Hi folks, just a little report about my trip last week to Sweden. I was in Sweden long enough to give six days worth of clinics.
The first clinic was not supposed to be quite as advanced as the second, however, both of them came very close to being advanced. I think the groups overall, had more knowledge and skills than most any of the clinics I give here in the United States. I attribute some of that to the fact that I’ve been there for a number of years in the past, so I’ve worked with them before; however, the real reason is that every person that came to my clinics in Sweden (and by the way both clinics filled a month ahead of time) owned a copy of Cowhorse U and had studied it diligently. Everybody there could do 5 Easy Pieces, understood collected sequence stops and definitely understood the turns and lead changes. They understood everything so it made it really easy for me to pick them all up and advance them in the directions that they wanted to go.
We had nice horses, the students were very, very attentive, and they had their bright lights on. They were there to see and hear what they could and get the most out of it, which they did do a very good job. Both clinics were cowhorse clinics, and would you believe we had decent cattle this time! The cattle are soft compared to our standards, however they were fresh. They all looked liked show steers to me, they were fat and kind of gentle, but they worked ok for us and we were happy with that.
The quality of the riders and horses like I said were excellent overall and definitely above many clinics I give here in the United States. It’s is not uncommon when we go out of the country that we sometimes see better students.
The second clinic I gave was advanced cowhorse clinic and we had some advanced riders we had some really good horses in the bridle that could show here tomorrow and do well. The star of the show to me was my friend Hakan Bergh. Hakan had a really, really nice horse and it’s not always the easiest thing for him to do – but he’s the most intense student and he works really, really hard at it – and his little horse got better and better. So Hakan (who by the way put the clinic on along with my other friend Per Larsson) had a great clinic – both of them did some really, really good things. Everybody in the clinic did good, but I was especially proud of Hakan because he had such a difficult time at the beginning and came out so good at the end.
Very interesting when I go to other countries, it’s always an adventure. My friend Glen (who is the local museum curator and historian for the little town in Sweden that we go to for the clinics) gave me information that just last September there was a gravesite that was uncovered, that contained horses and riders alike. Like a ditch or moat that was filled with mud, and it preserved horses and riders intact! They all got killed in a battle somewhere, like 500 of them, they got dumped in this ditch, and they just recently uncovered them. They don’t know too much about it except that it exists. Even the hardware is still intact. Silver and gold adorned horse and rider armor, and some of the leather, from the year 400 or 500 A.D., like 2000 years old! I get really excited about that stuff, so next year when I go back Glen will take me to go see that.
I learned they have native Swedes as we have Native Americans, which we call Indians, they have a type of Indian in Sweden. I never heard of before. There are not a lot left, but the ones that exist raise reindeer. They herd the reindeer around and put them in a giant round coral to do things like ear mark, vaccinate, and brand these reindeer – well here is the interesting part. They don’t know very much about their Indians, at least they don’t talk like they do, but these Indians rope these reindeer. They head and heal them; they team rope these reindeer with really nice riatas like as in Spanish riatas. This is interesting, they are very skilled with these riatas, they can rope big horns as in reindeer horns and catch them both with one loop, and that’s hard to do, and then heal the reindeer, they understand healing. I always pictured Leif Erickson and the early discovers of Sweden, and I wonder if the Spanish didn’t get there first, you never know. I don’t know where these guys would learn to braid riatas like a Spanish riata and use them. Anyway that’s all interesting stuff.
Other than that, it was cold there, but not unbearable, I got upgraded to first class coming home, loved it, and laid down in my chair just like a bed. Other than that, my thanks to Per and Hakan for putting on a wonderful clinic and taking good care of me which they surely did. I enjoyed it very much, the people at the hotel I stayed knew I liked strawberry smoothies and gave me a one every day for breakfast and dinner, couldn’t do any better than that.
Thanks for reading….
Hi Les, I just found out you have a blog and have been catching up on reading it. Good stuff! Very ‘Les.’
Wanted to comment on the native Swedes that you describe as similar to our native Americans. One of my great grandmothers was ‘native Swede,’ with black hair, black-brown eyes, very high cheekbones, small but tough stature. She was orphaned as an infant and raised by a family of the blond, blue-eyed folks we ordinary associate with Sweden. The entire family emigrated to the U.S. in the 1870s, when my great grandmother was about 12, and she was often mistaken for a native American child.
She had 12 children of her own, thus many descendants, and quite a few, including two of my brothers, look more like American Indians than they do Nordic types.