Sarah's Biography

Early Training Combines Science and Art

Sarah Hollis grew up just outside Philadelphia and started riding at the age of three. She started off riding Thoroughbreds and Saddlebreds in Hunter and Pleasure divisions. 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.

Having a horse who suffered from chronic lameness that did not respond to regular veterinary treatment, Sarah was one of the earliest people to use veterinary chiropractic and acupuncture with great success. (This veterinarian was Dr. Judith Shoemaker who continues to be an amazing and important source of information and education.) 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. While in school Sarah took a semester to be certified in Equine Trigger Point Myotherapy, which is a comprehensive form of muscle therapy.

After receiving her Bachelor’s degree, Sarah started practice as a myotherapist and continued to study dressage in great depth. After studying with a German system trained dressage instructor for over a year Sarah was in severe pain within her own body and incredibly disillusioned with the whole competitive notion of dressage. She was then fortunate to find a British 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 not only what techniques would work on a horse but WHY, a truly holistic approach to riding.

While practicing her muscle therapy, Sarah grew frustrated when she couldn’t make improvements in the animals the way she knew she could because of other elements affecting the horse - the way the person rode, the shoeing on the horse, the animal's daily routine and housing, etc. She knew that to be totally effective she was going to have to do more. In the years that followed, Sarah moved back to Massachusetts where she had gone to school, and started teaching and training full time. In this time she started combining her skills so a horse in her care had the best physical care as well as the best training she could provide.

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 trick 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 to do something which not only keeps them mentally stimulated but acts as gentle stretching for them physically. Many of the “crippled” horses Sarah was given ended up being riding sound after her physical care and trick routines!

Sarah’s penchant for understand motivation and cause and effect in animals makes her especially effective in training young horses. Her youngsters have been described as “little old lady proof”. Sarah usually takes longer to start a young horse than most but the advantages are apparent in the following years when the horse has a amazingly calm outlook to new experiences and can progress with the higher levels of riding work rather easily since such a wide base of mental skills and physical development was put on them early.

When a horse comes into training at Tintagel, it has all elements of its life managed to the last detail, from nutritional workups and physical exams to providing toys and activities for the mental state of the animal to make its life with humans as enriching as possible by allowing their daily life to resemble nature’s routine as much as possible. This applies to the foals born on the property as well.

The fascination with Andalusians began over twenty years ago when Sarah first joined the Association in 1983. After purchasing her first one in 1990, Sarah’s herd soon increased over the years. The breeding program was carefully researched for many years and was recently expanded with mares and stallions chosen from select bloodlines, which have the temperament and movement she desired. Although Andalusians are bred and always present at Tintagel, Sarah has trained many breeds and has experience with everything from Warmbloods to Friesians, Lipizzans, Saddlebreds, drafts, and others.

Sarah also spent many years on the Board of Directors for the International Andalusian and Lusitano Horse Association and started the first show for Andalusians ever in New England in 1995. Sarah currently serves on the USEF Andalusian Committee, is the IALHA liaison with the USDF, is on the USDF All Breeds Committee, and is on the Board of Directors for the Animal Trigger Point Myotherapists Association.