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Flying Horses

Grandfather Hector and son Arent with prize-winning cup Hector v C v Sminia, Buitenhof ca.1943

JS in Petra_crop 3 Sam and Beau jumping_Sept 2014

 

It’s all in the family: horses front and center. Above left, all Dutch: Grandfather Hector van Coehoorn van Sminia and his son Arent (who tragically died at the age of 23 in a flying accident): admiring their trophy won for breeding the best warmbloods, right the Grandfather on his horse at his estate, below Grandson John on his Arabian in the mountains near Petra in Jordan, and below the great-granddaughter (American born!) Samantha Schwartz, jumping with Beau at her Virginian Misty Farm stable. (A left click on the pictures will enlarge most except those taken from internet sources, then click the back space at the top left and you are back in the blog).

Those were the images floating through my mind when we watched the World Cup jumping concours at the Washington International Horse Show at the Verizon Center last night, October 24.

Three top winners jumping WIHS 2015

It was a marvelous display of beautiful horses with excellent riders, and a prideful winner: Dutchman Harrie Smolders, who won the competition just ahead of American Callan Solem (riding a Dutch warmblood!) and Belgian Nicola Philippaerts (Credit to TimeLine Photos)  It was a challenging but intelligent course designed by Anthony d’Ambrosio (USA), to ensure riders and horses would qualify for the next steps to win the World Cup (Madrid and next year’s prestigious Longines FEI World Cup™ Jumping Final, which will take place in Gothenburg (SWE) on 23-28 March 2016). Even the best horses found it hard to master it to perfection.

Harry Smolders with Emerald

EQWO.net writes: D’Ambrosio purposefully set a demanding course to ensure that the right horse-and-rider combinations would earn the valuable points toward qualifying for the culminating event in the spring.

“I strive to design a course that rewards the riders who are capable of going to the World Cup Final,” D’Ambrosio said. “World Cup Qualifiers have to have a standard that is somewhat similar in consistency. It’s to prepare the horses and riders to have the accuracy to jump the dimensions. That’s an important part of my job.”

All in all it was a delight to see them flying over the obstacles, one after one, in a mighty show of athletic strength. But it was a good feeling to see Dutchman Harrie Smolders fly faultless over them twice with his wonderful horse Emerald (and an emerald he is!). Emerald is from famous French jumping blood Diamant de Semilly, whose father, Le Tot de Semilly was a legend in France. Harrie had won at the Washington Horse Show already in 2006 and had the honor to have his name inscribed on the gold cup for a second time.

HarrieSmolders-Emerald-Harrie-Smolders-met-Emerald-2

 

Fotos Arnd Bronkhorst (www.arnd.nl)

EQWO.net writes: “This show suits me,” Smolders said. “I don’t know why, but the results are always good. And for our stable, it’s been very successful this week. My student Jos Verlooy (BEL) was fourth in tonight’s class and won the Puissance on Friday night, and is the leading rider of the show. It’s a bit busy with the classes going on and telling my students all the information that I know, but it really worked out.”

Interestingly, Harrie Smolders rides at the Belgian stable Euro Horse, run by Axel Verlooy, whose 17-year old son Jos just lost out (finishing 4th) in the finals of the Washington Horse show but as Smolders says above, he won the Puissance on Friday.

It is interesting to know that Harrie Smolders is Jos’s personal trainer. So Belgian Euro Horse  did very well. Note that the other two riders, Nicola and Olivier Philippaerts of the Belgian Philippaerts stable both made good points at the Horse Show as well, but Olivier’s Legend of Love ended 13th in the World Cup exercise due to two faults in the first round. This was Legend’s first World Cup show and Olivier said Legend needed a bit more experience to win.

All in all: a wonderful evening for horse lovers like me and daughter Samantha! And some good Dutch pride on top of that.

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What’s a hundred years? Maarten Maarten’s 100-year commemoration

John at 18 -2 john

Yes, indeed. That’s him at 18, then and now, 79. It feels like a hundred! Just got back from The Netherlands where we commemorated the writing life of The Most Popular Dutch Author Abroad, Maarten Maartens, alias Joost van der Poorten Schwartz, who passed away 100 years ago.

Will I be commemorated in one hundred years? You? He or she? Maybe some great-grandchildren may vaguely remember John Schwartz. But I don’t count on being talked about, let alone celebrated.

Well, Maarten Maartens was, on September 26-27, in Doorn, a small but elite village near Utrecht in the center of Holland.

Maarten Maartens MM

Maarten Maartens Maarten Maartens Cover Adobe Photoshop PDF

 

Some 150 people came to listen to several speakers who spoke about the writer’s life and vision, his religious background and the sense of moral conflict in his oeuvre, his care for his sickly wife Anna and love for his daughter Ada, his many friends in England and the United States, and the strange rebuke of his native land. His keen sense for art, languages and the written word pictured a remarkable man, a poet, playwright and philosopher. So many things combined in one person to admire. Few of us achieve what he did.

His former residence, “Zonheuvel” (Sun Hill), designed by himself according to similar old stately mansions in the Netherlands he had lived in, was full with people, taking a glimpse of how he lived, at the dining room with the grand, the salon, card room, and his famous library with the many ancient books he acquired.

 Zonheuvel 2a  Zonheuvel eetkamer 2a

MM Bibliotheek 2a MM Bibliotheek1a

Zicht op Zonheuvel voortuin-1a

 

In succession, the residence, the dining room with the grand piano, the library and the garden, which used to be a French garden inspired by the Chateau  de Versailles.  Unfortunately, some of the old furniture and curios, especially in the dining room and the hall, which contained a wonderful collection of old rifles, swords and harnesses, are not there anymore, as they were removed from the premises. I still remember them when I visited the house as a kid. I used this memory to describe the residence of Baron de Maconville in my novel Enchanting The Swan. Pictures in a little book put together by Th. M. Gorissen, show how it was, originally. I am still mad as hell these items were sold or taken away after I had left the Netherlands in 1969, but the Maartens Library is kept in tact by the Slotemaker De Bruine Institute (SBI)

MM Symp Inschrijving 4a

Reception Committee (Lucie Wessels, left, and Itje Verhagen, right, both of SBI) at the Poort House, entrance to the Maarten Maartens House.

