Last Saturday, we went to the track. It’s something I love to do though I seldom get the opportunity.
The racecourse is called Jarlsberg, though there’s no obvious connection with the cheese. Actually, we didn’t go to a race, but to a horse show. Young horses were being judged on their appearance, particularly their legs, and on their gaits.
This kind of thing is very important for breeders because the appraisal affects the value of the horse.
There were lots of different kinds of horse. The ones above and below are Welsh cobs. The lower one had her foal with her (they weren’t for sale).
She got very high marks. Here they are posing with their owner. They departed later in the space craft.
I saw several foals. These are curly horses; they are hypoallergenic.
And there were Shetland ponies no bigger than large dogs. The man in the bowler hat and carrying a riding crop was a judge.
A judge of horses, that is. I thought they were an unlikely-looking group, the judges. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? well, they didn’t give a good overall impression. They had bad posture and gaits, their coats weren’t shiny, and I wasn’t enthusiastic about their legs. Some had put in no effort at all.
A Bad Guide 
Oh, there’s a connection. Jarlsberg is the name of a herregård, originally named Sem, near Tønsberg. It’s the seat of one of Norway’s two grevskaper (or was so until the constitution of 1814 made away with the title). The racecourse is near the manor (and probably built on its land). The cheese is said to have been developed at the manor’s dairy by Swiss specialists. I have my doubts about that, and Wikipedia seems to support me. But still, since the cheese is named after the district and the district was named after the manor, and since the cheese was developed locally from Swiss models and the count probably brought Swiss-style dairy to the region, the relation is there.
I’ve rarely seen a Wikipedia article so full of [citation needed].
That’s interesting. It’s odd that the Jarlsbergers don’t make more of the name. They could have made the spaceship in the form of an enormous mouse eating a big blob of cheese. The holes could have been windows. I love Jarlsberg.
The largest producer of Jarlsberg today is the TINE BA factory… near Molde in western Norway
This just doesn’t work, in English.
I meant to write something like:
… since the modern cheese is named after an older cheese named after the district and the district was named after the manor, …
I’ve rarely seen a Wikipedia article so full of [citation needed].
Sloppy writing, it seems. The modern history is in the suggested “Further reading”.
I’ve recently read Dick Francis’s Slay Ride, which seems to happen in Norway. It is old, but has some interesting surmisals (?) about the Norwegian character some time ago; and horses as well. Do you know it?
You’re right about those judges :-) !
The man in the bowler should go to the races in BA and learn how to put on a stylish event.
I’m ordering Slay Ride, thanks for the tip, I’ve never read a Dick Francis.
I’d say he wants to look british…
Like a Soviet spy working at 10 Downing Street (he should have polished his shoes). If you go racing in England all the men wear these hats. The bowler man gets a gold rosette for effort, though.
jajaja, that’s exactly how he looks!
The gold rosette for him is fair enough, you’re right.
Is that Barney Curley a famous man?
(And thanks for the compliments to my clouds :-)
Those hats don’t fit! The judge’s hat looks a little too big for him, and Barney Curley’s hat looks too small, perched on the top of his long head. They badly need advice from our own Mr Hat.
I would think a top hat — or is that only for the Ascot?
Only for Ascot or The Derby (at Epsom).
I’d never heard of Barney Curley before I read that article. (He wins millions of pounds betting on horses and uses the money to educate children in Africa.) He looks a lot older than seventy and I agree that both of them need advice about their hat size. There’s a PG Wodehouse story about that, The Amazing Hat Mystery.
If you go racing in England all the men wear these hats.
I have a Borsalino that looks almost exactly like that (narrower hatband, though — is anyone familiar with the saying “as tight as Dick’s hatband”?). But it fits better.
Much cooler with a narrower hatband, I’d say. Actually what they wear is a brown trilby hat. The only thing I can think of that’s comparable to the men in trilby hats at the races in Britain & Ireland would be the men in hats you see in a synagogue. It’s as if the ceremony wouldn’t work without the hats.