One week ago on January 20, 2018 the ‘All about Wetzlgut’ event took place. What at first started out as a small idea grew into a proper event. As it was the first time ever I opened my stable doors to the public I wanted to offer a full insight to everything that is important to me.

So I made a list, that started with young horse training and ended with gummy bears…

At 12am guests started to arrive and Bad Gastein showed its most beautiful postcard-winter wonderland-sunny weather-face. Just perfect for welcoming everyone in front of the stables with a cup of hot glogg and a photo wall to take first pics.

I am still overwhelmed everyone came -most traveling really far (Norway, Sweden, Italy etc). Also almost all my sponsors came and we finally had the chance to meet in person and chat.

We started the afternoon’s programme with a tour through the stable, so everyone could meet all the horses. When planning the event’s schedule I had wondered how the horses would react to such a crowd of people in their usually very quiet home and I learned that they had the time of their life.

 

Next was showing some of the horses in training together with my trainer Jochen Rothleitner. Since we started organising ‘All about Wetzlgut’ I was thinking how I should do it and what I wanted to show and communicate. We discussed it a lot and finally decided on not doing the usual ‘display’, like on stallion shows or auctions but to try to make it an interactive dialogue with the audience. I wanted people to ask as many questions as possible and me on horse back and my trainer would answer.

This turned out to be (I believe not only for me) really interesting and good fun. We were discussing topics from how to lunge correctly and what we focus on doing so, how to adjust the side reins and why, etc. How to develop first piaffe steps and why it is a good exercise to not only enhance the horse’s health but also the communication between horse and rider. To how to sit smoothly and correctly on a horse, with me ending up explaining & showing whilst trotting Harry one-handed in front of the stands… lol.

Most amazing for me was to see how my young horses, like Harry or Santi for example, managed the whole situation. It was not only the stands, displays, buffet and many people but also the sound system, lighting  and the whole atmosphere which they had to cope with and they handled it like true future champions.

After this ‘practical’ part we had two lectures. Nina Hammarstrom, equine nutritionist with whom I am working since May 2017 talked about aspects in nutrition especially for sport horses. Vet Antonia Zanker, Pferdeklinik Wolfesing -my trusted vet clinic, spoke about tendon injuries and how to deal with and heal them. Although we had installed some heaters on the stalls and provided blankets and hot drinks -it was rather cold, but no one could be shied away from following the lectures with keen interest. Again it was not designed as one way communication but an open discussion and if it had not been for the dinner to be served I guess we would have never stopped talking! Once again a display of what a tough bunch of people we equestrians are (as long as we can talk about our favourite topic…)

After the lectures during dinner my sponsors Back on Track and Acuswedemat had prepared surprise lotteries, so two lucky guests had the chance to win a set of my favourite Back on Track PK Scandic bandage wraps (underlayers) and a new Acuswedemat that I indeed use almost daily to relax my back muscles. -Special thanks to both companies for that!

But also all my other sponsors and cooperating brands provided displays of their newest and signature products and a separate blog story on all the exciting new tack will follow!

 

During dinner I finally had the time to sit (at least briefly) with everyone and have a little chat and for me it felt as if we all had known eachother for ages. The truth is, that thanks to all the social media we indeed do know eachother -even nicer it was to meet in person!

So what’s left to say is: THANK YOU everyone for traveling all the way to the mountains and for making my first event such a wonderful lovely experience I decided we will for sure do another ‘All about Wetzlgut’ event in the nearer future…

xxx Nicola

 

The Photowall:

all pics by awesome Marktl Photography, Manuel Marktl