Dan Steers

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

You're listening to the journey on podcast with Warwick Schiller. Warwick is a horseman, trainer, international clinician, and author, whose mission is to help people achieve a deeper connection with their horses through his transformational training.

Warwick (00:00:27):

G'day everybody, and welcome back to the journey on podcast. I'm your host Warwick Schiller. And today I've got a very special guest on the podcast. He's a, he's a very good friend of mine, one of my horsey heroes. And he's a, yeah, he's an amazing guy. Who's just a little bit of everything. And the guests I'm going to have on here today is Dan Steers and he is one half of Double Dan horsemanship. And you know, there's not much this guy can't do. He does amazing Liberty, entertainment. He does. He's an amazing trainer. He's an amazing clinician and he's an amazing competitor. So he, you know, he really can be an amazing family man too, but it can really do all the things. And he's one of those guys that I just, I just think he's got his act together. You know, he's, he's someone I really respected admire and you know, he, we could have a like 15, two-hour conversations with Dan and still not get all the stories out of him. So I, I probably really can't get all of Dan's journey on here. So we'll do, we'll just get him on and see what we can get started with him. So here he is, ladies and gentlemen, the man, the horseman, the father, the entertainer, the class clown. I think that's all I could describe him as Dan Steers.

Dan  (00:01:51):

Hey, mate, I'm goin' bloody well, man, I'm a longtime listener first time caller. Thank you.

Warwick (00:01:59):

You know what I this is the, the journey on podcast. And you know, when I talk to people, I talk about their, their journeys in life. And we're not going to do that with you, Dan, because a few listeners out there, Dan and his business partner, Dan James have a podcast of their own and they're going through their journey year by year. And I think they're like 12 podcasts in, and they're up to about 2010. So we don't have like 56 hours to go through the whole thing. Is it, is it, are you still up to, to 2010? Are you getting a bit further along? Yeah, obviously I haven't been listening because we're up to, I think we have 14 episodes and we've done 2012. So we, the last episode was actually an interview with my first mentor, Pete. So that just came out this week. And then the one before was the end of 2012. So the next episode should be 2013. So when we're getting there, so what are you gonna do once you to get up To present date? What else are you just gonna you guys are so funny. You're probably just going to relay what happened in the last week because I listen to those podcasts. I just don't know how you, you two are not dead yet. Some of the crazy things you've done

Dan (00:03:14):

Well, we've given you the PG version too, because Pia is a bit of a, a sense of what I can, and can't say a lot of times she doesn't know what I'm going to say, and then she listens to it. And then I get the feedback after the fact, but yeah, I'm, I'm pretty sure most of it, the scaled down version, but once we, once we roll through the timeline, we're calling it, we hope to be able to do some interviews like you're doing right now. And obviously we want to get yourself on our podcast and and, and some other horsemen and women on there. And then also just do a bit of Q and a, and, and then some philosophy stuff as well on our end. So it's not just all fun and games we want to diversify, so to speak.

Warwick (00:04:00):

That's awesome. So, you know, I was just going to ask, trying to think, do you remember where we met when we met?

Dan (00:04:06):

Well, for me, I feel like we met at 2010 at, at the World Equestrian Games, but we may have met previously, but I feel like that was the first time I met you.

Warwick (00:04:16):

Yeah. I'm not been meeting James at Equitana in 2008. Were you there

Dan (00:04:21):

All was there, but I don't, we weren't double Dan then. And and that's why I might've met you there, but not, not really. And then I know that Dan also did an event, I reckon in 2009 down in Tasmania that you were at as well. Yes I was. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't go there. And then 2010, that, that the tattoo sort of,

Warwick (00:04:46):

Yeah, the World Equestrian Games, you know, I don't expect all the listeners to go and listen to all 236 episodes of your podcast. But what I didn't know about that, so, you know, I met you at the world. Question games you guys were over, there is, this is in 2010 in Lexington, Kentucky, and you guys are over there and you're doing a, an act in the opening ceremonies of the world of question games. And there's, I think there's about 30,000 people there that night. One night. Yeah. There's 30,000. Yeah. And what what I didn't know and what was so amazing is you guys saved money, so funded, transported yourselves over there, months and months ahead of time got a team of horses and prepared them all just with the the purpose of being able to, to, to entertain at the, at the opening ceremony of the World Equestrian Games. And how long, how long did you guys spend over there on your own dime before the of question games?

Dan (00:05:48):

Well, it was just shorter three months for, for that stint, but, but James had already been over earlier and got a bit of a head start and started the horses. I'll probably six months prior to us going where he put about, I was only like a week or two on him and just got him, started to make sure that they were going to suit and, and sorta tee everything up. But it was like in hindsight it was pretty loose. The plans, you know, you, you sort of think you've got everything covered, but in hindsight, we, we certainly didn't, we didn't know what sort of budget. We're hoping that if we, we secured it, cause we didn't even know that part. Like it was a lot of, it was on a bit of a whim at the start where it was potentially we're going to do the world crushing games, but once it finally got confirmed you know, we, we seek the spirit of sponsorship and we couldn't, we couldn't secure anything significant, so we sort of fundraised and yeah, did what we could. And then we lived on a shoestring budget when we got over there.

Warwick (00:06:49):

Yeah. You know, they listen to you, guys' podcasts. It's, it's amazing. I think, you know, different people's minds work different ways or whatever. And for me, I have been just very lucky in life to where I go, you know, I I'm, I'm just going along and like, Oh, look, bright, shiny object. And I head towards things that pop up in front of me. I've never been much of a planner. And so I think you tend to look at other people and admire things about them that you don't have. And you guys just have a listen to your podcast. I mean, you know, I know you guys personally stuff, and I know where you've ended up. I just didn't know the story of getting there. And you guys just have this drive to like, okay, that's the goal in the future. And, and, and you really, you really know how to like work towards it and stuff like that.

Warwick (00:07:38):

Whereas I'm a bit of a, you know, I'm a bit of a wander and all the cool things that have happened to me. I think I've just been lucky there popped up in front of me, but I've never really, Oh, plan like you guys, it's just, it was so cool listening to the podcast and thinking, wow, these guys just have a whole, I think the two of you have is a, maybe a whole lot of self belief or something or other, so what would out of the two of you, what do you think your strengths are as far as bringing stuff to like, like getting things done like that?

Dan (00:08:07):

Well, I was actually, yeah, I was about to give James a lot of the credit for the, probably for the foresight. Like he's certainly, I'm the one that's probably got that sort of vision where he's very optimistic and, and has, I mean, I think we both equally have, you know, drive but, but sometimes I'm the one that sort of puts the brakes on some of the ideas and, and sort of look at it from the different perspective of the organizational side of things. Like you know, James pretty well is not super organized. He has to have organized people around him. But I think we're sort of yin and yang in that respect because some, sometimes I probably wouldn't, wouldn't step out there and, and make some of the calls that we did because I would be too pessimistic about it with his optimistic. And so for the, for the two of us, I think we balance each other out. Cause sometimes when he has, some of his plans are not really well thought out and, and they're not going to work at all. And then other times they just need a bit of adjusting and, and and, and I always, you know, believe in, and I believe James thinks this as well, is that we, we do balance each other out in that respect.

Warwick (00:09:22):

Yeah. I, I think, you know, I'm a bit years and years and years ago, many years ago, probably 25 years ago, listening to a cassette tapes actually. And there were a fella named Napoleon Hill and he had written a book called I think it was called think and grow rich or something, but it wasn't that book. It was a different, different book, but he was talking about how to be successful or something really. But he talked about OPB and OPM and OPB was other people's brains and OPM was other people's money. And, you know, so it's just about, I think what he was getting at is you cannot be everything in your little organization, whatever it is, you can't fill all the roles. You have to have people that have different skills and you bring them all to the table. And I really think that's, that's like with you and Dan, and like, we hit the nail on the head, then he's like the visionary and you are like the, you know, you're the one that gets stuff done. And I think Robin and I are a little bit like that too. Not that I'm the visionary like Dan James is, but I will go, I think I need a video, something about this and I'll do it. And then, you know, Robin and Tyler, they're the ones that get stuff done with it. So, you know, young, I'm a bit on the, I'm kind of the ideas man in our house, but I'm just not as a brave thinker is as as old DJ. So tell us

Dan (00:10:37):

Just to go over that part. Was that for us too? I think I'm listening back to our own podcast, to be honest is we did it at a really good time of our life where, you know, we had a little bit behind ourselves as far as experience, you know, certainly, you know, we're only in early mid twenties when we got that thing rolling, but we still didn't have huge amount of commitments and we're very ambitious and very confident. And I, I certainly think that helped us be able to sort of do those sort of adventurous things where if we're probably sitting back now with, you know family and property and established businesses to, to walk away from that and start something from scratch and say that we're going to go and sell fund all this stuff and, you know, try to do the big shows, you know, around the world and, and a start up horsemanship company. I reckon, I don't know if I'd be brave enough to do it now.

Warwick (00:11:33):

Right? Yeah. I think everything happens at the right at the right time. So I want to talk to you Dan, a little bit about, so there's, there's a lot of facets to what you do. There's the, you know, there's the horsemanship part of it that, you know, the education part of it, you there's a competition part of it, but then there's this entertainment part. And that's, I imagine to the, the wider audience, that's where you're probably more well known in the, in maybe the horsemanship he world, you're also really well known for your, your horsemanship and your new clinics and things like that. But for the person who might, you know, cause I have people in Europe stuff listen to this so that people who haven't ever really seen much, you guys let's talk about some of the big shows you've done. Like, so you've done the opening ceremony, the world of question games and you've been on Australia's got talent. So that was what he was

Dan (00:12:27):

2010. Yeah. We went on, Australia's got talent. And that was a big launching pad for us. And even not just in Australia, but like you said around the world, like it's been viewed millions of times around the world and being showcased on, on the other sort of franchise talent shows as well. So that that's been a big one. Other than that, I guess, you know, with all the expos that we've done, whether it's be Equitana or equine affair or main event, or, you know, all those ones you've been to as well over in the States you know, here in Australia, it's, it's a lot more about agricultural shows and, and you know, championship equestrian disciplines, you know, whether it be the dressage championships or the cutting championships, we've sort of done them all here in Australia. I don't think there's, I think maybe the we've even done the venting.

Dan (00:13:18):

I don't think we've done jumping. That's probably the only major championships we haven't even done the Arabian. Would you believe that? No, I did believe that. Where was that at? That was a psychic there in Sydney. So where they had the Sydney Olympics for the listeners around the world. We did that. And I actually got to do a shy just before dr. Harry came out. So you, you know, dr. Harry don't you worry? So he, he came out as well and, and and did a show at this, at this Arabian nationals. And I got pretty good feedback from him, which which I'm proud of.

Warwick (00:13:56):

That's pretty cool. So the, the Australia's got talent. How many times is that been viewed on YouTube? You know

Dan (00:14:03):

I only look it up just when I'm feeling a bit blue, you know, when I need a bit of a pick me up it's about 15 million on just one of the clips. Is that a few, but one of them's got 15 million.

Warwick (00:14:15):

That's funny. Cause I'm, you know, I'm kind of proud I'm coming up on 20 million views on my YouTube channel and you've got 15 million views on one little thing on YouTube. So that's, yeah, that's pretty amazing. So what what's, what would you say the biggest crowd you've ever performed in front of you?

