And I wanted to go out every single time with my mom. And of course, now that I'm older, I understand what it's like to have kids around you all the time. And there are a few times that she wanted to go by herself and just enjoy the horse and do her own thing, because she loves horses just like I do. And she'd kind of let me sleep in. And I'd wake up so upset that I got left behind. So I really.
started to get hooked onto it early. And in particular, I'll never forget we were out on the, I believe it was the old King's estate in Greece. It's all just kind of bland. is done on it. It's just land and it's called the King's estate. And we were out there and I had my first canter on a horse. The first time I cantered, I'd wanted to canter for so long. And the first time I cantered, it was just, you couldn't wipe the smile off my face. And I knew from then,
That's it, I'm in this for life. So I'll never forget that moment, but that's when I really felt hooked and committed and just really loved it. And that was probably, I might have been five or six, I can't remember the exact age, but five or six, somewhere around there. And it wasn't a long canter, it was kind of on a straight line on a path and probably much shorter than I thought it was. I thought it was forever, but it wasn't probably very long at all.
Speaker 2 (02:51)
Your
mom was probably a little nervous.
Speaker 1 (02:53)
For sure, but I don't think I was gonna let it go and so no so from there we moved back to the US back to Maryland and I started riding and learning at a local riding school it was such a rich program because they made us take care of the barn take care of the pastures the fencing the Everything down to the horse care in addition to working with the horses, but we were taught really young that
they came first, their needs came first, whatever their needs were. And a lot of those horses were rescued horses. And there was, you know, we really learned to appreciate all of their personalities, all of their, you know, their individual needs. And also it was a good social group for me because I was around other young girls that also loved horses. So we did a lot of bareback riding. I don't think we were allowed to put saddles on really at all.
very much and sometimes I wonder if it was because the instructor didn't want to check our tack but it was good because we learned a lot like you know how to how to have a better seat bareback and stuff but yeah so I remember we even did like a competitive trail ride we did loads of those and we did them all bareback and stuff the only kids out on horses bareback. Wow. Yeah so then what happened was that was really great and you know at that age you know
Speaker 2 (03:56)
Sure.
Speaker 1 (04:12)
you know, middle school, like start of middle school, you're really attached to your friends. so, but I, but I did feel I was like, okay, I really want to learn a little bit more. I want to take it up a notch. I want to really kind of step into the next level as far as my learning and my education. So I pulled my instructor over to the side one day after a lesson and I was really nervous because I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but I really had to tell her that I do want to learn more. So how can I do it? Whether it's with you.
with someone else just kind of helped me out. And so she, I told her and she said, no problem at all. Like I, I've always seen you continuing on from here anyway. So she helped put me in touch with people and finally ended up then meeting the next person that was going to help me out. And for the next eight years, rode with a Russian Olympic coach and
It was a great experience, a very, very good experience. β I learned a lot. β There was a bit of a language barrier, but a lot of it was learning about feel and things like that, because you couldn't necessarily always put words to things.
Speaker 2 (05:15)
Was that in Maryland yet?
Speaker 1 (05:17)
Yeah, this was in Maryland. rode with him and actually it was started out as like going towards show jumping and a lot I jumped a lot actually, you know, and it was pretty intense. You just you did what he said, you know, and it was good. and then we would know we started in dressage because he was, you know, trying to teach me really young that, you know, when your horse's feet are on the ground, you need to have an extremely good
understanding and knowledge of dressage. Like, doesn't matter if you're in a jump course or not, like, you know, when their feet hit the ground, you need to have an understanding. we went really deep into that. And then, you know, I kind of after those years, I felt the need to then take the next step. And at the time, what the next step felt like was there was something in the domain of relationship, connection, bond, that I knew I needed to go learn more about. I kind of knew I had this feeling it was there, like there was more there.
but I didn't know like kind of what was behind that door I was going to open. So what happened was I decided to go over to France and the way that I got over there was I, through the French government, got to have a job teaching English in French public schools. So for three years I taught English in French elementary schools to elementary school students. And then in the fourth year I taught to middle school, high school and college. So,
What happened was I was able to teach half my time to make money, be allowed to be over there, you know, to have housing and all that stuff. And then the other half of the time I was able to pack my bags and travel and learn from whoever I wanted to about the horses. So I'd start the week, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I'd teach in the schools. I'd have my suitcase ready to go. And as soon as school let out, I'd drag my suitcase through the cobblestone streets, usually running because I was always late.
