HIS&HERS
GUNNAR ØSTERGAARD: Get Up and GO
HERS: What do you remember about your first horse
or pony?
HIS: My first horse was Johnny, a spooky Danish
Knabstrupper that my father liked to parade around
town on Sundays. One day Johnny couldn’t decide if
he was more scared of the railroad cars or the harbor
– they wound up three feet away from getting soaked!
HERS: What do you like best in a horse? In a person?
HIS: I love a happy horse with a good work ethic, and
honesty and kindness in a person.
HERS: What book would you like to time to read?
HIS: I keep going back to a 600-page book about
300,000 Danish emigrants that settled in the United
States between 1850 and 1920. There are so many
stories about the hard lives they faced and many
did not even survive the trip below deck on
overcrowded boats.
HERS: Last streaming series you binge-watched?
HIS: I don’t watch much TV, mostly news and politics.
HERS: Is there a job in your past never included on
your résumé?
34 www.EliteEquestrianMagazine.com
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EQUINE Lifestyle
As a teenager, Danish horseman Gunnar Østergaard
knew his passion was destined to be his profession. He
apprenticed with Karl Diel in Germany (coincidentally at
the same time as Herbert Rehbein) and after returning
to Denmark at age 23, earned the attention of Gunnar
Andersen, who provided the horses and chances to learn
more, gain experience, and train up to Grand Prix level.
In 1975, he was named National Danish Professional
Champion and a year later, came to the United States,
where his reputation and clientele grew to include
schooling Olympic show jumping and three-day riders in
dressage. In 1977, F. Eugene Dixon invited him to train
his daughter, Ellin, so Gunnar and his wife Birgit moved
to Dixon’s 500-acre Erdenheim (German for “home on
earth”) Farm, launching a long, successful relationship
that included a 1981 USDF Grand Prix national
championship for the Dixon mantelpiece. Gunnar has
trained dozens of Grand Prix horses and riders, won
multiple national championships and Grand Prix titles
at Devon and USET Festival of Champions, and served
for two decades on the USET Planning and Selection
Committee. Today, he and Birgit divide time between
homes in Denmark, Tryon, NC, and Chester, VT. Gunnar
modestly calls English his second language, but we’d say
his undisputed fluency is in horsemanship.
HIS: I never had to send an résumé. Only signatures to US
emigration – when I was getting my green card in 1976 --
about how dressage trainers were needed in this country.
I’m a citizen now!
HERS: What was your first paying job?
HIS: I was delivering newspapers when I was 13.
That did not last long. Then helping my father in his
trucking business.
HERS: If you worked outside the horse world what would
you be doing?
HIS: It would have been something with farming
or forestry.
HERS: What is your favorite quote?
HIS: “Give a man a fish and he has food for a day.
Teach a man how to fish and he has food for a lifetime.”
(Confucius)
HERS: Describe yourself in one word?
HIS: Reflected in the first two letters of my name: GO.
HERS: Is there anything you feel is true that almost
nobody agrees with you about?
HIS: Not sure. I believe many people agree that, the
harder and better you work, the luckier you get.
HERS: An instance where you faced and solved a
difficult problem?
HIS: I constantly face problems, in my own countless
lessons! But I feel privileged that, by always trying my
best, I am almost always able to make an improvement if
not find a solution.
HERS: Where do you see horse sport headed in this
new decade?
HIS: It will grow and expand. As life gets more techdriven,
people will come back to working with the
world’s most beautiful creature and so, I hope, training
dressage horses will never get “computerized.”
With LA Sokolowski, equinista
Photos provided by Gunnar Ostergaard
/www.EliteEquestrianMagazine.com