I took a day off from lessons just to give Carrara a simple walk, trot, canter hack and practice just a small amount of the major information I’ve learned the past few weeks here! With an ever busy schedule Anky had to depart today about half past two to be the “ribbon cutter” for the grand opening of a combination tack shop about an hour from Erp this afternoon. I was asking her about her clinic that evening and she said I could just ride with her if I wanted to leave as well at half past two. Sounded great to me as I thoroughly enjoyed riding along in the lorrey with Anky and Willeke to the reining competition!

Arriving about 15 minutes early I see the lorrey pulling out and thought I’d missed the ride but I ran into someone who said Anky was driving separate and would be leaving in just a few. Whew! I hadn’t miss the ride and it was really fun visiting with Anky (in between her phone interviews and business calls) on the drive up in her too cute yet a tad longer than your average Mini Cooper!

The people at the opening were wonderful. The place is called Countrymill and it was a combination of three existing companies as one was western, the other english and the third sold horse boxes and carriages. They desired to create a one stop shop and the place looked amazing. They also had a 20×30 arena in the back so people could bring their horses and try the products they are interested in buying! Nice!

Here’s the crowd waiting to get autographs from Anky…



They allowed the kids up in group and this was the first and cutest little girl I’d seen in a while. Her mom was just as excited as she was!



This picture is for Ex. I had to laugh and think of him as I rounded the corner of saddle pads and the digital camo was right there in my face!



After the opening, some window shopping (I tried on several styles of Anky apparel they offered there of course), and chatting with the nice folks we headed for a very nice yet quick dinner then on to the clinic. When the food server asked if I’d like a menu in English Anky replied “Nah, nah” so I guess I’m learning Dutch now! Haha! Good thing I’m not a picky eater. I was asked do you like fish or meat. I said both and I ended up having the fish. It was salmon and it was great! Gotta love being flexible!

Here’s Anky chatting with one end of the crowd. They had the arena with audience at each end (stands full of course) with the clinic riders in the middle.



This is Claudia and I near the end of Anky’s clinic.



Here’s Anky getting ready to ride Nelson to demo her training style to the audience after teaching 4 students.



The pony club kids engulfed Anky at the end of the clinic for a photo! Too cute!

It’s like Christmas every day at the stable. You never know what’s your going to get when you drive up and at first I was intimidated by it but this is actually like being in a show environment everyday so the horses will be bomb proof when traveling! There’s so much happening and changing daily with the construction and it’s quite exciting to watch it grow and change!



It was a great start to October riding alongside Hans Peter not to mention just watching Sjef and Anky training at the same time.



It’s a bittersweet week this week for me tho as the Danish rider, Bo Høstrup, who arrived the same time I did is leaving. He has two great Grand Prix horses and is such a kind and fun person to chat with. He’ll definitely be missed. It’s been really nice to get to know better all the girls that are working at the stable as well and everyone is so incredibly nice here! Here’s Bo after his last lesson (on this trip) with Anky.



Great lesson today as usual and they finally got the new solariums setup so Carrara enjoyed a nice sunbath after getting hosed off with (yeah the hot water is now working) a nice warm spray. This is definitely horsey pampering at its finest! I think we could easily work some heat lamps into the stable aisle back in NC tho!

This is HorseGirlTV’s latest PR piece with lots of fun new material being launched all the time now!

Gemert, The Netherlands October 01, 2009 Tune in. Tack up. with HorseGirlTV. There’s much new material and new happenings at HorseGirlTV this month!

Training With Anky: HorseGirlTV’s, Angelea Kelly , has relocated to Gemert, The Netherlands (Holland) to train with one of the greatest dressage competitors and trainers of all time, Anky van Grunsven at her facility in Erp. Keep up with all of Angelea’s adventures in her blog online at http://blog.HorseGirlTV.com to take a peek inside training with a top Olympian abroad.

Author Jessica Burkhart: HorseGirlTV launches a new webisode in its standard 1st and 15th monthly series interviewing tween author Jessica Burkhart. At only 22, Jessica Burkhart is leading the way for tween horse lovers with her skillfully crafted series Canterwood Crest. Jessica flew down from NYC to talk with Angelea about a passion for horses, overcoming challenges that life hands you and the development of her writing career. HorseGirlTV was honored to host Jessica and hope all the fans, tween and otherwise, find her story as inspiring as we did! Check out the latest webisode at www.HorseGirlTV.com.

New Weekly Content: HorseGirlTV has launched new weekly content. Still offering its traditional semi-monthly webisode series on the 1st and 15th, this leading edge production company adds HorseMail Minute every 22nd of the month in which host, Angelea Kelly answers fan mail directly via video replies to viewers. Further giving back to the fans, HorseGirlTV has dedicated one week to HorseGirl Of The Month with an online interview of both professional and amateur HorseGirl’s (and guys!) alike!

