Greetings from Dusty and Courtenay in Sweden!
First off I must apologize for the delay in commencing my reports from our Excellent European Adventure. As one might imagine, it has been a whirlwind these past few days, with scarcely enough time for meals, much less sleep! It's hard to believe that today is day five since our departure on Monday. However I fully intend to fill you in on as many details as possible, so grab a seat!
DAY 1 - Monday February 8th
The excitement of the past few months finally began to culminate on Monday morning, as we made our last minute preparations for our scheduled departure from Vancouver at 3:45 in the afternoon. Anyone who has spent time with Courtenay and myself in close proximity, can only imagine the energy level on the car ride into town!
Everything went smoothly with our flight leaving on time and in good weather conditions. The plan at this point was to arrive in Frankfurt at approximately 11am on Tuesday the 9th, for a short layover before the connecting flight to Copenhagen departing at 2:05pm. Upon arrival in Copenhagen, we were to make the one and a half-hour drive to Hasselholm, Sweden, and our reservation at Hotel Statt. Thinking that we should be there around 5:30pm, we had arranged to view a couple of horses at Jan Brink's stable, which is only 10 minutes from the hotel. Unfortunately, due to the unseasonably cold temperatures and winter weather conditions in Europe, our flight was delayed and actually departed at 3:45. We were able to notify Jan of our delay from Courtenay's laptop in the airport, and still planned to make the trip to his farm that evening. Upon landing in Denmark we were faced with a minor discrepancy with regards to our rental car, and faced another hour's wait while they readied the vehicle. At this point it was looking like we wouldn't be in Hasselholm until 7:30pm, and in our travel-weary state the decision was made to forego the evening's plans and rather try to catch up on some sleep at the hotel - neither of us had slept much on the plane, as we anticipated the amazing horses and people we would see and meet here in Europe. With the 9 hour time difference, this meant that we had now been awake for close to thirty hours. Nevertheless our spirits were high as we loaded up the Ford Focus and headed out onto the highway.
I must say that whoever invented the portable GPS is my hero. By entering the hotel's coordinates, we were immediately provided with directions from the airport. The road names in Denmark and Sweden, with either a surplus or complete lack of vowels, made for entertaining fodder on our journey. Denmark and Sweden are connected by a bridge, one of the largest we have ever seen. We experienced some mild confusion when passing through the tollbooth preceeding this bridge, partially due to the language barrier when deciphering all the signs, but also the slight delerium we were experiencing at this point in the evening! As we pulled up to the toll, we were surprised to find no attendant, only a machine with a number of symbols and words written in what looked like gibberish. Courtenay was able to identify a help button, and we were relieved to hear a human voice when she pressed it. This relief was immediately and momentarily replaced by sheer terror when the voice recited what sounded like a borsht recipe from the Swedish chef on the Muppets. Luckily our whimpering English was acknowledged and this human being appeared from what seemed like nowhere. Apparently very large and beautiful bridges cost a lot of money to build and maintain, as we surmised based on the toll fee of 39 Euros! Our reaction must have been evident, as this woman exclaimed, "Bit of a shock, eh?! Haha, You're in Sweden now!" giving us a bit of a chuckle as we headed off towards Hasselholm.


Hotel Statt is in a small city called Stortorget in Hasselholm. The drive from Copenhagen took us through a lot of rolling countryside, and although it was dark the snow provided some illumination, making our trek into the unknown slightly less intimidating. The houses here are all done in a quaint country style, looking very cozy with little lanterns in every window. As we neared the city of Stortgart, the landscape changed to narrow roads with small shops and brick buildings, with Hotel Statt facing onto the town square. Incidentally, with the snow covering the cobblestones, we actually mistook this town sqare for a parking lot and drove right through the middle, luckily going unnoticed as the town seems to shut down after 6pm.
The evening started a little rough when the hotel's internet connection had failed upon our arrival, rendering us incommunicado with our friends and family back home! For Courtenay and I, who rely on emails, texting, and checking Facebook roughly one hundred times a day, this isolation fostered some minor anxiety to say the least. Much to our relief, the connection had been restored right before we went to bed, so we were able to at least notify family members of our safe arrival, and collapsed into bed at around 10:30pm. Exhausted but pleased to have completed the day's travels, we checked into our hotel room, ran down for a quick snack in the restaurant, and prepared to settle in for the night.
Day 2 - actually it's day 3 now because it took us two days to get here! Wednesday Feb 10th