Dan (00:14:30):

We've done 30,000 a few times. We talked about the world equestrian games, but I also did the Edinburgh military tattoo over here and that featured on the podcast for a couple of reasons. But I did, that was four nights in front of 30,000. I'm not sure when we do like Sydney Royal, I'm not sure what they get in there where they, more than 30,000 there. But I sort of feel like, yeah, 30,000 is sort of the number of, of spectators that are actually at the event rather than the ones that are tuning in online, because when they did the world equestrian games, I mean that got 'em broadcasted, you know, to millions of people around the world. So we, we got pretty good sort of yeah. Range on that as well. So when you, like,

Warwick (00:15:20):

I've been in front of 30,000 people, cause I did the walk, the opening ceremonies of the world of question games, but they weren't you and for me, when you do a show in front of that many people and they're into what you do, and I've never seen you guys perform in front of anybody, horse people, or any others that didn't just go, wow, that's amazing. What do you, how do you what's that energy do to you like that feedback that, and this is not like the accolades, like people going, wow, you're cool. But just the, you know, people are that appreciative energy. How does that feel? After being in front of that many people,

Dan (00:16:02):

The parts, I guess the through part of it, the adrenaline pot it's really lonely out there if you don't have the crowd support. So it doesn't really matter whether, you know, you're doing a demo in front of, you know, 200 people or, you know, 20,000, it's just the interaction you want them like Dan. And I often feel like we get lost when we, when we're doing the agricultural shows and we stuck out in a big arena, like an oval, and you've got, you know, you've got that number. It could even be more than 30,000 at some of those. And they're staggered around that huge arena and they put you in the middle, we feel really disconnected and that that's almost uncomfortable. Like I actually probably would get now I don't even want to do those shows anymore, particularly without the other Dan cause now we do a lot of shows separately. Yeah. If I, I certainly wouldn't probably do it by myself anymore because it does feel so lonely out there. You just reminded me of a story that I reckon I can share with you cause I haven't shared it on even our Facebook, but you just reminded me about talking about crowds that really get into it. I was at beef week in Rockhampton and this was 2010 as well. We had a really big year, 2010. No man, I wasn't 2010, sorry. It's 2012. We had a big year, 2012.

Warwick (00:17:22):

Let me just interrupt you for a second. So for you listeners around the world, Rockhampton is in Queensland and the Northern part of Australia and it's, and it's all cattle country. And so they have a big thing up there that's called beef week. If you want to know what week is and it's all, you know, it's all cattle, agriculture kind of related thing, isn't it?

Dan (00:17:41):

Yeah. It's only every three years too. So we had number it's every three years and it's, it's quite a big gig Dan and I try to get at the first year that we came over, which was 2009 and we didn't get it. Guy McClean actually got the shy and then three years later, then I got the gig cause James was in the site and I went there and we were part of the nacho and I, and I did several different acts in this night show and it was a bit of an oval sort of deal as well. And the had the crowd that would add a few thousand. It wasn't massive, but there's a few thousand people just scattered around this oval. And there might, might've been about four or five deep, you know, around this oval. And, and one of the acts that I did was in the dark with that fire whip that you've seen me use on double image and I'm carrying around.

Dan (00:18:26):

And, and you know, when I first cracked that fire with the first couple of times, you get these you know, big gas balls and I'd already done that. And, and the fuel had sorta gone out of it, you know, but it's still a lot. It doesn't do those big explosions. And so you get a bigger pause usually when that happens and then I'm going down the fence, waving this whip, you know, at a brisk can I, it's not a Gallup, but you know, a fast can Cana the crowds, just sort of clapping and cheering as I pass. And I mean the dark, the not making like, you know, heaps of noise, but I know that there and then double image stumbles. And when he stumbles, we fell in a bit of a hole. Cause he's cause he's in the dark. I thought he was going to go down.

Dan (00:19:05):

Like we went right down to his knees and I stopped swinging my whip and the momentum of the whip kept going, of course. And it wrapped around my body, around my torso and I had a claim what shared on. And then he didn't quite go all the way to the ground. Like I thought he was going to go, he got himself back up and he kept carrying. And as he did that, I realized this whip was wrapped around my body. And so I know I calmly unwrap myself in the moment in the moment and then started swinging the whip again. And the crowd at that point, like as are past that section of the crowd and I kept going, the crowd was getting louder and louder and they were cheering harder and harder. And I started getting paranoid though that have caught on fire because I thought, why is his crowd changed? And it was like that movie Talladega nights. Have you seen that? Ricky Bobby invisible flyer. I thought it was on fire. And so all of a sudden, my back felt hot and I'm trying to ride looking behind myself and I'm swinging this whip going, is my back on fire? Like, did I catch it on fire?

Speaker 5 (00:20:09):

And is that why the crowds cheering better

Dan (00:20:13):

In the first half? And a, and I'm like looking behind myself and you know, I'm swinging this whip and I realized I'm not getting any hotter. So therefore I think I'm on fire, but I get back to, you know, behind the scenes and I'm talking to our crew and I'm like, check my back. Is there a senior box on my back of my shirt? There was, there was a bit of sort of black Mark, but I was, I certainly wasn't on fire. And and so when you, when you just said that about the crowd that's, that was a flashback that I got, that a crowd got into it, but luckily for the right reasons. But I thought it might've been for the wrong reasons. That reminds

Warwick (00:20:48):

Me of the, a story you were, you told about. I think it was one of those might've been for the Edinburgh military tattoo, but you guys, you had to wear some sort of explosive device while Roman riding on a couple of horses or something. There are other Royal Sydney, Royal Royal show. And so if anybody in America is listening, the Sydney Royal show is like the state fair. Yeah. Tell us about that. Dan, what did you, what did you have to do for that? What was it? A smoke device or something? It was a spot and it was a sparkling device. Wasn't it like a,

Dan (00:21:18):

It was, it was technically a fireworks. Yeah. It was a, they call them, what do they call them? It's a good, they call them a girl if anybody's a, I guess, a poverty technician listening. But essentially it's like a massive sparkler that shoots you know, sparks sort of 20, 30 feet in the air and it's big enough, you know, like they use them at the base of fireworks to, to create that sort of spark and sensation. And then they set the fireworks off usually in a big firework show. And we would, we were doing this big show for, for Sydney Royal. And Sydney's, it's the biggest, you know, you're just talking about a state fair, if you can imagine whatever the biggest state fair in America is, this is the equivalent in Australia. So we were pretty excited to be there and, and they had this nighttime show that we're involved in and how pot was Roman riding amongst a bunch of other stuff.

Dan (00:22:14):

And so Dan was on two horses and I was on two officers and we go out there. And anyway, when we were rehearsing this, the producer or the director of the show we were having these, you know, post show production meetings. And and he was saying, look, you know, boys, while I love the Roman riding, you know, sensational, it looks fantastic. But he said, you get lost amongst all the other stuff he said, I want to bring some attention to it. He said, how would you feel about putting some fireworks on, on your back? And I was just like, Nope, I don't feel good about it at all. And James is like, Oh yeah, yeah, tell me more. He's like, Oh, I'm interested. And and so they said you know, they talked to the power technician and these Gibbs, they could set them up essentially on a vest and you'd ha you have to self detonate them.

Dan (00:23:08):

You know, it's the closest thing you'll ever do to being a suicide bomber. If I can say that really correctly. And and you had like a vest that had these things, it was on a stick. It wasn't really that well designed. It was all homemade stuff. It was like those motorcross fests. And then they just had like Zippy tides, essentially like a S a stick. And then they, you know, tape these fireworks onto this thick. And Dan Dan's idea was, look, if we get the horses can run pretty fast. The two horses that were time, you hit that switch and you get an item that can't really speed up anymore than they're already going and say, they'll just keep going forward. And he did that were in the warm I was during the day and we're in at Sydney. And he gets in the arena, gets going a little bit.

Dan (00:23:57):

It's his horses take the mine at the, you know, the most small minute, you know, spook and they speed up just slightly. And I think they'll 15 seconds, 15 seconds, and it finishes and I've got mine on and he's telling me, he's like, do it. And I'm like, I'm not doing it. He's like do it. And he's like telling me to do it. I'm like, I'm not doing it. I'm like my horses. They weren't as brave as his, they greener than he is. I wasn't, I wasn't. And I'm still not as good as him at Raymond riding. Anyway, eventually he talked me into it enough to try it. He just said, you have to try it. And I'm only trotting. I wouldn't let these things can are up. And they're just trotting. I'm holding the Ryan's bloody tight too. And you have to like lift this plastic cover off this switch and you, and you flick the switch up, but then you had to press a secondary button to detonate it.

Dan (00:24:50):

And I did that. And these two horses took off and they separated slightly. And I fell down in between them. And I'm holding the reins one horse in each hand and I'm dry. I'm getting dragged by my feet doing big Eleven's, I've got 15 seconds of fireworks going off in between these horses. I'm yelling out wall the whole time. Then James is pissing himself laughing. And there's a bunch of other people watching. And then not only once I stopped those horses was I mad, but I cussed them out. Like you wouldn't believe I give it to him in front of everybody. And essentially I got out of the Roman writing part of that show because they still wanted it. And Dan was happy to do it. So I did it on double image when I was riding him in a saddle and I had the fire whip as well.

Dan (00:25:37):

So I did those two, but he did it on the Roman riding horses. And after the first night of the actual shy, they would have another post production meeting. After the show every night, the producer filler again says, look, I loved it. Fantastic. But he said, you don't get far enough out there. And that's, and that sparkler finishes he's. He turns to the power technique fella. And he says to him, he says, man, he said, can we get one that lasts a little longer? And the par technique fellow says, Oh, well, we can do a 32nd Gerber. But he says, if that detonates, it will blow his head off. He'll kill him. And I turned to the power. I go, and I said, well, what does 15 seconds do of that detonates? He says, Oh, well, you'll have a nasty burn. I have to go to hospital, but he won't do it. Where was that? In the disclaimer? Like they never mentioned that previous interview

Dan (00:26:32):

Till we got to the 32nd one. So, you know what they ended up doing. They strapped to 15, second Gibbs on him so that he could detonate one. And then when that one finished, he could detonate the second one. That's logic is

Warwick (00:26:44):

That James is doing this. Yeah. So James is he's out there on his own. I'm doing something different. Okay. So you ended up doing one of them on M double image. Yeah, he was fine. Okay.

Warwick (00:26:58):

Let's, let's talk about double image. Cause we're talking before about where did we first meet? And it was at the world of question games in 2010, but where we kinda got to know each other was both Dan and I for the last five years, I believe have presented at a horse expo in New Zealand called Equidays and, you know, training horses, the, the familiar, the big, the big thing is, can your horse be relaxed, but can your horse do something that brings them up, you know, emotionally and physically, and then can they come back down again? And so if you think about, you know, someone's little, plotty old trail riding horse, and used to ride around and can't get it to go anywhere. That's, that's the bottom end of the scale. When you think about a rice horse at the top end of the scale, but they really don't have the back and forth between the two of them.

Warwick (00:27:47):

And my background is in the writing and every riding maneuver has a mental up and a physical up and a mental Dan on a physical Dan like your circles, you do three circles in each direction. And two of them are large and fast and one is small and slow. And if you you're going to have the fastest circling horse in the world, but if he can't slow down, you don't get paid for your circle. You don't get any credit for your circles because it's all about the, up on the dam. You know, when you do the sliding stop, you build, you come around the corner and you go first gear, second gear, third gear, fourth gear, fifth gear, stop, roll, back thirsty. And so it's all about controlling that same with the spins. When you walk to the middle of the arena for a spin, let's say you have to do four spins to the left.

Warwick (00:28:30):

Four spins left, and then you have to hesitate. And that hesitate is part of the judged judge part of maneuvers. So they're making, it's really about, can your horse be emotionally balanced that way? And it's, and it's, it's difficult to do in most horses. And when I first met Dan in New Zealand, he had his horse double images of styling that he has over there. And I think it was probably the first time I've really seen your, your act. And, and the, the thing that amazed me about double image is, you know, so one of the things he'll do is running and at Liberty and sit on a beanbag, you've got a big horse beanbag and double image will sit in that beanbag. And he will sit on that bean bag as long as Dan wants him on the beanbag. And then Dan can hop on and run him down the other end of the arena and stop do a sliding stop for spins, rare up and hold this really cool, rare up, and then run down the other end and stop and spin, and then do some circles and change leads and go fast and then go and sit on the beanbag and go, boom.

