Mariett, the 17-year-old Danish Warmblood ridden by Lars Petersen and owned by Petersen and Marcia Pepper, is probably the ultimate zen goddess of high performance dressage: she begins her early morning routine with a deep stretch while standing in the crossties.

“She’ll go down in Downward Dog and put her legs in front of her and her sternum will touch the ground,” her groom, Mallory Brown from Ohio, said. “She dips that low. And she’ll stretch up through her back−every morning when I am brushing her. She’ll go down 10 times in the morning. Then, she’ll say ‘All right. Where’s my sugar?’”

Petersen said they teach all their horses to stretch in the crossties, but Mariett (Come Back II—Zendi, Sidney) takes it to the extreme.

“The first thing she does when she gets in the crossties is she stretches so her elbows are almost on the ground,” he said. “And then quick up and get a cookie. It goes two more minutes and she does it again. And again. And again. And again.”

Although Brown, Petersen, his wife Melissa Taylor, and the rest of the staff at Legacy Farm in Loxahatchee, Fla., don’t reward every stretch unless it’s worthy of a treat, Mariett gets her fill of apples, bananas, carrots, sugar and horse cookies. She’s especially fond of the green apples she gets at shows.

Judging by her schedule, Mariett probably gets lots of green apples. She and Petersen celebrated a successful season at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival in Wellington, Fla., with top finishes throughout the 12-week festival, including a blue ribbon in the CDI5* Grand Prix freestyle with a 79.17 percent. They just returned from the 2015 Reem Acra World Cup Dressage Final in Las Vegas where they scored a 73.83 percent in the Grand Prix freestyle, riding for Petersen’s native Denmark.

Not only is the mare a yogi master, there are probably some other things your don’t know about her that happen behind the stall door:

• She lets down her calm exterior when she goes into the arena, especially on Friday nights for the freestyle at the Adequan Global Dressage Festival.

  “When she exits the barn area and heads down the bridle path to the arena, her stride is like ‘Here we GO!’” Petersen said. “She looks around, and it’s the lights and it’s the people and it’s the atmosphere. She loves it at night with all the extra energy. The more people, the better for her. And then she hears that music and she gets her cue and she’s like ‘All right. Lets, do it!’”

  She loves performing. “That’s what she craves,” Petersen said.

Mariett and Mallory Brown 

• When she gets to a show, she immediately practices her yoga and does the Vishnuasana, or “lying down on sides” pose, which is followed by a nap and another stretch.

  “When she gets to the horse show and she likes her stall and she gets into a comfortable place, a happy place, she’ll always lay down,” Taylor said. “Within the first hour if she’s feeling good about herself, she’ll want to lay down and curl up.”

• Her groom is so dedicated to her charge, she sleeps in the tack stall next to Mariett at shows.

  “I love her like I love my own horse,” Brown said. “I’m here for her protection.”

Groom Mallory Brown is particularly close to Mariett. 

• She loves people, especially her rider.

  She is really into her people,” Taylor said. “She knows who cares for her.  She lights up for Mallory and she adores Lars. I don’t think many other riders could make her do what she does for Lars.”

  Brown agreed. “If I’m hand-walking her by the arena and she hears his voice, her ears go toward the arena and she almost cuts in front of me to see him,” she said. “If he passes by the entrance to the barn, she immediately starts pawing. ‘Dad. Come back. Where did you go?’ He knows she’s not going to stop until he comes up there with sugar or a treat or a banana.”

• She’s tough. She was sidelined for two years after a serious injury when she tore off half of her left front hoof from the coronary band down.

  “I think the biggest thing for her, in my eyes, is she is like a warhorse,” Taylor said. “What she went through with her injury and what she has become, I think that’s what makes us most proud of her. Even if she never does any more competitions, where she came from and what she was, to become what she is now is pretty spectacular. I think that speaks for itself.”

Namaste, Mariett. Namaste.