I remember I knocked a wheel off my suitcase once and people thought I was crazy. I was just running and just dragging it, just bouncing all over the place. go down to the train station and then you can take the train anywhere in France. Like it takes a while, you have to do a couple changes. so I take the train anywhere from like six to nine hours to get to the next destination, spend time there and then come back and...
In the school system, there were so many vacations and days, weeks that we weren't working that I had so much β free time to do that. So in particular there, I started learning from an instructor in classical dressage. So would go to his place really often and learn from him on his lusitano as much as possible. And that was a very rich experience. And actually it was, I had at that
point like gotten a better understanding of French and speaking French so I actually understood him better than I did the Russian coach before and it was interesting to also dabble in the language and learn the horse vocabulary and all that kind of stuff but again with that little tiny extra language barrier there's still I still wasn't able to say and understand exactly what I wanted but I could hold the conversation well enough to take a lesson and fully understand everything so
While I was over there, also, you know, one night I was watching Francis Got Talent on TV and I saw someone come on and perform and I thought, I'm gonna find out who that is and go learn for a day or two, you know? And so I did, I found out who it was, I went up and learned from him, it was liberty and tricks and things like that. And then I always wanted to attend this horse festival down in the south of France called Cheval Passion.
And I went down there and that this this particular experience is what changed everything for me. So I went down there and I was walking around and I passed by, you know, one of the booths and the guy had a TV in the background with all these horses working at Liberty. And I thought, wow, that's really beautiful. I hadn't seen that before. And you could just feel from him. There was something special about him. It wasn't, you know, something I had really seen before. And so I heard
there were like 30 people in line to talk to him and I thought, I'll just walk around, know, I'll come back later. And kind of like trying to tell myself, well, you don't need to stop. You'll just, you'll just figure, you know, you can get in contact with him later, but you don't need to now. And as I walked by, I heard this older man who was up next to talk to him. I heard him ask him, how do you reward your horses? And I thought, well, good question, you know, cause it looks like they're doing pretty amazing things. And I never heard the answer and I kept walking around and it really started to bother me like a lot.
And I went to a few vendors and I just kept rolling in my head, what is the reward? What is the reward? I don't know the answer to that question. So I walked back, I got in line and I got all the way up there and I said, and this was all in French too, and I practiced how I was gonna say it and everything. And I asked him, I said, I just wanna know, said, there was a gentleman here who asked you how you reward your horses, but I didn't hear the answer, so I'd like to know. And he said, in French the word, what?
The term for relaxation, what they say is calm, my calm. So his answer was my calm. And that was it, like my calm. And I was like, excuse, you know, I just asked it again. I like, I just want to make sure that we're on the, that you're understanding. And he said, my calm. And he said, if you want, you can sign up for a clinic at my house. It's coming up in a few months. We just opened it up and he showed me the paper. Like they had just literally just written it down on a piece of paper and we're taking people to sign up.
And he said, you know, it's like you're have to leave a deposit. If you don't show up, it'll be still a deposit. And at that time I had spent everything to even get down there to pay for the hotel, to go to the expo, you know, and leaving 100 euros was a lot for me. But I gave him a check right then and there. And I thought this this whole journey has brought me right here. And I have someone is telling me that they're going to be able to walk me through that door. Take it. Do it. So I did it. And
It was so that the man, his name is Jean-Francois Pignon and he's the brother to FrΓ©dΓ©ric Pignon who was in Cavalia with the show for a while in the beginning. So, and for a long time I never knew they were brothers, but so I went down to his house, took the clinic and
you know, I was just, I was, I was completely blown away. thought, gosh, like I've missed so much or not known so much. And like here I have this person who's like completely pulling back the curtain and explaining everything in such a nice, beautiful way. And it was like probably the best clinic that I had ever done, you know, ever actually, cause it was such a turning point. And I ended up after that also going to β his clinic in Belgium and in Quebec as well.
