horse travel

A few of my favorite things:
The tee shirt that Jo Fanelli, a friend and poster on yourhorsesports, made for me. The tee shirt has a close up of my beloved old eventer, Volare screened on the front. I bring Volare on every trip now, thanks to Jo.

My Cavallo paddock boots and chocolate brown Pikeur breeches, both purchased at significant discounts in a small town in Germany where I spend time every year riding. About the only things cheaper in Europe than the U.S. are riding breeches and boots.

My "Browbands by Design" belt that matches Baleno's somewhat bling-y browband. Looks great with jeans and dresses up black work slacks very nicely.

So if you read the earlier post, you'd know I've been in search of the rare Czech Kladruby horse.

Well I found them today! About 50 km from Prague, by train, plus about 4 km of walking to the National Stud--owned by the government, which keeps the bloodlines of five Kladrubys going strong. There are hundreds of white, grey and black horses there, in a somewhat rough-around-the-edges but once grand palace and stables. The horses have prominent roman noses but otherwise resemble outsized Andulasians. That's their origin, in fact. The Kladruber were used as carriage horses--white for royalty and black for church functions, from the 17th century until today. During the war and the Soviet occupation, not much happened in Czech equestrian sports, but nowadays (that the Czech republic is part of the EU), there is a very real effort to bring up the interest in all things equine. There are hundreds of acres of fields, cross country jumps, and carriage driving obstacles, and the whole town of Kladruby bad Ladem (don't forget the last two words if you want to get to the right town...see earlier post!)

Apologies for the absence over the past couple of days. I'm in the Munich airport in Germany... Although the past few days have been relatively un-horsified, we did manage to visit Nymphenberg, the summmer palace of the German royalty in the 18th century. Nymphenberg is famous for its carriage and harness collection, and its horse portraits--all exquisitely painted, of the royal riding horses with the southern Bavarian landscape (and often the Alps) in the background. I got some good names for horses--since all the portraits had a gold frame and the name of the horse (but not the rider) engraved on the bottom. One was Lucrezia, another Hugilosposa (his barn name would be "Hughey" I imagine), and yet another was Cosa-Sara. Cosa (obviously a mare, and one of the few grey horses in the portrait collection) was pictured standing by a small cafe table where lunch had recently been eaten. The horse was nosing around the leftover food and knocking over a wine glass.