Warwick (00:29:29):

And it's just like, he's got the most amazing on and off switch. You know, when I, when I first saw him over there at Equidays and I was like, you know, I didn't know you that well, but when I saw that horse, I'm like, this guy is a horseman because in order to get a horse to do that is very, very hard. You can do the sit on the beanbag all day long and you can do the run and stop a bit, but to do the run, stop Ray run, stop raise, sit on the beanbag, go to sleep, stay there. That's, that's a skill that very few horses possess really

Dan (00:30:03):

Well. I appreciate it. I'd love to take credit for it, but it's it's a lot of the horses is an incredible horse is so trainable and adaptable, like all, I think I've got him as a yelling when I was like 20 or 21. And so you know, as much as I would've liked to thought that I, I had a clue at that point, I clearly didn't. And and so I started him and he was just, he's just been easy the whole time. And and then as I've changed and developed and, you know, done things, I've changed things on him. And he, he just like, if you just wanted to do a back flip and just do a complete different discipline and just tomorrow just went down there and just started training him, you know, completely different than how we've done it in the past.

Dan (00:30:51):

He just goes, okay, ready? Alright. This is what we're doing now. He doesn't hold onto that preconceived idea stuff and our member letting Mark Buttsworth. So you know, you obviously know who he is, but for the listeners, I mean, in the camp draft world and, and the cutting world here in Australia, he's, he's a huge name and he's a really good Australian horseman. And he took him to Cloncurry, but he only had about two weeks prep with him. And one thing I told Betsy, as I said, mate, whatever you get out of this horse, you know, in your training, when you're at home, when you show him, he will give you that, like you don't, you know, cause you know what, and I'm assuming this happens to you, you and other people as well, that show horses, some horses, you just got to back them off a little bit.

Dan (00:31:39):

Like, they're just like when you get to the shy pen, you just like, I've just got to take a little bit off of them. They just can't handle that extra pressure of being at the shy and, and you know, the, the pressure of you riding them to that higher level. So you sort of think, Oh, well, they, they, that 10% less than what their best is at home and and double images. And he's always whatever you get at home, you'll get out in the show pen. And on the first day of Cloncurry, he won the, the, the reigning section, the dry section. And when he rang me up a he, I said, how did he go? He said, Oh yeah, he was good. He said, but I understand what you mean. He said, when I was warming him up you know, he just, it didn't, he didn't feel anything special, but he said, when I wrote him in that ring, he said he felt special.

Dan (00:32:25):

And he said, he just, he just felt like you could push him for everything that you wanted. And he was only four. He would have been four year. You have to be four for that. So he was only four years old for that event. And and that's what he he's been like his whole life when I'd go and do those shows, you can, you can just push him. And and if anything, he sort of notices those bigger occasions, any, any rises to them, as much as he's safe, that you can do all the other stuff within, like you said, the slow stuff with him, you can also do the hard and fast stuff. And I've got horses here at home that can, can do every, every bit that he can do. And some, some of the stuff they can do better than he can, but I can't get that consistency out of them. I can't get that showmanship out of them. Like if I push them as hard as I can push him, I wouldn't be able to do it a second time. If that makes sense. Right.

Warwick (00:33:19):

[Inaudible] the next time you go in there, they'd be, they'd be too wound up or whatever, for sure. Yeah. And that's the thing, it's all about, you know, anticipation. They've got to anticipate things to do and well, but if they anticipate them too much and so he, he's just, he just seems like he stays right there in the middle and yeah,

Dan (00:33:35):

Well, you know, sorry, I cut you off, you know, that brand and brand. Yep. Yep. When he came over here, he worded it really well. Like he said, you know, it's all about disciplined anticipation. And and I think that's a perfect word to sum it up. Like, you know, when you talk about a riding horse, I always do a bit of a gag about it. When I'm talking about arcade to try to explain to, you know, like our clinic participants. Like I think there's some of the best horsemanship in any equine discipline is actually in the writing. And there's a few different reasons. I believe that. But but one of them is like, you know, you walk in there and you're showing the judge all the time that this horse is not anticipating anything. Can you walk to the middle of the pen?

Dan (00:34:22):

And it's almost painful to watch, to be honest, that you've got this Slack in the rain and you're, you're sitting there and you're showing the judge had thrown more rain at him. Yeah. You know, bumping with your legs. He's just sitting there in frame. He won't move in. You're saying, look at this, judge is not thinking about anything. He's not anticipating ever look at him and you keep saying it over and over again. It's like, we get it. We get it. Just do the pattern for crying out loud, you know? And then you say four circle, four spins, I should say to the left and you open up that leg. And then this, you know, whatever horse just starts spinning nine. And then they shut that horse down. And as soon as I shut that horse down, they're back to showing the judge, look, he's not thinking about anything.

Dan (00:35:04):

Cause it could be from there. Or it could be a lead departure to the left. It could be a lead deposit to the right. It could be another set of spins to the opposite direction. I mean, there's, there's different options, right? He can't, he can't anticipate. And then you sit there and say, look, he's not anticipating is don't anticipate. And then you go bang, whatever that next. Eight is he nails and any for horses and anticipating at all. And you tell me if I'm wrong here work. But if the horse isn't anticipating at all and you would ask him to start four spins to the left, you'd do you cue him? Say you open

Dan  (00:35:38):

Up your leg or whatever your cue is, you subtle cue and the horse would get, well, hang on. What, what did you say? And then you'd say, well, it's four spins to the left mate. Four spins to the left. So you'd drag the rain across his neck and said, what was that? What did you say again? And then you'd probably say the third time and he'd go, Oh, Alrighty. I forced spins to the left. And then you would start up and that's really truly a horse. It's not anticipating, you know, he's not going to just, it's not going to be right there. And so when Brandon said that, you know, there's two words like discipline anticipation. I was like, man, that is a really good way to sum it up because when reining horses in the middle, he is anticipating, but he is waiting for what that next command is, what that next eight is.

Dan  (00:36:23):

He is just as willing to go to the left as he is to go to the right, whether it's a spin, whether it's a lead departure. And that's where I think it's really cool. And of course within that, your horse is going to make mistakes. Sometimes he's going to, and this is, you know, where I've been, you know, educated in the raining deal. You know, he's going to anticipate the wrong answer, but at least he's thinking and you certainly can't punish it for it. So when we talk a little bit, I know we're off topic, but when you talk about that anticipation, that's something that you know, a lot of horsemen say can be your best friend or your worst enemy, but it's something that really, you, you sort of nearly using every time you ride your horse, would you agree? And you know,

Warwick (00:37:05):

If you've got a horse who tends to be dull, he's, you know, you never really, it's hard to get them in the middle. Cause they're not anticipating using that energy. If you've got a horse, it tends to be high energy. They're not anticipating the Dell and like double image. He just, like I said that first time I saw him, he was just right there in the middle. Actually, I might've seen him at equity, equity, Tana, Equitana in Australia. And, and so we've been talking about this. So Equitana in Australia in, I can't remember what year it was, but so for you guys listening Equitana is that is the biggest horse expo in Australia. It's held in Melbourne, which is down the bottom of Australia. And they have a like a big, what you'd call like a collar, same thing, a big indoor venue, plus a lot of outdoor things too.

Warwick (00:37:54):

I mean, sorry, sorry. They have a big indoor thing. And then they have a big trade show and in each of the big buildings or trade shows in the habitable arena. And so some demos occur in there, but the main stuff happens in this big arena and I've I've so Dan and Dan are you know, they do a lot of the entertainment stuff there. And so they've invited me to be in some of the entertainment stuff with them. And that's the only entertaining I've ever done is when someone else has planned it, like you guys. And I did it, Oh, Dan wasn't involved. But in 2008 at Equitana, I was involved in a thing called the old star clinic on things the Sunday night. They don't think they do Sunday nights anymore, but maybe they do, let's go the old star clinic and says Olympic Aventa which is Clayton Fredericks.

Warwick (00:38:40):

I think there's an Olympic Oh, it wasn't Olympic dresser. I was right. It was a wild question. Damage, dressage riders, Brett Parberry, there's them too. Then they had a Olympic show jumper. It was Chris chug. And then they had a a world class polo player from England named Sam balls. I think his name was then, then a camp drafter. I did it raining and the guy claim was in it. And so we got to go in and you, you, you get like seven or eight minutes to do your, your discipline one, you know, show what your discipline does. And then at at in a mission you go outside and you get to swap with someone else and you come back in, you basically take a lesson on a horse. You've never written a discipline. You don't do. And I got to swap with Brett PABA and rode the dressage horse and that the feeling I got up, the dressage horse actually influenced everything I did with the riding horses from then on out, because he just had a level of engagement.

Warwick (00:39:36):

I had not really felt before. What do you know, what I felt with him was in the writing. When you run a host to a stop and you get him really running up Hill and really reaching for ground and they kind of come up on a, in the ninth, you, and there's a spot in that rundown. That's perfect words. If I pull the trigger right now, they stop will be perfect. That always felt like that at the walk at the truck at the cannery, he just felt like he could just, you could pull the trigger right there. So that was pretty cool. And fast forward a few years, and this might be 2012, maybe, maybe 14. I can't remember. They get to do a night show and I've, you guys have asked me to be in the night show. So I'm doing the writing.

Warwick (00:40:14):

And so it's Thursday is Equitana three days or four days, four days. So it's Wednesday afternoon and we've all got to meet in the big Coliseum thing. And we're going to go over this night show. And then they got the other people who are going to be in it. And Charlotte, [inaudible] the, you know, Olympic gold medalist in the dressage she's there. So she's in it. And then they have a a German guy who was an Olympic gold medalist in the show, jumping or venting. So he's an inventor and his name is Dick Schrade, he's in it and have a few other people, but we're in the arena and there's some jumps set up in that arena. And there's one of them is a brush faints. It's about a meter, something high and not very wide. And I'm looking at that and I'm thinking, I would love a picture of me jumping a horse over that in front of a crowd.

Warwick (00:41:07):

So then would, you know, Dan James is kind of gone, okay. So what were we going to do? We're going to do this and this and this, and then we'll swap horses. So Oregon, you would Charlotte swap. And I'm like, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to ride the dressage hose cause I've got pictures of me riding a dressage horse in front of that Equitana crowd, you know I'm like, I wanna ride the jumping horse and they're like, no, no, you read that just assholes and went back and forth and went back and forth. And it was like, I get to ride the I get, I'm going to get to ride the jumping horse. And I think the jumping horse was a Bay mirror or something really. We don't ride the horses that day. And so we get all, we get old sorted for that.

Warwick (00:41:48):

Oh, I think the next day or two days into the thing that Dirk Schrade, he's going to compete outside and there's a big outside grass area. He's going to compete outside. And some jumping on that, on that mayor, she's an inventor. He jumps her outside and I think she's good. And then he's going to do some jumping inside and this is an Olympic gold medalist. And he said, he goes to what runs towards that first jump. And she just stops and almost catapults him over his head over head. And so he said, well, we can't use her for the thing. So we had to find another horse. And the other horse was this gray venting horse. So you guys, Dan, Dan, you, the creative geniuses have come up with this thing that I'm going to do in these, in the show when we do the, the, the horse swaps.

Warwick (00:42:33):

So we're going to come in, I'm going to do some raining and whatever, and then we're going to go out and I'm going to get dressed up in like at the time on YouTube, there was a guy and he made this funny video. It was like two IRAP rep beat. And he had like a top hat and tiles and road, district size horse. And it was lumped something. And he had a grill like the gold teeth and it's something like score and nones down the Santa Alon and I'm supposed to do that. So I'm supposed to come in and, and, and up on the big screen, they're going to play that video clip and I'm going to do some dressage stuff on these horse and then do a little bit of jumping. And that was the

Dan  (00:43:11):

Yeah. You address at the start at the end,

Warwick (00:43:18):

A little bit of jumping at the end. And so when I get on this, I don't think I got to ride the horse really the day before I just got to ride the whole,

Dan  (00:43:26):

Well, we didn't want you guys to either. Cause that was always what normally happens is it's, Oh, this is the first time that hopping on the horses. And then they've already hopped on the horses for two or three times before. And they make out to the crowd that it's the first time. So when we say it's the first time, it's a first time. So you actually hadn't gone on that horse until that day.