to just make sure because it was the same clinic, but sometimes when you go back the second time and the third time, you hear things you didn't hear the first time, especially it's all in French. So I have to like sift through that all as well. But that, and he's the one that introduced me to teaching the lay down the way that I learned. And so he introduced it to us. And then when I was back in the U S here,
I had one of his students, one of his old students work with me through video through YouTube and she ended up coming over here and helping me with my horses and kind of filled in the gaps of things I had missed. she was a very good influence on me as well. Oralee Rose was her name, is her name. And so then from there, what happened was I thought, okay, I'm gonna go back into the dressage and really keep going in that direction. So I was in...
Maryland at the time and I started going as consistently as I could to Julio Mendoza's place because he was in Maryland at the time riding his some of his horses and he was phenomenal. I mean any question I had he tried his best to answer and he had such an enthusiasm for teaching and it was really nice to have an instructor like really want to see you succeed so that was good and then so from there then the next big transition in my horsemanship or riding.
was into Yvonne and Kim Bartow's place, KYB Dressage, and they were at Illinois at the time. And I went there and just, I've been about under two years and stayed there and learned from them. the great thing about their program was it wasn't just, you know, you get a lesson a week and you work hard and you you don't get to watch anything like Yvonne and Kim, they, every single day, five days a week, you got a private lesson with them with the headset, anything you wanted to learn. β
you know, in the beginning, of course, they were trying to get us caught up to where we needed to be to sit on better horses and more schooled horses. But then, you know, I remember I went up to her and I said, I'd like to learn, you know, how to how to understand and navigate and gain more understanding and knowledge of the pirouette or, you know, a canner pirouette or the Piaf or something. And she picked the horse in the barn.
One time she put me on her own horse and I was like, we don't have to go that far, but whoever you want. she really like, I mean, you asked, you got to learn, you know, and the same, the same with Kim as well. So that was a super rich learning experience. And I'd say my riding totally changed. You know, I realized like how green I was before and then going through that program and anytime a clinician would come in, she'd let us ride with them and watch and learn. β
It was a very rich learning experience. So we got a lot of hours of instruction under saddle, consistently. And on top of that, she allowed me to work a lot of horses and really kind of work on my groundwork and my liberty and all that stuff to just kind of refine it, get it better and keep doing it. So I got a lot of practice, you know, like a lot of the day I'd be out on the round pen working alone or just because that was the space that no one else was using.
or the outdoor arena if no one was out there and then come in, you know, do my lesson, my riding lesson, whichever horse I wanted on anything I wanted or whatever they thought I needed to be working on. And so there was a nice balance of that. And I feel like that experience really pushed me to the next level because I got hours, miles of just practice and constant practice. So from there, so now I'm in Lexington, Kentucky, and I've been here about two years.
And so I have a mix of groundwork riding, got some dressage horses we're working with here, but also I have a lot of β horses that I do groundwork with and specifically in the thoroughbred β world, working with the weanlings and yearlings, getting them educated in their groundwork before they go to their sales, before they go on and get started under saddle. So I've gotten a lot of,
horses as weanlings and yearlings in addition to the horses that are either getting started or maybe they're more up in the levels and dressage as well. So kind of both of those. And then I have my two mares here as well, my Mustang and then my other rescue mare who was out of a kill pen. So hopefully that's story of, and that's where I am now here in Lexington. I think I'll stay here for a while. There's a lot of horses here, a lot of farms, lot of, there's a multitude of farms and horses here. So it's really good.