Wednesday was now to be our first day of horse ogling, beginning at 7am and being picked up by none other than Jan Brink himself. Despite our long journey, neither of us had been able to sleep much more than two hours. The time difference combined with our excitement kept us awake, and by morning we had each had about 4 hours of sleep over the last 48! Thankfully caffeine and adrenaline kicked in to pull us through. Jan and his wife Catharina picked us up in their Mercedes and we jettisoned down the highway - at least initially - until we had an interesting altercation with a middle aged woman who had chosen to 'play police' as Jan said. We had been cruising along in the left lane, and the drivers here are generally very good about yeilding over to the right to allow the faster drivers to pass. This particular citizen, it seems, felt that courtesy was unneccessary and seemed to intentionally slow as we desceded upon her. Some hand gestures were displayed, and she seemed to speed up, if only to repeat this exercise several times! According to our hosts, it is an offense to use the right lane to pass, so they couldn't possibly do so, and subsequently we continued to tail this Volkswagen at various speeds, at times as slow as 20km/hr on a 100km/hr highway! Much gesticulating and laying on the horn was accompanied by a steady stream of high-volume Swedish being spoken by and between Jan and Catharina. I can only assume that some of these words were 'colorful', but perhaps I am mistaken. As you can imagine, Courtenay and I were in the back seats giggling like schoolgirls, seemingly being the only people to see the humour in this situation! In any event the driver of the Volkswagen must have seen and heard this display, and eventually brought her vehicle to a complete stop, right in the middle of the highway! Drivers in the right lane blew by, honking their horns and shaking their fists, as this woman exited her vehicle and approached us. Courtenay and I tried not to laugh too obviously as the Swedish yelling contest ensued at our window, only drawing to a close when Catharina picked up her cell phone and - very loudly - calling the police. The woman got back in her VW and finally admitted defeat, pulling into the right lane. This certainly made for an interesting start to the day!
Luckily the day did improve from there. We dropped Catharina in town to take the underground train to her job as a lawyer in Copenhagen, and continued on to our first destination, a barn in a town called Odense. Here we saw a lovely chestnut gelding who, although not yet showing at Grand Prix, impressed us with his top-class talent for piaffe and passage. From there we moved on to a beautiful barn a little further into the countryside. It was and still is very cold, generally around -4 degrees celsius, with an ever-present bone chilling wind. This barn was very ornate with beautiful brass stall fronts and cobblestone aisles, as well as a beautiful setting like something out of "The Sound of Music". The only thing missing was some insulation from the frigid cold! Here we saw another talented gelding, this time a bay, with very lofty gaits. The owner must have noticed us eyeing the horse's tail, as she immediately spoke some Swedish to Jan, who explained to us that the horse had torn out a large portion of his tail, and so for esthetic purposes they had employed the use of a false tail while showing the horse. You know what they say, the clothes make the man!


As an aside, we noticed that most of the barns here have the most fabulous footing in their indoor arenas. Neither of us has seen this material back home; it's a blend of wax, fibre, and sand. It seems to provide a lovely spring for the horses, and never requires watering because of the wax content. It also comes in different shades! Jan Brink uses this footing at his barn as well, which was our next stop.



If you've ever visited Jan Brink's website, www.tullstorp.nu, you will have some idea of the luxury that is evident in every detail on his farm. From the hand-made rock walls surrounding the 50-acre estate, to the in-ground LED lights that line the shedrows of the stables at night. The exteriors of the buildings are all decorated in the traditional style, with wrought-iron lampposts and hedges surrounding the yard as well as the two outdoor arenas. There are several buildings on the property, as in addition to Jan's beautiful home there is the main barn, a stallion barn, riding hall, and several houses for grooms and visitors. Jan explained to us that the property has the capacity to house up to twenty-two people, including their eleven on-site staff members.
Here at Tullstorp, we were shown a stunning Chestnut gelding by Briar, (same sire as my Brianna) who is schooling all the Grand Prix. It was immediately evident that a correct, systematic training routine has been used as this horse has moved up the levels.



His young owner showed him to us first, before Courtenay climbed aboard and put him through his paces. After the horse had been worked, we were lucky enough to have Jan give us a private tour of the facilities, the highlight of which for me was of course getting to step into Briar's stall and pat him on the nose! As one might suspect he is a total pocket pony and seems to exude an air of quiet confidence in the knowledge that we are all there to see him.
It was getting late so we headed back to the hotel to quickly change before dining at a local restaurant with Jan and Catharina. They are both very warm and gracious people, and regaled us with stories of some of the visitors they have had over the years. Jan also shared some of his views on training, teaching, and running a business in this crazy horse world. He was very encouraging in speaking of young trainers who had learned a work ethic at an early age, versus others who may have had it easier growing up and found it too much of a struggle getting started in this business. Courtenay and I both shared of our experiences in riding and working with Dietrich, and what a struggle it was for both of us to have lost our mentor. Jan agreed on the importance of having such a person to look to in regards to not only training, but the overall picture of life in the horse industry.
Feeling warm and fuzzy after a long day, we retired to Hotel Statt and fell into bed once again. Stay tuned for the next installment, wherein we visit horses in Denmark as well as Sweden.