Warwick (00:43:48):

Well, not long before that. And I get on the horse outside. And so the plan is I've got to do this dressage stuff and do a lateral movements and some flying, miniaturizing the stuff, and then do the jumping. And I'll start. I get on, I get on our outside and ducks ride, the Olympic gold medalist in the eventing. He says to me, do not do any dressage. This horse, this horse is pretty rigid. Like kind of head stuck in the air and its nose stuck out in his back was pretty flat. And he said, do not do the dressage. This, this horse has no lateral movements and very little mouth just, just do the jumping. And so I've got to go in there for like four or five minutes or something or other because he's song goes for awhile. And I don't think you know this at the time.

Warwick (00:44:29):

So Dan's in the arena and you will like the MC you're doing all the comparing stuff. And I come in and you gotta stop playing that bloody video clip. And I just, I do a little bit of attempting to do something dressage looking on her. And then I just kind of get, I forget that. And I start running around jumping these dumping, these jumps, and I wanted a picture, like I say, don't over that brush fence. I didn't get it in the end, but I'm not a jumper. And so there was some smaller jumps and there's different jumps, but I wanted a picture going over that one and I never hit it. Right. I couldn't get the timing. Right. She either took off too early. She took off too light. We jumped at every time. I actually, you know what, the first time I pointed her at that, because Dirk tried to just been in there and done the jumping weather and we went outside and changed and we go back in there, I go back in there and the first time I pointed at that thing, we I'm gathering can or cannot come up to it.

Warwick (00:45:25):

And it's not very wide. And she just ducks off around the side of it. And I'm thinking, Oh, you know, I'm screwing up these perfectly good, a venting horse in front of like four or 5,000 people. And so then I just kind of expected her to take me to the jumps. So the next time I came back, I kind of held him more on the lawn. But later on, I was talking to Derek and I said, Oh, I think I missed her up. She, she jumped around that, that brush fence the first time. And he goes, Oh, don't worry. She did that to me too. I'm thinking, okay, well, I didn't screw her up anyway. So I keep not being able to hit this this brush fence quite right. You know, some of them get left behind or I get put up a neck a little bit. And at one point in time, like I've run around and jumped in front of this crowd enough. And Dan's like, Oh, that's enough,

Dan  (00:46:09):

Stop, stop.

Warwick (00:46:11):

So I just keep going around and around and around. And I kept going around until I got over that brush fence just right. So I knew that someone was going to take a picture, but yeah, I do have a great picture of me in this top hat and tails going over that brush fence and that gray horse, but pulled in, he didn't know what the hell I'm doing. He's thinking of going to rogue. And I just won't stop jumping over this.

Dan  (00:46:30):

Yeah. I thought we're going to get hate mail because you were just flogging this horse around these jumps and I'm watching it Ghana or you've jumped at work. Yeah. Okay. You've jumped it again. Mark. You've jumped it again. Work like how many times we've got to jump this champ. And it was like, let's like, go back to, and I was trying to get you back into the dressers, like do the dress art, do the dress side.

Warwick (00:46:53):

Yeah, it was. You didn't know that there was no dress and you know, something else that was really interesting about that whole thing. And this is, you know, a bit about certain parts of the horse world is so on a Wednesday afternoon we had the meeting and we're going to swap horses. And they said to Charlotte, you guys said to Charlotte where you're going to ride the reigning horse. And she goes, I'm not going to ride that. I'm not going to ride the rainy horse. And she kept being very, very adamant about not riding the reigning horse. And for a minute there, I was thinking, Oh, she just, she poo-poos the raining. She thinks it's bad. Later on, I got token. I said, well, well, maybe it was during that meeting, but I said, why don't you ride the riding horse? And she said, because if I get a photo taken of me in a horse,

Warwick (00:47:39):

Bloody great bit like that, they will, they will

Warwick (00:47:43):

Crucify me in England. And so, you know, she's the, at the time, she's the top of the food chain. She's won the world a question game, she's won the Olympic gold medal. She's won the world championships all in Valais grow, but she doesn't do things like everybody else does. She's not part of the status quo. They, her and Cal has to do a little, few things outside the box. And because of that, they all hate her. And she's not, I thought she was worried about riding the running horse because she thinks it's horrible or something or other, but she was really concerned about if there was a picture taken of her riding horse in a shank bit that she would be judged. And she's, you know, she says, I've got a target on my back and it's so sad, but that's the truth of the whole.

Warwick (00:48:26):

And I said, well, you can ride him in a snaffle and she gets

Warwick (00:48:30):

Right in a snaffled. I said, they're trying to do all the maneuvers in the snaffle before you ever get to the shank Bay.

Warwick (00:48:35):

She's like, Oh, okay. So she's decided to ride the horse. Okay.

Warwick (00:48:39):

And I think maybe Friday morning, I think that the show Saturday nights, so Friday lunchtime, we organized for me to go and give her a lesson on this horse. And she's really concerned about not being able to ride it. Like she rides, like she goes, I don't know how to ride one hand. And I said, forgive one hand and just get on and ride it. Like, it's your horse, you know, just get comfortable because she's really, this is in the warmup arena. No, one's there. She's really, I'm just really concerned about, you know, maybe looking a bit silly or whatever. And I said, well, just get on. Right? Like you would do some lateral movements, whatever. So I got to doing all that stuff. And then I had to change leads onto the bit. And the horse was, you know, it didn't have a great feel about it.

Warwick (00:49:23):

He's kind of heavy in your hands. And you know, some running horses are trained where their body's really organized and some of them just kind of have a bit of an outline. And this one was one of those. And even though I could do the maneuvers, I would, he just didn't have a lot of, you know, fairly energy underneath you. And anyway, so she wrote him and, Oh, that's right. So I said, I want you to, I want you to just do what you do. So she wrote him on contact in two hands and I got a really comfortable enough about 45 minutes and said, okay, so let's try, let's try some spins. And so I had spinning him and that was, that was pretty cool. And then the, you know, but she didn't do much raining stuff. For the most part. She wrote him around on contact and did resize stuff. We just did some spins at the end. And so that is a Friday and I'm like, okay, she's, she's quite, she's getting confident with it. The horse will work. Okay. And then said, and this is another part of the horse industry that just blows my mind. And Saturday morning we get, I get a call from the owner of the horse of that horse that she wrote. And she, I'm going to take

Warwick (00:50:28):

My horse home today. You guys can't use him. And I'm like, why? And she goes, yeah, I'm going to take him home. I go, why she goes, and this, this is one of the craziest things I've ever heard come out of anybody's mouth I've ever heard. She said, I didn't want that dressage lady doing, I've spent a lot of money having this horse, trying to be reigning horse. And I don't want that dressage lady riding him doing all that dressage stuff and messing that up. And right then I was just

Dan  (00:50:57):

Flabbergasted.

Warwick (00:50:59):

I could complete was that thing on Sunday night or Saturday night. Do you remember your Sunday? Sunday off Sunday night. Okay. So this is Saturday morning. And we've got to find another horse. And most of them, the rainy competition, I think was Thursday nights. And most of the rhinos are gone home. So we've got to find another horse for this thing. And, but I was just flabbergasted that the best dressage rider in the world rode her horse and was actually working on it carrying itself better than it already was. And she said, I don't want that her doing that dressage stuff and messing my horse up. And, you know, I was just, I was just flabbergasted that, you know, the disciplines tend to think, well, they do it wrong. And now the discipline thinks they got it wrong and you know, whatever. But then the funny story was, then we had to find another horse.

Warwick (00:51:44):

Didn't we? And so we, we find another horse then I think Sunday Mo so we've spent all Saturday trying to find another horse in the middle of the horse expo. So it's not like we've just got all day to find a horse. We've got stuff to do. You're doing presentations, I'm doing presentations. And we spend all day trying to find a horse and we finally find a horse and he's going to work out pretty cool. Okay. This is good. Now we just got to get Charlotte to ride him and we'll be all good. And then Sunday morning, her and her, she had a minder guy with it. Didn't she? He's like, yeah, here's a minder. And I'm kind of to keep the fans back. But anyway, she comes up to us on Sunday morning and says, you know what? I really don't feel well, I've got like a migraine or something or other, and I, and I don't think I can do this thing tonight. It's like, okay. We finally found a new horse, got the horse. Now we've lost the dressage rider, but I think it'll work out for the best because,

Dan  (00:52:39):

And the dressage horse, because the dress I source, we're going to use one sheet. Then he heard that they took their horse home.

Warwick (00:52:46):

Oh, once they heard that she wasn't going to be grinding it at the start of that. The thing that took your time too. Yeah.

Dan  (00:52:52):

Yep. And we lost that horse. So then I had to find another and it was the same deal. I think it was Friday night was a dressage. And so the dressage horses had gone home. And so all of a sudden, you, you might've found a rain, but now we didn't have a dressage horse. And it was, it was hard work all the way to literally I think member Lynn Palm was in that show as well. And when Lynn was supposed to come out, her horse started freaking out.

Warwick (00:53:23):

It did have a bit of a freak out at the back gate. Yeah. It wouldn't even come into your honor

Dan  (00:53:26):

With all the noise. And then she was like, I'm out, I'm not doing it. And I'm, I'm, we don't know this. Cause some shows you get what they call any ears. And you have like this EPC in your ear and the back of house can on a microphone will communicate to you, what's going on behind the scenes or, you know, I tell you to delay. And so I'm like, you know, we've got the intro music for lean and you know, like, come on out, you know, and just like, no horses are coming out, nothing's happening. You know, we just don't know what's going on. And Lynn never actually came out. So then all of a sudden it, it stuffed up you know, the swap over because then we're, we were in an odd number. And I think James actually hopped on a horse to, to even things out.

Warwick (00:54:14):

Yeah, I think he did. And yeah, it all worked out really good because you found a well, it was a Friesian wasn't it for, for the dressage part, he was still there as part of the Friesian demonstration or something. And then, and then we've got Keith, we've got Ryan. And so, you know, I got to, so I he's got on the Heath, got on the what'd he end up riding, I forget he went in and run, but so he came in with a dressage horse, but he ended up getting on the reining horse and it was, it was really quite cool because a lot of people think that reining horses are just, you know, try and completely different or whatever. And, and some of mob this horse that he got on was very, very well trained because I think that did, might do the Western dressage or something on him.

Warwick (00:55:00):

But the lady that owns that stuff, he was a stallion and he was very well trained. So out the back or I, when we swapped our head Heath, get on the horse and I, and I had him work on, on the spin. And as you know, with the spin, if you try to force the spin that doesn't work, you just got to kind of allow it. And so what I had him do out the back was you know, taught him how to ask for the spin. But then I had him get, I said, I sit in there, go into a canned appear, wet, which there's quite a bit of contact and you kind of push a bit with your outside leg, keeping him going forward. And then I said, what I want you to do is just relax your hands and relax your legs.

Warwick (00:55:38):

And that horse went from a Cantor pure wit into a spin. It was absolutely perfect. I'm thinking this is going to blow them away. And so when we went in there and I had to give the lesson, you know, cause that's basically the thing isn't you swap horses and then you go, okay, give me a lesson. What do I do? And he says, what do I do? And I said, well, what I wanted to get across to the crowd was that this horse can do dressage. Maybe it's not as well as a massage hose, but he can do dressage movement. So when he got on and he said, what do want me to do? I said, well, before, before I tell you what to do, why don't you help me learn some stuff? Cause I'm just a dumb cowboy. I don't know anything about, about dressage terms.