Speaker 2 (15:55)
Yeah, what a neat thing to be able to help all of these horses and especially the the weanlings that are just, I mean, they're just getting introduced to what is going to be the expectation of them as they move forward. And that foundation and those first few interactions really lay the general like experience that the horse is going to have from there on. And there's a that's expected of them. And obviously, there's probably some things that you would
you know, as a person maybe not wish that they were going to have to go do, but they're going to be able to do it in a way where they can think and understand and they know how to learn what is maybe expected from them, from the human. that's
Speaker 1 (16:37)
Because I know like when they leave my hands, know, won't probably see them again I'll hear about them, but I won't see them again and I always think like I want to make it easiest for the next person that comes along so that you like and I'm sick when I say you I'm talking to the horse but so that you and I have already discussed this I've explained to you how it's gonna work I've shown you so that when someone else comes along and fumbles or if they do it differently like, you know, you're gonna be okay and
I try and have all those discussions with them myself so that I can do it well and thorough and nicely and kindly and respectfully and fair to them so that someone else doesn't kind of, you you know, I don't mean to say lose their temper because that's not always what happens, but I try and do as much as I can so that the other people, the words they say to the horse, that at least the horse will not get flustered and confused and frustrated. At least they'll say, they'll be okay with it. So.
And I've learned a lot from working with them that young. I think a lot of my groundwork has changed since I started working weanlings and yearlings and specifically thoroughbreds are so sensitive and I've certainly learned a lot. But it's a good feeling to know when they go on, when someone starts them, they've already done a lot of the stuff that I would do anyway before I start them.
Speaker 2 (17:51)
Right. What, in what ways did it cause you to change the way you're doing your groundwork when you're working with, with young.
Speaker 1 (17:57)
ones.
So I'd say like their sensitivity level is so high especially at that young age you also β you have to be careful with their bodies because a lot of these horses, ones I'm working, their value is even at that young age like the the weanlings or the yearlings can be anywhere from eighty thousand to a million dollars like a lot of the yearlings are around
for 250,000 to 600,000, that's their value. And they're young, and the younger they are, the more they can get off balance easy and things like that. So learning how to work with their body in a way that can, I don't mean preserve their body, but not hurt their body is important. So being a little bit gentler, a little bit more conscious of exactly what you're asking them to do as far as their bodies go because
I've had to take those precautions, not only because of their value, but because of the fact they're young and they're not fully developed and don't have the ground under their feet as well as some of the older horses. So in that aspect for sure, and then also what I'm preparing them for, going into a sail or things like that or whatever they're gonna do in their career, I have to make sure that I don't just get them leading and loading on a trailer and being able to have their feet picked. Like say, I really want...
them to learn how to be able to think and feel okay that even if something's completely new and scary that they're going to die from it. So thinking more not about just the groundwork now but like what I want them to be able to successfully do later. Thinking for the future, training for the future, training for the next person. That kind of sense of responsibility on my end has grown immensely.
because I know that once they're gone, I won't be able to go back in and clean things up more. So it gives me a huge sense of responsibility to, with the best that I can, with the knowledge that I have today, to best prepare you, because I do take it really seriously to maximize with everything that I can know and know to best prepare them. in that aspect and also the relaxation, really learning how to
be able to help them feel it and find it has really taught me a lot because a lot of the thoroughbreds that I'm working with, not all of them, they're not always bred for the best personality or the quietest mind. So some of them come in and they're not really the calm, nice, quiet horse. A lot of them can be like that. Also, a lot of them are colts. They're not gelded yet. so learning how to work.
through their frustrations, you know, something as simple as like, biting the lead rope, you know, that's something I used to ask them not to do. And that's something that recently I've changed. don't address that anymore. I address what's the cause of that. So the frustration that they have, you know, that pent up energy. so like this year I have not asked a single yearling to drop the lead rope out of their mouth, but I've just kind of
done an experiment and watched and seen, I'm going to let them hold that, but I'm going to go work them still the same. At what point are they going to drop it? And it's been pretty consistent as soon as that stress deflates gone out of their mouth. it's been, you know, it's interesting and specifically the Colts, you know, cause they'll all be wanting to grab the leader up and stuff. And so of course the basic respect is there, you know, but that little extra piece that we don't like them grabbing the leader, you know, learning how to work through that. So I think they're just,
helping me refine things a lot. On my end, on the order I present things, on the motive of which I present things, you know, all of
Speaker 2 (21:35)
Yeah, and it's so interesting. I love how you say that because really their behaviors are a reflection of how they're feeling in that moment. And so I love that you're not addressing the behavior because the behavior is only an expression of that which they're feeling. So if you just try to reprimand them or tell them no for the behavior, you're saying that's not really, that's not the root of it. So what is the root? How do I help them internally?
so that the expression is that of what they're feeling internally, which would not be biting the lead rope, would not be frustrated. And yeah, that's really, that's really.
