Nitrous plays the part of magical stallion Dag Dia who takes Evie with him on a journey to the fairytale world of Albion. Both Nitrous and stand-in Hans fan ‘e Pikesyl are being trained in a very special way by American Ashley Klein. Friesian stallion Nitrous of Majestic Friesians is registered in the Studbook under the name of Nanno (Ulke 338 x Djurre 284). He was bred by J. van ’t Ende in Wezep and his present owners are Brock’s Majestic Friesians in Michigan USA. The 5-year-old Hans fan ‘e Pikesyl (Andries 415 x Krist 358) was bred by G. Kroes from Abbega.
Ashley Klein grew up in a small, sleepy village in the United States. ‘Every day from the time I was five you could find me in a place close to home where they had horses. I used to ride with nothing but a head collar and a lead rope. I liked to observe the horses and never got tired of watching films with horses in it.’ Over the years, Ashley Klein continued to build her skills as a freestyle horse trainer. One fine day Lori Brock of Brock’s Majestic Friesians called on the then 16-year-old Ashley. ‘It was the beginning of a dream come true when she asked me to train her Friesian stallion Prodigy (Tsjalke 397).’ So impressed was Lori Brock with Ashley’s abilities that since then she has given her nine other Friesian stallions to train, among them Nanno and Hans. By now freestyle training has become Ashley’s core business and recently she has started to work from the Transformation Equestrian Centre, in partnership with Lori Brock. Ashley: ‘Freestyle horsemanship is a training method that teaches horses to smile, give ‘yes or no’ answers, count, curtsy, point out things, lie down, sit and rear. The horses also learn to master the Spanish walk, elevated trot and piaffe. All exercises are taught from a basis of trust, relaxation and a positive approach.’
Travelling home from the studios in Bulgaria back to the USA, Ashley made a stop-over in Friesland. It was quite special to visit Willem Wester and Ulke 338, Nitrous’ sire. ‘Ulke 338 and Nitrous are definitely a chip off the same block in just about every aspect’, Ashley says. By now Ashley and her Friesian film stars have returned home to Big Rapids. Hans is due for inspections and more films are in the pipeline, one of them a sequel to Albion: Rise of the Danann. So that’s why Ashley will soon start training three new Friesian stallions for this film.
As printed in the July KFPS Newsletter
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