Warwick (00:56:18):

So what is that, what does that leg you would look like? And so he laid yields to the host and I'm like, well, what is that? What's a half pass look like. So we have passes the horse. And I said, well, what's that look like at the truck? What's it look like at the cannon? So he's doing Legos and hot passes. And I said, what about a, what's a flying lead change look like. And so he shows me that. And so he's basically doing this dressage stuff on this horse. And I said, now what about a canopy or wet? And so he goes into a, can a pair of wet on this ranting horse. And then I said, well, it looks a bit like a spin. Do you think you can turn that into a spin? And he, you know, he didn't quite let go enough. So it didn't go into the perfect spin. It's still pretty good. And like, I think the crowd loved it, but outside it was can appear a wet into a real flat, fast spinning. It was like that if we can get that to happen in there, it'd be pretty cool. But you know, hates, he's a bit of a comedian, you know? So I think it worked out really well cause he, he played the crowd up and I thought it would be,

Dan  (00:57:14):

Oh really? Well, it was a good show. And we got a really good response for it. The one thing that I was going to touch back on that you talked about that both United Charlotte had a problem initially thinking about getting on a reigning horse with a big bit, and then the, you know, the raining owner didn't want Charlotte to ride the horse because it was a different discipline. You know, how we get a lot of these expos and, and you do a lot more of it than I do. But when you go to these expos, you've got to you know, sometimes do those lecture rooms that talks. And for Dan and I, that's something that you know, is, is we'll get in a cold sweat about, because we want to, we want the arena, we want the horses, the horses are the, the show.

Dan  (00:57:57):

You know, we were just the sidekicks, the takeaway of the horse and we don't have anything. So I had to do one of these expos in Queensland and and they asked me to do this lecture. And I was like, Ugh, I really that one over. And they're like, no, we need you to do it. And I said, okay. And then I said, well, what do you want the nine to be? What do you want the title to be? So I thought hard about what I was going to talk about. And I thought I've got to use a title. That's going to bring people in because I just felt like no, one's going to come to a classroom where it just says danced is talking about entrepreneurship. So I I'm cold talking dirty within. And, and when I went out there to, to go to this lecture, there was, there was this huge lineup look like they're lining up for food or the bathroom.

Dan  (00:58:47):

And I said to the people, what are you lining up for? And they said, well, long enough to get into your lecture, but there's all the seats are taken. We can't get in there. So it's a squeeze my way past this crowd. And I had a full crowd and they were all there because of the title talking dirty with Dan stairs and what I said to him first thought they were going to get awfully disappointed. But, but the, the message of the lecture was that, you know, often we get caught up on stereotypes and words. And I remember seeing a, a buck Burnham demonstration. And he was really having a go at dressage riders. And he was really having a go at trainers to get using the word trainers, these trainers, these trainers, these trainers, and, and he was really going off about it, you know, like the, not horsemen the trainers.

Dan  (00:59:40):

And I'll remember that Ian Francis, you know, which is one of the best Australian horsemen that we have in this country. You know, he used to call himself [inaudible] training stables or something that Ian Francis training, I think Awan might be famous, but he was, yeah, he was Ian Francis training stables. And so I, I said to him before this X, Y, Z, I said to him, mate, I said, if I called you a trainer, would you, would you be upset at me? He said, no. I said, just correct me if I'm wrong. Did you use to send an invoice out saying in Francis training site was, he said, yes. So I said, you would refer to yourself as a trainer. Is that right? He's like, yes. Good. That's it. And I walked away. And when I was talking about, in this demo, I basically said that whether it's Charlotte or cow Hester or anybody, you know, if, if you have this preconceived idea about them and their discipline, that they might hold the key to the Pandora's box that was going to open up Pandora's box for you.

Dan  (01:00:40):

And all of a sudden everything was just going to fall into place. And just because you heard the wrong terminology, you know, you heard the word train or address our Drotter or Western rider or whatever it might be. And then you had a preconceived idea about what it should be and you went, I'm not going to go and see them. You're going to miss out on that opportunity. So essentially that was what this whole talk was about. That, you know, we, we get caught up in using the words, breaking in and, you know, it should be called starting and all these different words at the end of the day, that's more about how you or the person associates to the word and how they perceive it necessarily than the actual word itself. So we had a big chat about it, and I think it went pretty good to be honest, I'm just going to Pat myself on the back. But when you started talking about that situation, that scenario really spoke about it from both sides, didn't it? The Western and the English not wanting to cross IFR. And then you get somebody like, Hey Ryan, he doesn't really care about any of it. And all of a sudden he gets on without horse, like house on fire.

Warwick (01:01:53):

Yeah. And, you know, and in Charlotte's defense, she wasn't, she wasn't poo-pooing it. But, but the thing about her discipline would judge her very, very poorly.

Dan  (01:02:04):

Yes. And it was all about him.

Warwick (01:02:06):

Yeah. So it's just, yeah, but I think you're right. I think that the whole, you know, I think that the, the biggest thing I've that the biggest thing that's helped me in the writing was learning how to do yourself.

Dan  (01:02:18):

Right. You know

Warwick (01:02:20):

Especially for me, I'd say the shoulder in learning how to do the shoulder in, you know, a lot of times in the writing, people are wrestling with the horse, trying to do something with it. And usually they're trying to alter its shape. And I have found that the shouldering is the key to that. Cause the, the, the thing they're trying to alter with the shape is actually getting them to lift their shoulders up. And I found the shoulder and he's the key to that. And I was at a horse expo in Canada main event in Canada. You've been to one of those. You did a cult starting one of those main events in Canada Avenue. Yep.

Warwick (01:02:53):

Yeah. And so there was a lady there, and one of the things that they'd at the homosexuality

Warwick (01:02:58):

Asked me to do a session on the flying lead change. And I told him, no, I don't do a session on the flying late change because usually the people that show up to it are not ready for the flying lead change. Okay.

Warwick (01:03:12):

And so everybody shows up

Warwick (01:03:14):

Say flying lead change, and you never changed leads in the whole thing, because you're working on the basics of the flying lead change. I said, if you had a horse that can do a pebbly good finally change, or maybe has a little something that needs tweaking, we could do that, but I don't really want to do the final eight change. And they said, yes, we want you to do the fine late shines. I'm like, okay. And so I don't really want to do the flying Lake change. We get up to the host expo and I meet one of the other presenters and an she's a Olympics, a bronze medalist in the dressage. And I'm Charlotte Brendel and she's from Southern California. And I meet her. So she's on before I'm going to do the flying lead change demo. I didn't know that, but she's in the same arena as me.

Warwick (01:03:57):

So I get over there, you know, 15 minutes before the, my demo is going to start and I'm looking in there and Charlotte is in there doing flying lead changes. I'm thinking, Oh God, I'm going to do flying. Lead changes the session after the Olympics, bronze medalist. And the dressage is doing flooded, lead changes. This is going to make me look like an idiot. And while I'm there watching her, they would, they were working on doing the shoulder in, but she was doing sh walk to trot to walk transitions while holding the shoulder in. And when I rode in I'm at Equitana in 2009, when I did that night show thing, that old star thing, and I rode Brit pop resource. And I just, like I said, it felt so up, you know, like underneath you like a hovercraft. And I said to Brett, how do you get him to do that?

Warwick (01:04:46):

And he said, Oh, I might, it's just a lot of shop awkward and damage transition. So I've been up putting down and transitioning, you know, I've been doing that for years. Walk, trot, walk, trot, walk, stop, back up, walk, you know, that sort of thing. I've been doing that forever. And then in the meantime, I've discovered the shoulder in. So I'm doing that, the transitions and I'm doing the shoulder and then I'm watching Charlotte and she's doing transitions within the shouldering. And when she finishes this session, she comes out, she's going to give me the microphone. I said, Oh, give me a, and she goes, why? I said, Oh, you've just opened Pandora's box for me like that. When I get home, I know my horses won't be able to do that. They won't be able to hold the shoulder in and do walk the truck transitions and back again within the shoulder in, and that's gonna help me a great deal.

Warwick (01:05:34):

And so, yeah, I really think for me, the thing that's helped, the rain is the most familiar once I got to a certain point was, was dressage stuff. And I, so I go in the arena and I'm going to do these things on the, on the flying lead change. And I, I kind of tell everybody, I didn't, I tell the crowd, I didn't really want to do the flying lead change thing because a lot of times horses aren't prepared for it. That's that's problem. Number one, problem. Number two is we just had a demo here by an Olympic bronze medalist in the dressage problem. Number two, and problem number threes. She's sitting in the front row and she's going to watch my demonstration on how to do a fine late change and that's. And so I was like, Oh God, she's going to be thinking I'm an idiot, but I kept, I kept referring to like, say, what do you think of that challenge? He has no, that's, that's, that's how we go about it too. So it was pretty cool, but yeah, I do think learning something outside your discipline, whatever your discipline is, learning something outside, it can really, really possibly be the secret to helping your discipline be a much better.

Dan  (01:06:39):

I'll just say, you know, in short, I just say there's good and bad. You know, horsemen, horsewomen. They always want a set of horse people in all disciplines. You can't, can't get hung up on, you know, at top of discipline and categorize everybody. There's good horsemanship and bad horsemanship, as far as I can see in, in all types of horse discipline. And, and you've got to sort that out for yourself and, you know, the dress art is, is where I've I'm in the same boat as you I've seen some of the world's best horsemanship and they know more, more about horses than I believe I ever will.

Warwick (01:07:15):

Yeah. It doesn't matter. What, what what discipline you do. So what else was I going to talk about? Oh yeah. So we've, we've really got to know each other during Equidays in New Zealand and we've had, we've had some pretty fun times.

Dan  (01:07:32):

Oh yeah. It's actually a highlight for me to, to go over there. Not only because they look after us so well, but to catch up with, with yourself and and have fun, you know, while we're there for the, whatever it might be the week, or sometimes it's been longer. Cause if, a couple of times we've had those cross church shows as well, and we've been there for two weeks. So it's, it's, it's an awesome event.

Warwick (01:08:00):

It's my favorite horse expo anywhere because they really look after, you know, like, so they have a, they have a VIP section at the end of the arena. And during the night show, we get to sit in there and they feed us food and bring his bees. And

Warwick (01:08:16):

Yeah, it's, it's, it's always a fun time. We've met some pretty funny characters there too. Haven't we?

Dan  (01:08:21):

Yeah, for us, we've, we've almost been like the bookends. And so when they booked the show, they, they, they change, you know, the, the core of the show, particularly in the question side of things more say they're jumping in the dressage and then the horsemanship sort of stays the same. And so we've been fortunate enough to meet a lot of different, different characters. Haven't we?

Warwick (01:08:46):

Yeah. And I, you know, one of the really cool ones we made a few years ago as a felon, I'm Albert Vaughn. So he's from the Netherlands and he's an Olympic silver medalist in the show jumping. He actually won the Olympic silver medal at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. And tell me if I'm right or wrong here, Dan, but I think you had a bit of a man crush on him

Dan  (01:09:04):

A bit. I'm proud of it. Yeah, absolutely.

Warwick (01:09:08):

Yeah. He was this guy. So he was, I don't know how old our, any idea here out of our buddies

Dan  (01:09:15):

I would think maybe 60, 60 plus it could be older. It could be, I'll tell you what he looks good talking about. I spoke nearly every day, it looks sensational.

Warwick (01:09:27):

Has it looked sensational. And he was, had this very military bearing, like everything is actually, you know, military office bearing, like he walked like a military officer. He, when he sits, he doesn't sit and slouch, he sits he's perfectly straight up and down everything. His posture was just phenomenal. Yes. Everything's perfectly clean. And like, you know, if he looks down, there's a little bit of lint on his, on his jacket, he'd brush it off, you know? And, and he was, he was, yeah, he was such a cool dude. And what was really cool that I've really enjoyed were just talking about learning stuff from other disciplines. One of the, they have, they have a night show every night and something entertaining on there. And one of the nights they always have a grand Prix jumping. And so I got to sit. So when Albert was there, I got to sit and watch the ground pressure jumping with an Olympic silver medalist and pick his brains about, about jumping in lines.