Speaker 1 (22:13)
And like, no, yeah, no, I was just gonna add and also things like really like upping my observation skills, like watching for the crinkle under the eye, watching, listening for the breathing to change, that kind of stuff so that I kind of get the indicator, okay, and let me go in and help you, you know? like what my eyes see has changed and it's gonna keep changing, know, getting better.
Speaker 2 (22:34)
Yeah, no, I think that's great. I think that's such a key takeaway for those of you that are watching this, because if you're really observing your horses and you're seeing these little things like the eye crinkling or the nostrils flaring a little or their jaw muscle flexing, these are all things that are telling you something about where your horse is at in that moment. And if you can see them and you can see what they represent,
then it allows you to adjust your approach like you're doing and go at it maybe from a different angle,
Speaker 1 (23:07)
Yeah, so every year I've got a new batch of them to work. So I'm getting realizing, last year I missed that, or you know. Yeah. Every year. So I'm kind of curious in 10 years what I'll think. Right. It'll change. It'll change.
Speaker 2 (23:21)
Right. I think that's cool part too is that the journey aspect and you've had such a unique and eclectic diverse sort of journey in your horsemanship and we all have our own journeys, but it's so interesting when you take these snapshots in time and you look back and now we all video a little bit more right so right so we could actually go back and review the video and go hmm wow okay I've come a long way I'm totally different.
or even just the people that you follow and watch changes and evolves through time because of where you're at in your own journey.
Speaker 1 (23:58)
Yes, definitely. Absolutely. Like the people you are attracted to learn from, the people that are attracted to you, you know, it's all kind of connected on some level, think. I think so. horses that show up. Yeah, definitely that. Definitely. No, so I'm very excited to be able to, you know, offer some presentation on groundwork.
Speaker 2 (24:00)
Yeah.
Yeah, totally, right?
Speaker 1 (24:24)
like a little snippet of it because I've just become very passionate on it and I love it. I really love it because it's another angle from being up on their back and you can only help everything you do under saddle as well.
Speaker 2 (24:37)
Right? Well, it's those key observations that you can make on the ground that will allow you then to make them from their back. think oftentimes when we get on, we're thinking so much about ourselves and the ride and some people are nervous, so staying on what's gonna happen. So you have all these other layers that come in where you're taking it to the level where, hey, look, you
Let's learn some key skills on the ground while we improve ourselves, our observation, our understanding. And then when you bring in the writing component, things come together a lot easier for people.
Speaker 1 (25:13)
Yes, yes I think so, yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:15)
Yeah. Yeah. No, and I'm so excited for everybody to see your presentation because it's it's fantastic. And I think you are all who are watching this going to going to really learn a lot and be able to take what Ariana has and apply it to your horses in a really straightforward. What I love about your presentations is it's, it's very straightforward. It's, it's step by step, you break it down into such nice manageable bite sized pieces.
that really allow for the people that are watching to go and try it on their horses and see some pretty drastic changes, which is neat. That's cool.
Speaker 1 (25:54)
Yeah, I've tried to figure out how to break things down and also to, I'm always learning about like, you know, how to better explain something, but sometimes, you know, people around me point out things that I don't think about explaining that I have to go and explain, you know, some, so anyways, I did my best to try and break it down into bite-sized pieces and into little things that you can become more aware of. so in the...
presentation I gave you know two exercises and one is pretty common and I kind of gave my own twist on it and then something you can the second exercise is what you can do to build on that first one that I and as a really cool exercise.
Speaker 2 (26:34)
Cool. Now, something that I'm curious about, for me. When I was younger, I haven't, as of late, but I used to teach horses how to lay down. And sometimes, you know, you'll do when you're riding around, you'll direct their mind down to the ground and get them to lay down with you on them. But what is like your technique? Because I'd be very curious, I haven't looked at asking, are you talking about from the ground laying a horse down from the ground? You said you have a lay down technique?
Speaker 1 (26:59)
Yeah, yeah from the ground and then if I want to transfer it up on the under saddle
Speaker 2 (27:04)
Okay, so how do you do that starting on the ground? What's just, I probably can't say it all in this.
