I’m currently in the car, somewhere in the Netherlands, on the way to Germany. I’ve got two hours to kill, so blog post it is! 

This morning we left Bruges (after a pretty great hotel breakfast… they had giant hunks of chocolate on the fruit table…)

then we hit the road down to Asse, outside of Brussels, to visit Tal Milstein Stables. This place is absolutely top notch – beautiful facility, excellent competition horses, and nice stallions. I mean… WOW. 

We met the stallion manager Kenneth, and then the owner Tal, both of which were extremely welcoming. We watched some of his horses go while we chatted bloodlines, mares, and stallions. He has a really nice collection there (although his flagship stallion Alicante was away at a show) and it was excellent getting to see some of those guys in person.

Tal was also really fun to talk to, and treated us to a nice lunch (pizza! I’m hitting all the food groups here…) before we got back in the car to head to Zangersheide.

We got a quick tour of the facility, including the lab, offices, and barns. The highlight of which, of course, was the stallion barn!

We saw so many boys I really can’t even remember them all, but it was such a great opportunity to be able to see these famous, big name guys in person and get an idea of their character. 

So tonight we get to Warendorf, and then we don’t have a lot of driving to do for a few days. More stallions tomorrow, and day 1 of Bundeschampionate!