Warwick (01:10:25):

And, you know, that's, that was an education that you just cannot, you know, you can't go, I want to go and buy two hours with Olympic silver medalist. I'm watching a grom pre show jumping and have him spill his guts and told us everything. And another really cool book was another jump. It was a fellow from, I think he's from Netherlands to Rob errands. And Rob is the Dutch Olympic showjumping coach. And I think he's coached three Olympics. And I think he's competed in three Olympics and he went back two years in a row there and we got to sit with him. Well, I got to sit with him and pick his man. You, you were there a bit too. It you're the MC, so you probably were working a bit more, but yeah, sit there and actually listen to, you know, probably the, the

Warwick (01:11:14):

Arguably the most successful Olympic show jumping coach in the modern era, watch the show jumping and having, you know, talk about things. And he was amazing. Like there was one, there was one, one of the years, there was a jump. You kind of come around a corner, you jump one jump, and then you go a bit further around the corner. Then you jumped three in a row. What do you call that? A triple I suppose. Yeah. And as they would go over the jump coming around the corner, Rob would say something like, he's going to knock the top, the top rail of the third jump. He's not even into the triple yet. He's coming around the corner. He could just tell from the line that the hose is going to be short long, too fast, too slow. And he's yeah. He's, I was just absolutely phenomenal with that sort of thing and, and a nice bloke too. Wasn't he cool?

Dan  (01:12:03):

Yeah, he was really cool as well. I got to do I think we're over when we were at cross church at first time, I had double image there and we were actually in that VIP section and I've done a little bit of jumping the, the, that year or the year before. I jumped double image at Equitana with the Wilson sisters coaching, me and I, and we got up to a meter five and it was brilliant. That was pretty, yeah, it was, it was a big deal and a double image. Hadn't jumped more than a bloody, you know, 44 drum laying down on the side,

Warwick (01:12:42):

60 centimeters, Miami,

Dan  (01:12:44):

Just for a you know, for a time trial and stuff. And so anybody's got good Skype. And so Dan was encouraging, it was in a night show and I had the job because in the jumps out along was my first time having a it. And and why we did that. And when we'll have an these few beers and we're watching the jumping, but at Christ church, I said to the Wilson sisters, I'd like, I'd said, I would love to have a go at that. Like, it didn't look too. I think it was only like a meter five or something class, but it was a speed class. And NOI, I said, I wouldn't mind having a next, he'd go get your horse, go get your horse. We'll get you in. We'll get to you. Then I said, nah, I can't do that. Nah.

Dan  (01:13:26):

And then all of a sudden I'm like, okay, I'll do it. I said, you get me a saddle. I'll do it. So we get the saddle organized. And by the time I go out there to the comps finishing and they're getting into the second part of the competition, the bigger jumps. And I thought I was going to be able to handle it, but because it was, it was, it was above a meter and it was a course where are there Quartana only jumped one jump, you know? And they'll just slowly putting it up and up and up. That's obviously quite a big deal to do, you know, made a five course or whatever it was. So that took a few rails down and, and and Rob was on the, he was on the microphone and he was going to instruct me through it.

Dan  (01:14:09):

And of course I was, you know, him and it a little bit. And you know, I was going into lines and that, and he would row would say something and I'd panic and, you know, double image would come to a sliding stop just before the jump and then I'd circle around and then we'd jump. And when we did knock a couple of rounds, but we got, we got through the course and afterwards Rob loved it so much. He's like, we've got to take this show to Europe. He's like, this is the best show. He's like, they would love it is the best entertainment. And, and I was just like, ah, I appreciate it. But I don't know if I could take this show on the road. I was, I was, it was more Dutch courage than anything, but but, but I had a lot of fun with him.

Warwick (01:14:51):

Yeah. I think actually video that we had the, we had the video camera with us and I think actually videoed that, but yeah, double image was really, really cool. So another funny moment we've had there couple of years ago, there was a dressage fellow there from, was he from Spain?

Dan  (01:15:10):

One?

Warwick (01:15:13):

What the idea is, so, you know, for this night show, there's always a comedy part of it, which Dan always has to come up with. And so they've decided that Dan is going to take a dressage lesson from one and it's going to be, you know, this funny, you know, it's a little bit like Tristen, Tucker's Brett kitting thing, but except except the you know, yeah, he's on a quarter horse and he's getting a lesson and this one guy, he he's got the personality of a well or not. He's nice personality, but he's got like the comedic chops of a fence post. And you can, this is at the, so there's, you know, equity, equitize at the North Ireland. There's also one on the South Island. We do the one in Ireland.

Dan  (01:16:03):

Let me tell this part because I always am seeing as well, and I'm supposed to do the shies. And it was only by luck and good fortune that during, so I'd team up to do it, mind you, we hadn't practiced and we hadn't rehearsed, but his wife spoke better English than he did. And she was like, yeah, you know, he'll do it. He'll do it. And all I said to him was look, all you gotta do is pick on me. Don't pick on the horse or is good. I'm terrible. And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And anyway, during intermission, I've gone back to have a couple of drinks with you guys in the VIP. And I noticed one talking to one of the organizers and I sort of ease drop, and he's trying to organize a lift back to the hotel. And I'm thinking, mate, you're the, you're doing the first act with me after the intermission.

Dan  (01:17:00):

So I sorta walk over to, he's talking to Amy and she's organizing the vehicle and she knows that he's supposed to be doing this act. He doesn't want to do it. So I get over to Amy and I'm like, don't organize a car for him. He's got to do this act. And she's like, Holy he's he's feeling tired. He wants to go home. I'm like, he can't, we've got to do this thing and what are we going to do? So I tell them, don't organize the car. I talked to his wife and in a way he's like, Oh, I'm not sure if I want to do it. And then I'd go and rope you in. Like I said to you, I say, cause I'm going to have to leave to go and get ready to start the show. So I say Warrick, I'm like, you've got to come out with this guy and do not let him run. Like you make sure he comes there back of house. So you do that. You bring him there and and you, you just chip in I'll cut. Cut me, cut in when, when you, when you feel, but w but the crackup sisters were doing the show and they had their prop, their house, their homestead. It was, it was like a, what do you, what do you want to call it? Like a bird.

Warwick (01:18:10):

It's like a, it's like a movie set to where it's just a wall. But from, you know, from the crowd side, it looks like a house. It's got a door and windows and everything, but behind it, it's just a wall that's propped up from the back. And there's nothing behind it. There's no house there.

Dan  (01:18:24):

Yes. Yeah. So, so that they're talking about. So the premise of the gag was that they had this dressage rider staying with them and they thought it would be a good opportunity for dance, these to get a lesson. And I'm from this guy. So he's got to come out from this house. So our mom, I'm, I'm backstage, I'm behind this house with with you. And at this point, I'm in the Western gear. But then when I come and go back in, I've got to get into the dress dressage care. And we're standing there with one and he doesn't seem to understand much English. Does he? We're trying to say to him, look, these girls are gonna look after you. When they cue you, you walk through that door and you just walk to them. That's all you gotta do. And they'll do the rest

Warwick (01:19:10):

How's things over in the corner of the arena. And so, yeah, so the doors

Dan  (01:19:15):

It's lit up on the front and it's dark in the back and I, and I'm listening out and I hear them say, you know, we've got wine staying with us,

Warwick (01:19:24):

The EPC don't you, but you've got a microphone.

Dan  (01:19:27):

Yeah. But, but it wasn't supposed to be on. So I pushed the door, I pushed the door open, but I don't want the crowd to say me, because if they see me, then I'm supposed to act surprise that they're trying to rope me into this lesson. And it would look to set up. So I opened the door and you're on the, on the other side of the door. And one just, he stays there. He doesn't move. And they hit him with a falling spot. And he's behind the actual door that's opened. And he's just frozen, like a deer in headlights. And w and I'm saying, why go out there, go to the girls. And you're just laughing and chuckling I'm on.

Dan  (01:20:08):

And I'm trying to yell at him like, wow, get out there. And he eventually, I think on the third one, he walks out and, and then he doesn't shut the door. So I sort of lean out and grab the door and shut the door. And I turn and say to USA, I use the F word. And like, I'm like, I feel so sorry for one. And apparently they, when one stepped out, cause he had a marker fine. They turned his microphone on and they turned my Mark and the whole crowd heard me swear. Luckily I didn't, I didn't say anything bad about one. I just said, I feel sorry for him. Because unlike he does, has no idea about what he's just been very opt into. Does he? And I think when I go out there and I do that act, he might've said like two words the whole time we just had to improvise. And then when that show finished, we had to go down to the South Island and I was just like, we're not using wine. And that's where you had to come up with your own alter ego. Didn't you? Who was, I am helmet,

Warwick (01:21:16):

Helmut, Von snit, some burger, wasn't it? Yeah. It was, it worked out, it worked out quite well in the South Island. So yeah, I came out and I was the, I was the the German dressage instructor. Yeah. And you'd got into it. Yeah. And we, it worked out pretty good. Like we, we, I think during the week I had some time to think about some gags and they, they all worked out good. And I heard a little story that Dane Steaz actually did that at Equitana the next year and stole all my gags.

Dan  (01:21:52):

Well, not all of them. What I did do is I changed the first thought. I actually had a dressage instructor. I had Bret poverty and I only stole one gag. I need to be honest, I stole one gag. And the gag was the full pass, which, which he had a water bottle or you had a cup. I think I used a water bottle and you threw me the cup. And you said that is a full pass. And then the next time you threw it and it didn't go the whole distance. And you said that is a half path. And I did like that. Jake, did you make that up

Warwick (01:22:24):

That up during the week walking around in Queensland? I think that was good. I think didn't you didn't you also do the forward more forward, more forward one where you lean up the hoses, Nick.

Dan  (01:22:36):

Yeah, I did do that. Was that yours as well? Okay. Maybe we stole a couple of years. Yeah,

Warwick (01:22:41):

Yeah. Maybe, maybe you spell well, that's all right. You can, you can use it. There's no copyright on that. Yeah, that was that was a pretty fun one.

Dan  (01:22:52):

I want you to get into some of these stories where you, you know, you get passed out drunk.

Warwick (01:22:57):

So, so yeah, I don't really drink anymore, but then, and I used to have really, really good times afterwards, you know, we'd have a few beers in the VIP section, then we'd go back to the hotel and we would get some alcoholic beverages and sit around and tell stories too way, way, way, way later in the, in the evening, then we probably should soon. We're good to get to work the next morning. But I think that's, that's part of that whole, that whole thing there is, is having very little sleep and, and getting up and going and doing it again. We've had some,

Dan  (01:23:36):

Yeah, we've had some good nights. We won't tell them because we'll people might think we've got a drinking problem, but but you know what, one of the other funny stories from that one was when Craig Johnson did that phone call.

Warwick (01:23:51):

Oh yeah.

Dan  (01:23:53):

That was a late talk about funny. That was funny.

Warwick (01:23:58):

Did, were you there when he did it or did,

Dan  (01:24:02):

Yeah. And when we talked about it, you guys talked about it afterwards. When we had, you know, how they have the after party and you guys are talking about in the after party and I'm like, I've got to, I've got to see this in someone filmed it and his partner filmed it. And it was, that was so good. Honestly.

Warwick (01:24:22):

Yeah. I did a demo in an arena and Craig Johnson was on right after me. And so Craig Johnson is a trainer from America. He's one in the running for charity. I dunno, seven or eight times at something around that. He won the very first one that when the prize money got really big back in the eighties, they had the first a hundred thousand dollars to first place back in the eighties. And he won the first one of those. He has, he's won like 20 something world championships, a really good guy, really good horseman. And he was on right after me. And I was about, you know, I got done with my demo and he comes in and he says, Hey, can you, can you not leave? Can you just stay here?