Speaker 1 (27:09)
It's okay. Yeah. So, so basically, all the, the, the way that I go about it or the methods that I use to go about it, you are asking the horse to take the physical position that they would take by themselves naturally to lay down. So when, when we use any form of restraint, for example, you know, often one of the first things the horse does is brace against the restraint, which means that
they're going to spread out their legs to stick to keep standing, you know, if one leg is taken away from them, for example. but that, if you look at a horse lay down in a pasture, they actually bring their feet together. Like they're standing on an invisible pedestal, so to say, you know, there's no horse that just collapses to the ground without bringing their hind feet towards their front feet. You know, there's some sort of collecting the feet together that happens and lowering of the head before they
buckle at the knees and allow themselves to go down. the way that, so I've kind of, know, and John Fransapino is the one who introduced me to this. And then Oralee Rose was the one who came here and helped me learn more. And then a lot with a lot of just doing it over and over and over, just kind of found my own little way to patch it up and detail it. But the way it is, is you're teaching the horse how to go into that natural position. So you have to dissect up what they're doing. So you have steps to teach. So
the head down, the hind feet coming under, picking up a front leg and bending at the knees. So teaching that is just step by step. teach it and layer one thing on top of another. You teach the head down and then from the head down, you teach the hind legs. Then you add the head down and the hind legs and then you add the front foot. But what I found actually, and it's good we're talking about this is, and I had a lesson yesterday on this, so it's fresh in my head, but.
Anytime we go in to teach a trick like that, right? Like the lay down. We can teach it technically for the horse how to do it, but there's a very important piece that needs to be taught and that's the self motivation of the horse to do it. So instead of going and having to use, if you're using a little dressage whip or something, instead of tapping forever, you know, that people sometimes get in the trap of they're asking, they're asking, they're asking.
learning how to transfer that try and that willingness into the horse that they start to put the effort in is really important. So with the lay down, if you just try and teach it technical, it's only half of the piece. The other piece is motivating the horse to do it. And a way that I found is just a simple takeaway of how to do that is allow the horse a chance to start by themselves before you go in and try and prompt them.
So meaning don't walk up and start tapping them right away like because then you burn out the zone where the horse might have tried so going in and just waiting first and then you can go in and do little taps and then as soon as the horse passes that threshold that they weren't wanting to pass in the beginning even an inch past that I leave them alone I walk away. So what I'm starting to teach them is when you can go and self-try I will see it I will notice it I will hear you and I will leave you alone and walk away and
that release, that relaxation of me walking away and stopping, that you know, they feel it all of a sudden you can take a horse that was struggling or slow and really not going into the lay down position and you work on it through the motivation and pretty soon you have the horse jumping themselves into it but it's not because I put more pressure or forced them to, it's because the timing of the way that I did it helped them realize that they have a say, that they can do it themselves. So it kind of like empowers them a little bit.
But I might be going way off here. anyway, so that's...
Speaker 2 (30:40)
That's
fantastic. I love that.
Speaker 1 (30:42)
So even as simple as the head down, know, and a lot of the times to get the lay down, you have to forget about the lay down, okay? Because if you think about the lay down, you just rush it and, you know, they get really close to the lay down and then they give you an inch more and an inch more and an inch more and you ignore the inches and then you're fashioning them and pretty soon they're like, I'm not going there again because I just get forced more and more and more. So you got to not think about the lay down and think about the way that you're getting there.
I've had horses that I've said, forget the lay down. We're not doing the lay down. I'm just going to work on the head down. I'm going to make, it to you. And then I'm to help yourself do it more and more and show you that you can be empowered doing it and you have a choice and you can do it. You know, you can succeed and, and, β just even doing that, like helps so many things. So you can take parts of the lay down and not really necessarily need to go lay your horse down. If that is your goal, then I'd work on it and get it better until that is the result of what happens. But
you can take something as simple as step one, which is lowering the head and figure out a lot through that just that initial part.
Speaker 2 (31:40)
I ask that just because I hear people and actually when I was younger, was probably like 13 or 14 and I was riding with a event rider that was a pretty high caliber event rider. And I was into the natural horsemanship at that time and loved it.
