Visiting the Danish Royal Stables

I'm not sure I'll get up a full post or even series of posts about our honeymoon, but here's a start, for a sort of Wordless Wednesday placeholder. One of the first places we visited was Christiansborg Palace, in the heart of Copenhagen. We saw the kitchens, the royal apartments, the excavated old castle underground, and then the royal stables, which were all part of the same complex.

Apparently the Danish royal family really likes their carriage horses. They used to use a breed called the Frederiksborg horse (named after another of the royal palaces) but they stopped doing that in the late 19th century. The breeding pool was too small and it led to some really inferior horses.

Now, they have Kladrubers, a Czech breed - a whole stable full of gorgeously bred grays. The stables used to hold quite a few more horses, but they have about 15-20 now. We weren't there at the right time to get a behind the scenes tour - in which they would've shown the tack rooms and the indoor manege - but we did poke around the stables themselves and see the carriages.

Stuffed Frederiksborg horses

They did love their swallowtail pads.

That is in fact the King of Denmark riding an Icelandic pony.

Leopard spotted Frederiskborg, stuck caprioling forever.

The label accompanying that horse. Assholes.

All of the stalls were originally standing stalls - you can see the originals on the left - but at some point an animal cruelty law was passed in Denmark making standing stalls illegal, and even the king had to change his barns around!

This guy had such an awesome derp face. We bonded.

This guy slept through multiple families with obnoxious toddlers yelling at him. Good on him.

The names varied in dignity. Derpface above was Extracta. Note the Favory - the Kladrubers are closely related to Lipizzaners.

Fanciest wash stall ever or fanciest wash stall ever? Please note the bottle of Vetrolin whitening shampoo on the back shelf: some things are universal.

Old grain carts.

Six-in-hand livery.