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52 JA N UA R Y/ F E B R UA R Y 2 018 U N TAC K E D PROFILE to Denmark and then quickly accepted an invitation from a fellow Dane to move and stay with her in Southern California. With no job prospects and little command of the English language, Charlotte packed a bag and made the leap. "I just figured the worst that happened was I would go back to Denmark," she says. "So it wasn't too scary to me, and I really wanted to go somewhere warm." Within the first week or so of moving to Grenada Hills, California, Charlotte saw an advertisement for a lecture with Hilda Gurney. Although she'd never heard of the Olympian, she attended, thinking Gurney might be able to offer job advice. Gurney pointed her to Bell Canyon Equestrian Center, which at the time was the place for dressage in Southern California. "at is really where my dressage life started," says Charlotte. "ey also had hunter/jumpers, but it really was focused on dressage." She knocked on the door and asked for a job, with the manager saying fine, if she would work for free. Undeterred, per usual, Charlotte accepted. "I always knew if you work hard, you are going to make yourself valuable, and people will eventually see," she says. "I knew I was a hard worker. So I started there and worked really, really hard physically, and in the beginning, just grooming—doing everything, bathing, whatever. I didn't clean stalls but everything else." Although essentially self-taught in dressage, Charlotte's riding acumen remained unknown until she was asked to groom for a wealthy client who was based in Arizona. e client was elderly and had three fancy, well-trained warmbloods. And Charlotte would get paid. "He turned out to be a very nice man, and a lot of times he was not feeling up to riding, and it was a little hot or something, and he would say, 'Why don't you take my lessons?' So I ended up riding these really nice horses in lessons, and that's kind of how other people discovered I could ride," she says. "And it wasn't that I was that good. It was just at that time, the standard here was really bad, so I was good compared to the standard." As she predicted, her value was recognized, and she suddenly found herself riding 10 horses a day. en the trainer was injured, and she took over those mounts as well and was promoted to assistant trainer. Eventually the trainer left the barn, as did the manager, and Charlotte was asked by the board of directors to step into both roles. She was 23, managing 110 horses across all disciplines and five employees, all of whom were older and male. Suddenly, instead of riding, she found herself balancing budgets and hosting one horse show a month. "I have to say, those two years were probably the most stressful period in my life because I was on call 24/7," Charlotte says. "ere were no breaks ever. When you have that many horses and that many people—it was a lot. "The longevity of the sport is so incredible. I can go to a show pretty much anywhere in the world, and I will know people, which is awesome," says Charlotte Bredahl, pictured with fellow dressage competitors Carl Hester (bottom) and Bent Jensen at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain. All three are still great friends. PHOTO COURTESY CHARLOTTE BREDAHL PHOTO COURTESY CHARLOTTE BREDAHL Charlotte Bredahl marks her win with Monsieur at the Copenhagen CDI-W in 1992 as a memorable one since her entire family was there to watch her compete.

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