Dan  (01:25:04):

You have to tell the story. Cause it was the first time wasn't he late? And you filled in for him.

Warwick (01:25:10):

Yeah. So the day before he was a little bit late and he was on after me. And so he wasn't there at the start, Tom. So I walked in the arena and I put on an American accent and I said, Hey, I'm Craig Johnson and blah, blah, blah. And I pretend to be Craig Johnson. So the next day he was on right off to me, as I went to leave, he said, can you stay here a minute in the arena with me? And so the crowds all day old, Aaron, and he starts saying, so I just did everybody watched Warrick right there. And he starts talking to me up, like, doesn't he do a good job and blah, blah, blah. And while he's talking, he reaches in his pocket goes, Oh, hang on. And he pulls his phone out, like, hang on. It's my mom.

Warwick (01:25:46):

So he goes, hi mom. He's like, how you going? It's good. Not, I'm kind of busy, you know? And he's, mother's older. So you probably thinking, you wouldn't answer the phone when you're in the middle of a demo at a horse expo, but his mother's older and you know, it could be an or something rather. So I'm thinking he's answered the phone. He's like, hi mom, how are you going? Yeah, no, I'm kind of busy right now. I'm here in the arena. I'm in New Zealand. Yeah. And he would work work. No, no. That's his, that's his name? Yeah. I know. I know. It's just, I know it's a dumb Santa's name. Isn't it? Yep. And he's gone on and on and on and on about this buddy. He spells it out

Dan  (01:26:31):

Then he's like, yeah. He's like, no, it's solid. The w sorry. No, not the first one mom. The second one. Cause you know, everyone wants to call you all week. Yeah. And he's doing it. No, the second one saw it. Not the first one. That's what I love.

Warwick (01:26:45):

Yeah. And what else does he come home with? Is any good? Oh yeah. He's all right. I mean, he hasn't won near as much as me, but he's all right.

Dan  (01:26:53):

What does he do? He just does stuff on the ground. I think it was,

Warwick (01:26:56):

Oh yeah. Dan, Steve,

Dan  (01:27:00):

She must say something like what does he ride? You know? Cause, cause we don't hear what she's saying, but he says he does really good stuff on the ground or something. And then she must, he must think that she replies. Does he ride? Oh yeah. No, he rides quite good too. Yeah, no he does. He rides quite well too. I know mommy hasn't won as much as me. He hasn't won as much as males. It's like this guy is a genius. It was

Warwick (01:27:26):

Him and his, his girlfriend, Chris and I spent quite a bit of time planning that thing and yeah.

Dan  (01:27:32):

Yeah, that was, that's what that was the only disappointing part was how much every apparently set up like rehearsing it all hours of the morning, but it was, it was good. You can share that video. Cause I think he tagged you in that video. You need to put that,

Warwick (01:27:47):

Put that on, on social media. That was, that was pretty funny.

Dan  (01:27:51):

You know, the other thing that happened to member Tyler bet, as you, you put that blonde wig on that I use cause I was being the I used, I was being Billy Ray Cyrus in that old town road. All you did like it. Yeah. And when we finished that show, we went back and had some drinks in our room and I still had that wig there and you put it on and you did the all screaming and screaming and you, and you did that down to a T like I couldn't believe how accurate that was. So we videoed it and then Tala made a silly bet that, you know, within 24 hours or something, we weren't gonna get 10,000 views. I think,

Warwick (01:28:37):

No. I said, I said, Oh, this is awesome. This is great. I'm going to post this. This will get 10,000 views before the weekend's over. And Tyler's like, will not momma yet. Well what'd I bet him like 500 bucks or something stupid.

Dan  (01:28:49):

It was a fair bit. Yeah.

Warwick (01:28:53):

And I think it had like 10,000 views the next morning.

Dan  (01:28:56):

Yeah. We were like, yeah, I like between you and I sharing it. There's no way it was a good video too. So you can share that one again, if you want, if you want to relieve that.

Warwick (01:29:06):

So you, you tend to have the comedic genius all the time, but for me, I've, it's gotta be two o'clock in the morning and I've had to have had a fair few realms for that to come here.

Dan  (01:29:16):

I think you're being modest,

Warwick (01:29:17):

Hidden down there deeply. So you know what, we've been chatting here for a while. I better get this in question. So as you listeners would know if you've heard other, other podcasts, I have a list of questions. I send my guests and they get to choose some of those questions that I'd like to that I get to ask them. And usually I, I intersperse the questions during the conversation, but Dan and I talk so much that we're totally forgotten. So I'm going to hit you up to finish this whole thing up here. Then I'm going to hit you up with some questions here. And the first one is what accomplishment are you most proud of?

Dan  (01:29:54):

I guess for me that the whole double Dame thing, like I'm starting double-down horsemanship and doing it with essentially a basic friend and being able to achieve the stuff that we've achieved is, is probably what I'm most proud of as far as accomplishments. If, if that's not too corny.

Warwick (01:30:15):

No, that's a, that's a great answer. Like yeah, if you think, you know, I was talking to Tristen Tucker the other day and I'm like, you know, like couple of young blokes from Australia, we're a world away from where we grew up. I mean, you were still in Australia, but just like, wait, where you guys have been in like you know, from the beginning to the, to the end. That's pretty amazing. So next question. What did you want to be as a child?

Dan  (01:30:43):

This is the funny one. So when you're sending me that I've got to put this one in there because I actually got, I wasn't, I want to say this diplomatically, but it wasn't the best student at school, which is I know hard to believe. And I was about, I was only about 10 or 11 and the deputy principal had me in his office and he said, you know, I D do you know what you want to be when you grow up? And I was just like adamant because my older brother loved cars. I was going to be a mechanic. So I'm going to be a mechanic. I'm going to leave school at 15. You know, as soon as I'm allowed to, I'm going to get a mechanic apprenticeship, I'm going to be a mechanic. Cause at that point I've never, I didn't know about horses.

Dan  (01:31:27):

Anyway, the deputy principal tried to do the right thing and he was just like, well, look, you know, you're only young and things might change. And you know, maybe you might have another career in mind that you're going to need some sort of education for and a formal education at least. And and you know, you here in a way, so you should, you should probably probably try to make sure you don't limit yourself and, and study while you're at school and pay attention and blah, blah, blah. And I was just like, so ignorant and arrogant, just, I was just like, Nope, I'm going to be a mechanic. And the funny, the reason why that's funny is obviously I didn't become a mechanic. And secondly, anyone who knows me on the least mechanical person that I know. So just the even thought of me becoming a mechanic is just ludicrous. But yet here I was at 10 years old, flat out telling a deputy principal that I was going to be a mechanic.

Warwick (01:32:31):

You know, I didn't have this earlier on, but I have been known to tell people that when I grow up, I want to be danced. These

Dan  (01:32:40):

I was actually just about to ask you, what, what was it when you, when you grown up?

Warwick (01:32:45):

Oh, I wanted to be a bull rider.

Dan  (01:32:48):

Oh yeah. So you were, cause you already, you guys, your family, we were into horses, weren't they? Yep. Yeah. So I didn't have that.

Warwick (01:32:55):

Yeah. So speaking again. And the reason I, reason I didn't become a bull rider is because I, you know, I read calves and junior Steves and junior bulls and they got on to real bulls and the scared, the crap out of me, which brings me to the next question. What is your relationship like with fear? Do you run towards it or do you find that you play things kind of close to your chest?

Dan  (01:33:16):

I'll put that in there because when we, when I get to pick some of these questions, a few things, an interesting one, because I don't, I wouldn't say that I'm I don't spend much time consumed about feel like I don't get really worried about too many things, but I, I was at a point early on was in that early on, but early on, I got really lost my confidence and my nerve like breaking in horses. I was, I was working with somebody and I was just get thrown off so many times and I was never a bronc rider. And I got to the point where I was just like flat out, refused getting on them. And I, and now it's probably something that I pride myself on now being a, you know, cold starter or starter or, you know, I've been in hates of competitions.

Dan  (01:34:06):

And I did demonstrate, you've seen me do demonstrations where, you know, there's horses that are probably, you know, we shouldn't, we need more time with, but I still get on them and do that old deal in front of, you know, thousands of people. And the thing that changed that for me was like understanding the horse a bit more and, and knowing how they work and being able to get confidence from what I know. And, and that was a big game changer for me because all of a sudden that gave me the confidence, not only with cold starting, but just, just generally with horses that are I on notice the huge shift in, in my horsemanship program. And a lot of it, again, not, not trying to sound corny or anything, but was based on, on Dane James, like he had a way with, with young horses and he was just so confident with them that very rarely anything ever went wrong.

Dan  (01:35:09):

And yet for me, everything was going wrong all the time. And I had to look at that and go what's, what's the difference. And, and so that was something that I worked on. So I probably perceive fear a lot differently. Cause I know back then I was, I was genuinely scared. Like I had fear and since then, I've never, I've never had a problem with it since. So hopefully that makes sense for some of the listeners. And I also use it in my clinics for when people do have confidence issues. Like, you know, it's something for me to remember back to that, that you know, a lot of people just see us thinking that, you know, we strap bloody fireworks to our back that we must be feelers. But I think it's about understanding more about the control and the feel.

Warwick (01:35:55):

Yeah. There's, I've seen a buck Brennaman quote, floating around the Facebook about fear and he says something about you know, knowledge overcomes fear and knowing, knowing that your preparations good and knowing what to do, if what happens really overcomes that. And he said, it's been a long time since I've been afraid because I, I can read horses. And I also, my preparation is good and I think that's, that's what you're talking about. There is, is

Dan  (01:36:24):

Good work and giant pike wonderful presentation, as long as you don't go to that, you'll be fine. That's the only,

Warwick (01:36:38):

We're going to name names here. So if you guys have listened to a previous podcast, I was talking about Jane Pike's big blue tree thing too, where you know, you can't not think about a big blue tree. If I say don't think about a big blue tree, you picture a big blue tree. And I talk about Jane talks about you. Don't want to think about what you don't want to happen. You want to think about what you do want to happen. So you want to think positively. And I had talked about a M I said, very good friend of mine. Who's an amazing horseman and starts a lot of horses at horse expos. Jane and I were doing this talk at a horse expo in New Zealand. And this friend of mine came and watched a demo. And then he went and did a cold starting.

Warwick (01:37:17):

And that night he said, Oh, you guys messed me up. And I said, why what happened? And he said, well, I've never thought about things going wrong. And after you guys were talking about that, I was getting on that horse. And I'm thinking, well, what if he does this? And what if he does that? And that was the one and only Dan Steve's in that, in that story. So, yeah. Sorry about messing you up. But I talk about that a lot. D and I say, I tell people that you said, I really had no idea that it was possible to think that way. And that's, and I clinics, I talk about that. I name you. And I say the story, and I say, how would your life be different if couldn't, couldn't imagine failure? You know, if you, if you couldn't, if you didn't think about what might go wrong and everybody's eyes kind of roll back in their head and they're like, Holy cow, I'm always thinking about failure. So, yeah, that's a great question. Next question, Dan, what have you changed in the past five years that has helped shaped who you have become?

Dan  (01:38:17):

I think the, the way that I, I guess, looked at, looked at that question was for me something that I preach a lot now is seeing things from the author's perspective a lot more like will purely seeing it from the horse's perspective. I think that even though, you know, when Dan and I, we were really young and ambitious and the Liberty thing is a funny, the funny thing, because they really get a horse to, to work at Liberty. You need to create that willingness. And within that willingness, you do have to see things from the horse's perspective. But also I think in a way it can be almost to the detriment that you can learn how to get inside a horse's head and you learn how to make things happen as well. So for a short amount of time, and I hope it was only a short amount of time in reflection that as Dan and I got and I shouldn't throw him under the bus, but, but I'm just saying, you know, I'll just use myself as an example that as we're going through it, and we're learning more and more how to get horses to do some of this stuff, I'm at Liberty that I used it in my horsemanship program.

