By Laura Scaletti
Portraits by Melissa Fuller
Charlotte Jorst believes if you want to do something—just start doing it. This philosophy has led Charlotte to create Skagen Designs Ltd., Kastel Denmark and five Grand Prix dressage horses. Regardless of the pursuit, Charlotte always desires to rise to the top.
“I’ve just always wanted to be the best I can be. I think it’s amazing that with hard work, you can be almost anything you want. I always tell people, ‘I’m not particularly athletic, I don’t have any particular talent; I just work hard at it,’” Charlotte said. “It’s incredible what you can achieve with that.”
At age 35, Charlotte decided it was time to make her childhood dreams of taking riding lessons a reality. After 12 years of running Skagen, always on the road, missing time with her daughters Camilla and Christine, Charlotte knew riding was an activity they could enjoy together. “When they were 6 and 10, I told the girls that I was really going to focus on them, and we were going to go riding at 3 p.m. every day. It was a catalyst for me to spend more time with my daughters and ride,” she said.
Eighteen years later, Charlotte represented Team USA on a Nations Cup team in 2015 at CDIO5* Rotterdam, helping the U.S. take home the bronze aboard her Nintendo. Although she rode casually as a child, she always knew she would return to horseback riding and held onto the dream of training for the Olympics.
Making It Happen
Charlotte’s love for horses began in Denmark on a Fjord pony during her summer vacations as a child in Skagen. “Those were the best days! Each morning, I’d say goodbye to my parents, ride the pony without a saddle out around the dunes and return home at 6 p.m.,” she said. “It was a blast to spend my summers like that.”
Closer to home, Charlotte found a barn with retired circus ponies. One of her favorites was Lester. “He was crazy and wild! All the ponies had so many tricks up their sleeves and the owners only let me ride bareback there,” Charlotte said.
When Charlotte was 18, all her horse dreams came to a halt when her father died. “Once my dad died, we didn’t have money for horses so riding was put on hold,” she said. Although she stopped riding for a while, Charlotte never stopped thinking of horses and worked relentlessly to make her way back to the barn.
At 23 years old, Charlotte moved to the United States as a Miss Carlsberg beer rep. “I ran around the bars with my Miss Carlsberg sash. I traveled all around as Miss Carlsberg. During that time, I was also a rep for a company where I designed watches with corporate logos. Watches were big back then. I would make the dial interesting with the company logo and do something fun with the second hand,” Charlotte said.
At a corporate gift fair in 1991, a retailer encouraged Charlotte to launch her own brand. Charlotte took the advice, and Skagen Designs Ltd. was born. Charlotte worked hard every day to make Skagen a success. “I hoped to make it the biggest watch company in the world; it wasn’t, but my other goal was to be able to make enough money so I could once again have horses in my life,” she said. Although Skagen wasn’t the biggest, it did get big enough that it was bought by Fossil in 2012.
Dream Chaser
While taking lessons with Camilla and Christine, Charlotte followed the girls’ lead and tried her hand at jumping. She quickly decided jumping wasn’t what she wanted to pursue. “When you start riding later in life, you don’t have much time to achieve your goals. I was too impatient to become good at jumping. I thought I’d never be able to do a Grand Prix and jump 1.60m,” Charlotte said. “I knew I had to get good at something quick, and dressage just looked easier to me. I ended up trying it and thought, This is something I can figure out.”
It didn’t take long for Charlotte to start competing once she decided dressage was her discipline. In fact, she did it so quickly she didn’t have appropriate dressage gear. “I just showed up to compete at the training level with a brown jumping saddle and a brown bridle. The judge told me, ‘You don’t really use tack like that.’ I didn’t know any better, so I went out and immediately purchased a black bridle and black dressage saddle,” she said. “When you put yourself out there, you can get a lot of pushback and criticism if you make mistakes, but you also learn really quickly.”
Charlotte’s mount for her showing debut was Asterios. Together the duo competed up to the Prix St. Georges level. “He was a completely inappropriate horse for me because I was a beginner and he was a young horse, but for some reason we just got along and ended up winning numerous classes,” she said. “As I continued to compete and started doing the CDI classes, I felt that Asterios and I weren’t as successful as we could have been because he wasn’t international horse caliber, so I sought out a new horse.”
As soon as Charlotte sold Skagen, she set the goal that she wanted to go to the Olympics. With an eye on those dreams, Charlotte bought Vitalis. “After having ridden him for a year or so, I figured Vitalis wasn’t going to work out for me. I knew I needed a Grand Prix horse that knew his job,” Charlotte said. “So, I went back to Denmark and found Nintendo.”
Nintendo
Purchasing Nintendo in 2013 was a game-changer for Charlotte. “I had specifically been looking for a Grand Prix horse, but once he came home, I didn’t know what to do with all that, because I’d never ridden Grand Prix before. Looking back, it’s funny because I thought when you buy a Grand Prix horse, of course you just start doing the Grand Prix-level tests,” she said.
