History
History/horses of my life, the long story:
Growing up in Hudiksvall, a small town in the middle of Sweden, I lived pretty close to the local riding school. My five year old sister brought me there already at the age of five. At six I was allowed to join the classes once a week. After some years I participated in local jumping shows on the school horses. When I was 13 years old a yellow, very fat, pony arrived to the riding school from the horse dealer. It showed out she would be my entrance to the dressage world and of course she has a special place in my heart. She was seven years old and not schooled at all, although she had nice gaits and showed potential. At the riding school some ponies and horses were allowed to compete with the ambitious students. I didn't have any pony to compete so the yellow pony was named Yellow Lady and handed out to me. So, starting from scratch, and now I really mean scratch. She was quite a big pony and I was unexperienced. I couldnt even get her into the right canter to start with and when I tried to ride on the circle I couldn't control her outside shoulder so most of the times she run away from the circle in the opposite direction. We kept training. With patient guidance from riding teacher Lena Englund we started to progress. Always focusing on the ground work, never ever permit to even think about short cuts and to be patient with this big and sometimes stubborn and temperamental mare I think this period gave me a good ground for the future.
Anyway, two years later me and Yellow Lady had won many dressage shows and even competed at the Swedish Championships. Not bad for a pony who everyday made her duties at the riding school, just like all the other school horses. A funny thing is that this was in the eighties. Yellow Lady didn't have these straight frontlegs like most horses had by then, she was very loose in her shoulders and had quite high knees and often got comments from the judges about that - as a negative thing! :)
(me and Yellow Lady winning, 1988)
By this time I got the first pony of my own. It was dark big New Forrest named Chayenne. He wasn't educated so I taught him some dressage and jumping and also competed with him. Unfortunately he wasn't as talented as Yellow Lady. At age 17 I sold Chayenne and bought my first horse - Impossible. A nine year old chestnut educated to L, I thought that was great - he already knew "everything" and was ready to compete... ;) I competed quite succesful in L-classes and later taught him the flying changes, pirouettes and even piaff. "Impe" was a very good-hearted horse, maybe not the most smooth and elastic horse in the world but he always did a good work. His speciality later showd out to be the one-tempis and he also did really nice piaff.
At the age of 20 I moved to Stockholm to work full time with horses. I started as a groom for Eva Perninge. She is the owner of Hogsta ridanläggning - one of the best facilities in Sweden when it comes to dressage, hosting several international Grand Prix riders where of course Louise Nathhorst is the most well-known. Working at Hogsta and for Eva was a real eye-opener, so much good riding to watch and learn! I trained with Eva but also got the opportunity to train with Louise! After grooming Eva's horses for a year I went to Germany. For almost a year I worked at Wolf Rohlf's sales stable outside Hamburg. I worked together with Jörg Kreutzmann, an international show jumping rider, so all of a sudden I was jumping again! Of course I was also riding the dressage horses at the facility. I had many many hours in the saddle here.
One year later I moved back to Hogsta and worked for Louise Nathhorst for a year and a half. This also was a very valuable time and I got to train all the younger horses under Louise's supervision.
In 1998 I started to studied and in 2003 I got my exams from University, a master in computer and systems science and in business administration. During all this time and also today I have tried to keep my business with horses running. I have all the time trained and competed own and client's horses and also had engagements as a trainer.
In 2003 I bought Cortison from an old friend, Helena Schönborg. Funny thing with Cortison is that he, just like me, was born and raised in Hudiksvall.