Dan  (01:39:34):

And it was, it was more about, you know, getting the horses to do things more in spite of us than for us, if that makes sense. I don't want to give you a loan, but it's, it was about pressure and not about release. And, and and then afterwards, when I could see the difference, the Liberty now has taught me more about horsemanship than, than anything else in the last five years. It's about really creating look, you know, when you talked about double image running to that beanbag, for example, like he will run to that beanbag from any way, like, Oh, I haven't found any way that he won't run to it. Like as far as distance open fields, you know, I just haven't found where he won't run to it from, and you know, how quiet and how well trained he is. If he, he will, like, when he's going to run back to that Bain bag, you can be leading that host away.

Dan  (01:40:29):

And if you get that cue wrong and he thinks it's time to go, he will dislocate your arm over the top of you to get back to that beanbag. And I'm like, what? I've taught him to do it, but I don't understand why he does it. Like he has so many other options. I've tested this where he has so many other options. And if I take him off that beanbag and I do it again, he just gets faster and I don't control the speed. I'm not chasing him. No one's chasing, there's no pressure on him. And when I finally figured it out that it was that he he's running there for the release. It's like, you know, I say to people in the clinics, I'm like, you know, when you're a horse and I'm like that, they end up figuring out that you're the, you're the cloud of pressure that you're riding this horse.

Dan  (01:41:15):

And you've always got enough per little bit of pressure on him. And it's like, this gray cloud is following the horse around. And he's like, Jesus just don't feel comfortable. You know, it's just, it's just a bad day. And then when you go and let's say, you've got this paddock and he's got all his mates in this paddock and in this field or this pasture, whatever country you're in and it's might even be a bit downhill and it's big and it's open. And all the other horses are in this paddock and they ride in the furthest corner and you go, and after you've written your horse, you go and let him go. I'm like, what does he do? They're like, well, he runs flat out, down to his mate. I said, he runs their flat out. And I said, generally, when he gets there, he shakes.

Dan  (01:41:54):

And he's like, and I'm like, that's the horse figuring out that he's got rid of us. He's got rid of that dark gray cloud. When he gets down there, there isn't a dark gray cloud anymore. It's just sunshine and lollipops. And this is the equivalent of double image running to that beanbag for him. It's, it's his bean bag. He's running there. He owns it. He's released the pressure. It's his willingness and drives it. So for me, the Liberty horses have taught me, how do we, how do we transfer that to everything? How do we create this horse? That it should be harder to get him? Like, you know, we talked about writing at the start. This is an example, like, you know, in the writing spin, right. For example, the writing spin, tell me if I'm wrong, but it's harder. Once you've taught the reigning spinning, you've got to show horse. It's harder to stop him from spinning than it is to get him to spin. Is that correct?

Warwick (01:42:46):

Yeah. Well, you tend to teach it, tend to teach them that the spin is that is the happy place. And so they're always searching for that happy place. Yeah.

Dan  (01:42:55):

Yeah. So when you go to shut them down and cause you get a penalty, right? If you overspend or underspend, even you're going to get a penalty. So you have to practice more like this is what I couldn't get my head around. Like, why is it so hard to stop a horse from spinning? It's not hard to stop miles from spinning. As soon as I stopped riding, he stopped spinning because it wasn't doing it right. You know, when it's his spin, like I show him a demo and I get one of my horses and it doesn't matter who I'm riding. Like they're not, they're not reigning horses. I don't train reining horses. I train cow horses and I'll just get them on a circle and I'll start trotting them around. But I'll just bump a little bit. You know, I just, I have a crappy little, you know, I'm not, I don't ride with rhythm.

Dan  (01:43:36):

Basically. I just sit and like a second potatoes. And I bump around with my bum, my legs bumped a little bit. And my hands bumped a little bit. And all that horse wants to do is get into that spin, but I won't let him. And then the moment that I go quiet that also starts spinning. And I use that as a demonstration to say, that's, that's the, that's how you can incentivize like the horse going well, that spin is so good. Look at this spin. If I get into this spin, I can make my, my rider become a good rider or my human become a good rider. Like they own it. It becomes theirs. So for me, that's all like I'm trying to get my horses to that. They're already teaching humans as it is, but I just want them to teach humans with the correct response. And that that's my big deal at the moment. So for me, I know it's a long answer to a short question, but in the last five years, it's probably trying to get to get that, to just get those horses more willing. And, and, and that side of things is as has really changed my program. And I think I'm seeing the benefits of it now.

Warwick (01:44:44):

Good answer. So one last question here, and this one could be an interesting one. So these questions came from a book called tribe of mentors by Tim Ferris. And he interviewed, you know, all sorts of interesting people and got all these answers. And this one, this question is, what advice would you give people who are about to enter your occupation? And then in parentheses, it says this one may be difficult. As many of us have occupations that are far from, from normal. And like for you first, we'd have to discuss what is your occupation? Cause you've got a number of different occupations. You train horses. So someone sends you a horse, you train it, you send it home, you do a clinic. So you travel around and you're teaching people how to train the horses, but then you have the entertainment part. So if you think about, it's not really one occupation, it's three, let's start out with the entertainment. What advice would you give people about to enter the horse entertainment occupation?

Dan  (01:45:49):

Well, I thought when I picked this, I can answer or three of them straight away. I'll let you do it your way then. Thanks. Fine. It's, it's more that, cause we do this, we've got to do a lot of talks and you do the same, you know, you travel. And I sort of probably picked myself as a clinician is probably what I would give myself as a job title. And and I get asked, you know, I do do stuff for schools and you know, younger kids and younger audiences. And also I have a lot of working students that they come through here as well. And essentially my job is to try to talk people out of it. And when I talk about it, I'm saying a job in the equestrian industry, not, not just what you guys, what you said, you know, you're a clinician, you're an, an a, Tyna, you're a horse trainer, but I'm just talking about this as a job in the equestrian field, because you know, and you're probably in the same boat as Dan and I, we had everybody try to talk us out of this as a job, you know, because yeah, you won't make money and you work really hard and you do this and you do that.

Dan  (01:46:54):

And it's, and I have this from people that I respected, but it was almost like you just say to them, like our respect, you know what you're saying? But I'm still gonna do it in a way. And I think if you have that mentality, it will work. So when I do talks at school, I'm like, I'm going to try to talk you out of it. I'm going to tell you become anything else, make money, and then enjoy your horses on the side. I'm not trying to talk people out of being with horses, right? I'm just trying to say that if, if you're not passionate and you don't have the drive, like everybody that I know that's successful with horses, all work extremely hard to get to where they've got and what I'm finding. And you tell me if I'm wrong. But you know, with this next generation of people sort of coming up into the industry, they lack that drive and that passion.

Dan  (01:47:48):

And they always think like we get people coming to our clinics and they just think that, and I've heard you talk about this. Like you're an overnight success that only took care of what, you know, whatever it is. I sign overnight. Success is seven years, but you might say it's longer. Yeah it's but they think that you've got the answers. And if they just shortcut the system by coming directly to you, then they're going to get that answer. Like if I just go to a dance, these clinic or work chili clinical who have his clinic that you're going to make most great, you're going to make me great. You know, you do it so easily that it must be a secret that no other horse trainer knows there's nobody in the world has figured it out except for us. And we can share it with them and they gonna have this amazing experience when they actually see the dedication that goes on behind the scenes.

Dan  (01:48:41):

Very few. And I don't know if I'm generalizing live up to that expectation of being able to have that same passion or drive that that we have. And so if I can talk you out of it, I'm not saying, like I said before that you've got to get out of horses, but it might not be a job or career because it's, it's long dies, you know, it's, it's, there's no, there's no time off. Like, you know, I've, I've missed family's weddings and you know, I'm significant birthdays and Christmases and all of that stuff because we've been doing something with horses and and it's, to me, that's, that's how I perceive it. I dunno. Am I wrong?

Warwick (01:49:27):

Yeah. A couple of years ago I was talking to Jonathan Fields. So friend of both of ours, very, very amazing horseman

Dan  (01:49:36):

Crush him.

Warwick (01:49:37):

Yeah, man crashing it. We all do. And he was saying he was listening to a Howard stern interview. Ed Sheeran and ed Sheeran was talking about how we slept on couches for years, you know? And he was struggling,

Warwick (01:49:48):

Musician, whatever. And

Dan  (01:49:51):

I think he was famous, but Tommy was 19. But anyway

Warwick (01:49:53):

She is. But anyway how it's done said to him, so what was your plan B and ed Sheeran said, I didn't have a plan B. And he said, I can tell you, I can list right off my, off the bat right now. I can tell you 10 others who as famous as me and they didn't have a plan B. And the only reason they're famous is because they didn't have a plan B because when it gets, if you've got a plan B, like if this doesn't work, I'm going to fall back on that. What happens is when it gets hard going forward, you get out it's, this is not for me. And you go back to your plan B. And he said, so anyway, he said like, when the, when the Vikings went to invade wherever they invaded, when they got there, they've burnt their ships. When they got there, we're not going to run back. This is either gonna work or it's not sort of thing. And I know that's not the best maybe, you know, career advice for people.

Dan  (01:50:46):

It was perfect. I was like, I think you just sum that up. Like whether it's you or a JIRA, but that, that is, that is a hundred percent rod Dan. And I talk about that now that, you know, it's really hard to start a new venture. You know, we get these ideas, but it's hard to get them up and roll. And because we were already doing what we want to do. But when, when we started, we always thought that, and we talk about it in our podcast, that if we just, when we just do this next shy, when we just do this next, whatever, it was going to be the turning point for our careers. And that was, everything was going to be easier. Once we did that, whatever that was, it was everything. We just wanted everything to become easier. And inevitably you do that one show or whatever it was, and nothing changed. You know, you got a tiny step closer. It's probably all that happened, but not a significant change, but we didn't run back without tile between that Lake. Cause we just went, Oh, okay. We've got to do the next beach show. What is that big show? And it was all because we did not have a plan B, we had a plan. We were.

Warwick (01:51:56):

Yeah. So I think, I think having a plan B in life in different careers is good. But when you take a career, that is not, you know, it's not mapped out. It's, it's, it's, it's not quantifiable. You've got to really believe in what you're doing. And, and I, you know, I think that's what you and Dan have been really good at. So we've got to finish this thing up here, cause I've been talking for an hour and 54 minutes and I have a zoom call. I gotta get on here a minute ago, which I thought I'd have plenty of time between token to you.

Dan  (01:52:25):

What's your zoom call. What's his other call that I'm not involved in?

Warwick (01:52:29):

There's two, a last weekend. I went to a or two weekends ago, I went to a men's. It was called a men's emotional resilience training. Like the guy that teaches it. He is a former combat soldier has lots of first responders, cops, things like that in there.

Warwick (01:52:47):

The, and me and so we've got homework to do from that thing. And we've, and this is going to be, so it must be two weeks since we were there. This is our first biweekly zoom call to, to check in with everybody and see how they're all going. Did you do homework? I did my homework actually good at my, it feels like I've taken over. Well, thanks for being on my podcast. You're welcome, Dave. I've got to get off your podcast so I can get on my zoom call, but Dan, thanks so much for joining me on here. It's always a pleasure to chat with you and I really can't wait to see the next time we get to catch up. So thank you so much for being on and absolutely. Thanks for having me. And then we're going to get you on our podcast soon enough and I'll have to now think of like all new content to put on there since we nearly covered everything. Right. So yeah, if you guys are listening and you want to, to learn the whole life story of, of Dan, if you go on the double and podcast, it's available on all the platforms and amazingly entertaining and astonishing life that these guys have lived. So thanks Dan. And thank you guys for joining us here on the journey on podcast. Thanks buddy. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 8 (01:54:10):

Thanks for listening to the journey on podcast with work Schiller Warrick has over 650 full length training videos on his online video library at videos dot [inaudible] dot com. Be sure to follow Warrick on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, to see his latest training advice and insights.