MM Allée1a

Mr. Jurriaan Röntgen, chairman of the organizing committee who put together the MM Symposium weekend, with next to him Dr. Bouwe Postmus, President of the Maarten Maartens Foundation,  and Mr. Jan Willem van Dongen, Mayor of Doorn and the Utrecht Hills Region, at the inauguration of the Maarten Maartens Allée, underneath the Poort House at the entrance of the Maarten Maartens House.

Next, a glimpse of the author’s writing desk in his library full of valuable ancient books, with some interesting people taking seat behind it.

 

Hendrik and AC1a

Dr. Hendrik Breuls, who wrote his doctoral dissertation about Maarten Maartens, and his wife, Anna-Christina; both spoke at the Symposium.

Some Women 2a

 The Womans Victory1a

Two of Maarten Maartens’ great grand nieces, Marinke Kranendonk and Lily Gabizon. “Some Women!”

  Marie in MM Library Diepe MM Conversatie in de Bibliotheek1a

First left: Marie Kranendonk-Schwartz, grand-niece of Maarten Maartens. Second photograph, right, Dr. Bouwe Postmus, who collected Maarten Maartens’ short stories (which I consider his greatest strengths), published in English and American magazines, in a new volume At Home and Abroad, Stories of Love (2015 – Stichting Maarten Maartens, The Netherlands; ISBN 978 90 9029026 3).

MM spreuk in bilbiotheek

Maaren Maartens’ quotes displayed in his library 

MM Clavecimbel1a

An old organ in the house

Hans De Oudste Schwartz1a

The oldest living “Schwartz” in the Salon, Mrs. Hans Wichers Hoedt – van der Laan, daughter of Marietje Schwartz, a sister of Maarten Maartens.

MM Concert 2a

Pianist Shuann Chai, who performed during the evening concert in the “Maartenskerk” (Maartens Church) in Doorn, with narrator Huib Ramaer, who linked together the various sonnets and poems by Maarten Maartens and others, put to music by among others Dutch composer René Samson.

MM concert 3a

Mattijs van de Woerd, baritone, right, who performed the MM sonnets, as well as other songs by Edward Elgar, Frank Bridge, Ralph Vaughan Williams and William Walton, written by English authors such as John  Keats, William Thackeray, Thomas Hardy and Rudyard Kipling, with whom Maarten Maartens entertained regular contacts during his life. 

MM concert 6a

Dutch composer René Samson, with pianist Shuann Chai and baritone Mattijs van de Woerd, enjoying warm applause for their marvelous performance.

Michiel presenteert walschildering-a

Painter Michiel Kranendonk explaining how he constructed the wall-painting of the Maarten Maartens Huis, which is displayed in the nearby Paviljoen building (Zonheuvel Hotel) on the grounds.

Maarten maartens huis

Maarten Maartenshuis painted by Michiel Kranendonk

Eymert van Manen, co-founder of the Foundation of the Crowned Falcon, the former trademark of Van Vollenhoven’s Beer, during the MM-luncheon, savoring recipes from Maarten Maartens’ cookbook. The Foundation recreated the Crowned Falcon’s famous Stout in 2006, and re-established the Falcon on its pillar in Amsterdam at the previous location of the brewery, which was the main source of wealth of Maarten Maartens and his wife Anna van Vollenhoven at the turn of the 20th century (see related blogs under tags Van Vollenhoven’s Stout and Eymert van Manen). The Stout, which has been renewed each year since its inauguration, will be commercially produced shortly by a renewed Van Vollenhoven’s Beer brewery.

MM Lunch 4a

MM Lunch 2a Junte Hans 1-a

Mrs. van Manen, Junte Schwartz and cousin Hans Wichers Hoedt,

MM Lunch 5a MM lunch 16a

MM Voordracht Anne van  Delft 2a

Anne van Delft, narrator, presents the writings of Maarten Maartens in one of the stately rooms of the Maarten Maartens House.

Juriaan en Aleid-a Jurriaan 1a

Jurriaan Röntgen, chairman of the MM-Commemoration Committee, left with his wife Aleid on a baclony of the Maarten Maartens House, and right, in conversation with painter Michiel Kranendonk and Henriette van Zwet- de Savornin Lohman, member of the Organizing Committee.

MM Uitstalkast 1a MM uitstalkast 2a MM uitstalkast 3a

Showcases with curios related to Maarten Maartens, his life, his work. Middle photo on the right, Mrs Henriette van Zwet-de Savornin Lohman, member of the Organizing Committee, explaining the contents.

Marie addressing Family 1a

Mrs. Marie Kranendonk-Schwartz, grand niece of Maarten Maartens, and member of the MM Organizing Committee, giving her speech on the occasion of the Maarten Maartens Symposium, with her daughter Sascha Gabizon in the background, smiling.

Jan Nierman bij de stamboom-a

Mr. Jan Nierman, spouse of Alexandra Röntgen, sister of the organizer of the MM commemoration, Jurriaan Röntgen, inspecting the Schwartz Family Tree; what a job to put that one together!

John op Zonheuvel

John Schwartz, grand nephew of Maarten Maartens, author of Maarten Maartens Rediscovered (2015, WillowManorPublishing.com). Part Two, His Best Short Stories, a summarization of his four collections of published short stories, will appear in 2016.

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