Untacked

50 JA N UA R Y/ F E B R UA R Y 2 018 U N TAC K E D PROFILE car climbs their drive up the side of a foothill in the Santa Ynez Valley outside of Santa Barbara, California, the horses grazing on the grassy hill lazily lift their heads to watch me pass. Waiting for me outside her home, standing in a spot with a "Reserved for the Queen" parking sign, is Bredahl, 60, who greets me like a long-lost friend, the sun turning her blond hair into a white halo. After Bredahl gives me a tour of their breathtaking place— with its enormous main 24-stall barn (the center portion converted into Baker's home office), immaculate polo field for Baker and his 20 mostly homebred polo ponies, a six-stall barn for the dressage horses, the dressage arena and lighted tennis court—we settle at the farmhouse dining room table, their new "puppy," an already enormous 15-month- old Rottweiler named Bandit bumping us with his toys and vying for our attention as their elderly dog, Josephine, snoozes nearby. "Oh, Bandit! You are really being silly," she tells him as she pets his huge head before turning back to me. "I just love animals. I always have been absolutely, completely animal crazy." Bredahl, born in Copenha- gen, Denmark, the youngest of four children, came by her love of animals naturally—passed down from her parents. Char- lotte's father, Egon Bredahl, kept racing pigeons, and the family always had dogs. Egon worked as a sheriff, and Charlotte's mother, Ella Bredahl, was employed full time in an office. Charlotte, however, was the only one obsessed with horses, and at the age of 9, she found a local barn. ere was no money to spare from her working-class parents, so she offered to muck stalls in exchange for group lessons on school horses. "ere were seven or eight of us going around in circles," she says. "But it was fine. I loved it." When Charlotte was a pre-teen, the Bredahl family moved from Copenhagen to the small island of Møn after her father accepted a position heading the police station there. "e beginning was a little bit hard," she says, "because I was sort of this city girl and the sheriff's daughter. I wasn't that popular, but luckily I met somebody who was horse nuts like me, so anytime school was over, we were off to play horses. Even though I didn't have a horse and she did, I basically started knocking on the farmers' doors and asking if I could ride their whatevers." e first taker was a farmer with an enormous black plow horse named Klaus. "Klaus dumped me all the time but taught me a lot!" Charlotte says. "He was so huge, well over 17 hands, and I was tiny. He taught me a lot because I had to figure out how to make him do things without muscle. I had my little bareback pad and rope reins, but that's just what I did. I just asked people if I could ride." Donna, another local farm horse who was more appropriately sized for young Charlotte, followed. On Donna Charlotte did a bit of showing, some basic dressage and a little jumping, which was impressive as, although Donna had been broke to drive, she had never been ridden. "I rode as much as I could and was totally obsessed. I hated school," says Charlotte. "Now I understand why I hated it was because I was over the top ADHD, but I didn't know that then. I just knew I was miserable sitting still, and it made me crazy sitting still for more than an hour at a time. I loved to learn—it had nothing to do with that—but the confinement and having to focus for that long at a time was really, really difficult for me, and I was drawing horse pictures in the back of my books." Never A Doubt ose drawings included trotters from the racing barn where Charlotte worked as a groom after school and on weekends beginning at the age of 14. She was eventually tasked with starting the babies for the sulkies. "I ended up doing a lot, a lot, a lot of long-lining, and that has come in as a wonderful tool later, for years to come," she says. "I Charlotte Bredahl got her start riding work horses, including Klaus, owned by nearby farmers when she was growing up. PHOTO COURTESY CHARLOTTE BREDAHL

• Cover