Giveaways: Anky Remy Carriet Dressage Saddle http://bit.ly/F2SzB AND Jessica Burkhart Canterwood Crest Series http://bit.ly/oZj3s

A local was kind enough to give me a mini tour of Gemert this afternoon after finding out I hadn’t done anything but walk to the square, the Lidl market, drive to Anky’s, a horse show and Eindhoven thus far. Gemert totally reminds me of Ashland, Oregon and definitely makes me home sick (home for me has been Ashland since I moved there in the mid 90s)! It’s this cute little town with shops, restaurants, a complete little town living experience yet with cobblestone roads, a church from the 15th century and a great deal of sad history from WW2. There’s so many neat stories about Gemert that I’ve heard only in a short time but here’s a few pictures of my little walking tour yesterday.

The vast majority is Catholic here. I’m guessing typical none practicing Catholics except for high holidays kind of Catholics tho. This is an amazing church in the middle of town. I can see it from my flat and hear the bells chime on a regular basis. It’s quite soothing actually.



This is a tomb in the very old cementary adjacent to the church. Many of the graves were dated 1800s!



This is the inside of the church. So it’s not Notre Dame but it was quite a lovely building. They were about to have a funeral so we quickly exited.



I don’t know the Catholic term for this but it’s the pulpit where the priest stands. As per the course, beautiful stained glass.



What would my mini Gemert tour be without a final stop in front of the flat where Anky lived for 10 years while residing in Gemert. The building is a flower shop on the ground floor then the apartment above.

So I has just finished filling up my super compact car hire with the cheapest petrol per litre you can buy here and I spent 37€ (approximately $57.00). I paid and pulled out of the station to follow this vehicle. Of course I would imagine you can’t get these from the car hire and it only goes max 40km per hour (about 25 miles per hour) but I bet the fuel economy is GREAT!

Being so lucky as to have my stable, arena and horse right in my back yard it’s an event to go to Anky’s twice per day (and keep up with HorseGirlTV’s current minimized production schedule). The drive from Gemert to Erp is lovely and only 15 minutes but still it consumes fuel even in my tiny, tiny two door super compact Ford Ka!

I remember driving in Spain, Germany and checking out petrol prices in England while touring the countryside and vowing never to complain about USA prices again. How quickly we forget. Perhaps if our prices were this high the massive trucks would quickly come off the roads? Nah, perhaps we’d just have even poorer rednecks if that were the case? Haha!

Well the car was cute even tho it didn’t have much “get up and go” and it definitely made the SmartCars look big!

It’s been a long and short weekend. Is that even possible? Yesterday seemed like it lasted forever but today is going by so quickly. The dedication was yesterday then Anky did a clinic in the afternoon so I gave Carrara the day off with some hand walking and hand grazing. There were large crowds of spectators at the stable and it was really cute to catch a few little girls patting Carrara on the nose as they toured the stable. Future HorseGirls right there! Here’s Carrara doing a tiny bit of digging before she gave herself a good roll!



Traffic was backed up due to an agricultural vehicle on the road so I had the chance to snap this beautiful view of a portion of my drive to the stable lined with trees.



After a long day at the barn I met Marien Hendriks. I just thought this was interesting lighting between the glass and the candle. I was joined for very interesting conversation by a famous local artist, Martien Hendriks, (http://www.ruimtelijkeverbeelding.nl/) who’s not only been commissioned for sculpture at Anky’s stable but has had the honor of the Queen on The Netherlands sitting for him not once but TWICE! Not only with Martien but others here the intellectually stimulating conversation is sooooo welcome. It’s something I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed (apart from conversations with Ex) since leaving Ashland. How fun to be able to openly express your views knowing you’ll create conversation and not stifle someone into fearing your opinions! Awesome! Back to Martien, he’s a very interesting person and some amazing works!!!!! Do check out his website and make sure to see the rearing horse piece! Wow! I’m hoping he’ll give HorseGirlTV an interview as listening to his creating process is very inspiring.



Later at home there’s no explanation for this other than I just thought Picollo was too darn cute in this moment and had to snap a picture. The intensely red carpet is such a nice juxtaposition again his coat.



On the other end of the spectrum of life in the The Netherlands, they do have join the military commercials as well and they too try to make the military look glamorous and action packed for youths. Of course they roll ever other commercial break on MTV! Of course!



And last but certainly not least yesterday evening I went with a friend to Eindhoven to see the downtown nightlife. Eindhoven is an interesting city and, I believe, one of the first ones leveled (in The Netherlands) by Nazi Germany in WW2. Coming round the bend of a small alley this church appears in the city center and of course I had to play tourist and snap a shot. They walked me up to the base to show me to look down these thick clear windows revealing human skeletons of adults, youths and even babies. The whole area was a cemetary packed with people who died from the great plague in the 1300s!!! It was interesting and sad all in the same time to remember the history of knowing it killed about 50% of the entire population! And we thought swine flu was rough!



So no lessons today at Anky’s and I’m off to review my notes from lessons this past week and work hard to train solo today and be even better prepared for my lesson tomorrow!