Three weeks after Nintendo came home, Charlotte entered him in their first Grand Prix class together. “I had no idea what I was doing, but I still rode through the Grand Prix and ended up getting 67%,” Charlotte said. “It was after that experience that I really started riding and learning.”
Charlotte began working with Guenter Seidel—who took her stirrups away for a year and a half. She also spent countless hours studying videos of international dressage riders and watching videos of her lessons on repeat. “By working really hard and riding the lessons in my head over and over, I was able to quickly improve,” she said.
By the end of their nearly decade together as partners, Charlotte and Nintendo had competed in more than 100 Grand Prix competitions. This partnership led to numerous victories and established Charlotte as a formidable competitor in the dressage world.
One of Charlotte’s favorite memories while competing was from her first Nations Cup at CDIO5* Rotterdam with Nintendo. “I warmed up with Edward Gal. I had only ever read about him before and was thinking, Oh my gosh! There he is! It was so much fun,” Charlotte said.
That first time with Team USA was equally magical and intimidating for Charlotte. “At first, I felt a bit like an imposter. You look around and see you’re amongst the best in the world. Thankfully Nintendo took care of me, and I learned pretty quickly,” she said.
A breakthrough moment happened at Charlotte’s first Festival of Champions in Gladstone, New Jersey. During her test, she went off course and felt like she had ridden poorly, with top riders like Steffen Peters and others there. “I was so embarrassed, I went and hid in the stall for eight hours. Eventually I was dying of thirst and hunger, so I came out of the stall and realized that no one cared that I made a mistake,” Charlotte said. “Once I realized no one was going to care, it was really freeing.” Charlotte and Nintendo had a full-circle moment when they won the USEF Grand Prix Dressage National Championship at the 2018 U.S. Dressage Festival of Champions.
As Charlotte’s time competing Nintendo was winding down, she realized she wasn’t ready to end that chapter of her life, so she decided to clone him. She now has three 3-year old clones—Super Nintendo, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo 64.
“I know everything about Nintendo—how to shoe him, ride him, what he eats, what his ailments are, everything. People ask me, ‘What if his clones aren’t as good as he was?’ I’m fine with that because by the time the clones are ready to show, I will be older. What excites me is that I get a second chance at getting to know him, by bringing his clones up through the levels and getting to know them as young horses,” Charlotte said.
Entrepreneur Again
Just as Charlotte was ramping up her dressage ambitions with Nintendo, she received an unexpected diagnosis—she had skin cancer, from riding outside so much. Not wanting to lose training time, Charlotte sought out UV-protective shirts she could ride in. When she couldn’t find anything she liked, she decided to start her own clothing line, Kastel Denmark. Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur.
It took 18 months from Charlotte deciding to create UV-protective shirts to having them on the market. “I rode in them for six months to make sure the fabric was soft enough and would work for riding, then it took about a year to really come up with the designs and get them in to stores. Kastel became available for purchase in 2014.”
Having an equestrian-based business combines the best of both worlds for Charlotte. “It’s more fun than the watch business because I can easily see that people are wearing Kastel. I love seeing kids and young people wearing it because I know that they’re protected from the sun and skin cancer. It’s so easy to pull the shirts on, zip them up and go about your day in the sun,” Charlotte said.
Kastel Denmark continues to evolve, introducing new designs and expanding its product range to include other apparel and accessories, all while maintaining the core focus on UV protection and comfort for riders. “We’ve been able to move from function to fashion and offer more options. We have a lot of new items like jackets, vests, sweaters, leggings and more,” she said.
While running Kastel Denmark, Charlotte is also developing and showing an impressive string of horses. With her eyes on achieving her goal of competing at the Olympics, she’s even more dedicated than ever to making that dream a reality. “I’ve been short-listed for the Olympics twice. I want to make the team, and I’m hoping I will get that chance in 2028 in Los Angeles,” she said.
“I have four Grand Prix horses right now—Zhaplin Langholt , Express, Boticelli and Straight Horse Cosmo. I think that’s my biggest achievement so far, getting all these horses when they were young and developing them to the Grand Prix level. I’m so proud of them,” Charlotte said.
Juggling running a business and developing her own horses means sometimes Charlotte just muddles through the day, but she wouldn’t have it any differently. “I’ve found it’s easier if I just develop the horses myself, so I can get to know them from the start and learn what makes them tick. I love the training and the journey of developing each horse,” Charlotte said. “Now that they’re Grand Prix horses, it’s a little bit boring because I don’t need to ride and train them as much. So, I think I will start to look for a new young prospect and start the process all over again.”
Charlotte’s unconventional path to the top of the sport proves that it’s never too late to pursue your passion, whatever that may be. “You just have to start, and you’ll figure it out as you go along. At first I thought I’d be jumping, but now I’m doing dressage and aiming for L.A. 2028. You don’t want to look back and think, I wish I had done that,” she said. “If you just go for it then something great will come out of it.”
Follow Charlotte on Facebook at Charlotte Jorst, Athlete and at kasteldenmark.com
Photos by Melissa Fuller, melissafullerphotography33.mypixieset.com
