Charlotte Jorst: Success in Dressage and Business

Today’s interview is with the generous, genuine, insightful and pragmatic Charlotte Jorst. Although on the surface Charlotte’s life might look utopian, she has had her fair share of obstacles but she’s the sort of person who just picks herself up, dusts herself off and gets on with life. Self made, her success in business, as well as the dressage arena is quite impressive. Having founded the watch company Skakgen, it was sold in 2012 for a reported USD237M to Fossil. It was then that Charlotte’s dressage career went full-steam-ahead as she purchased some very capable horses from Europe. She also started her next business project, Kastel Denmark, the beautiful and unique sun protection clothing line born out of Charlotte’s own experience with skin cancer. With her current Grand Prix horse, Nintendo, Charlotte competed at her first Nations Cup in Rotterdam in 2015 where the US Team won Bronze. In 2016 the pair competed in the World Cup Dressage Final in Sweden, and then went on to win the US National Grand Prix Championships in 2018. In 2019, they helped the US Team win Gold at the FEI Dressage Nations Cup in Wellington. I caught up with Charlotte at Aachen where once again she was a member of the US Dressage Team. In this interview we talk about starting a business and starting in the sport of dressage; purchasing super stallion Vitalis; goal setting; the negative that turned into the positive that is Kastel. The importance of grit and hard work and the difficulty on dealing solely on talent. We touch on managing the older equine athlete; the future of her star Nintendo; cloning horses and why you’d do it; rider fitness; handling nerves; coaches; groom; coping with difficult situations and managing your rides for success.