I'd seen people lay their horses down and I asked him, I said, how do you lay a horse down? And he looked at me with his eyes crossed probably. don't know. He was kind of like, what are you talking about? And, and after that, that was like, I'm like, well, he doesn't know how to lay a horse down. he's obviously not a good trainer. Which is not the case at all. And I stopped taking lessons from him because he, I learned so much from him too, which is funny, but I was, you know, he's like,
At that point, I was like, well, that's not who I want to learn from. Right. This piece really good. And throughout the years, I've seen many different ways people, you know, from forceful, which isn't good to, you know, just getting the mind to think about it. And I see sometimes in comments to like people ask pretty regularly. And I don't know why it's such a driving question. you know, obviously was for me as I was younger.
But people do ask regularly, how do you get your horse to lay down? And so I think that's great. And I love how you really focus on the try and the little pieces and getting all those little pieces, not getting greedy, And then through that, you develop a situation where the horse is actually offering it, which is so, that's so cool. And I think that's really neat if people can kind of understand.
the method that Arianna is going about doing this because it's really important that that's the way we set things up with our horses, right?
Speaker 1 (33:20)
Yeah, yeah. that, yeah, what we were just talking about can apply to any of the groundwork as well, of course, that we're gonna do.
Speaker 2 (33:29)
Right.
Right.
Speaker 1 (33:30)
Really important. Yes. So hopefully that's a little take something that people can take take away from at least the lay down, but also into the other groundwork. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:37)
And it doesn't, it doesn't have to be a forceful thing. It can be something that you do together and you help your horse find rather than make them β
Speaker 1 (33:47)
Yeah,
yeah. I remember, yeah, the first source I got to lay down, like, oh my gosh, I wanted to like jump up and down as soon as it like laid down. Something told me don't do that. So I didn't. Yeah, but it was a really cool feeling. Yeah.
I'll just give a little example and and you know before we wrap up but like when you walk up to somebody to and this is in reference to our groundwork so with our horses but as people when we walk up to someone to talk to them we all know what it feels like when someone walks up and you can you can feel them hit the brakes when they get to you they're going to talk to you right but have you ever had someone that kind of presses in a little too close to you and or you're walking on the sidewalk and you can feel that they're not going to move away from you you know and
So as people, think we have the ability to pick up on things a lot more than we think because just in human situations, I can feel when someone walks up to me and they're gonna stop. But I also, if I'm walking on the sidewalk, I kind of know when I have to yield over because someone's definitely gonna plow through my path. And that's as a person picking up on the energy of the other person spatially where they are and where they're going to go, you know? And I think with horses, we have to know that we have the ability to use that in our communication.
instead of just thinking about our whip or our lead rope. So being able to learn how to press on the air between the horse and you as if it was like actual thick matter, know, stuff like that is something that we can all learn more about and improve on within ourselves. So I'm a lot of the groundwork, you know, I'll pick, you know, for example, moving the shoulders over or something from the halt, I'll pick my hands up and kind of start to.
press in but give the horse a chance to feel that before I go ahead and use more or go ahead to my tools. kind of like, I guess the takeaway is don't forget that we have the capacity to use that energy with our horses in our ground work. Hopefully that makes some sense a little bit.
Speaker 2 (35:36)
made a ton of sense. that's great. Thank you for that. think that's, that's, that's something that everybody can think about more and use and apply. it's that awareness level. even working on that awareness, like you said, walking down the street and noticing what do you feel from other people or what is the energy that you're noticing when you're when you're passing somebody at the barn, right?
Speaker 1 (35:56)
Right, right, exactly. Yeah. And you'll notice, I do notice that kind of stuff. I just have to now apply it to the horses, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:02)
Yep. Yeah. That's great. That's great. Well, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you doing this. Yeah, this is excellent. And I am sure that everybody gained a lot of a lot of valuable insights in this in this interview. So enjoy her presentation at the fair. I know you're going to get even more out of that. And until next time, happy horsing around.
Speaker 1 (36:09)
Yeah, thank you very, much.
Thank you, see you guys later.
