Biography

Henk van de Pol was born in Eindhoven (Netherlands) on 22th June 1967. He belongs to a family with a horsemen tradition since a long time. His grandfather was a military  and in the army people used to work a lot with horses. 
After his career in the army he started a riding-school in Eindhoven. This riding-school was continued by Henk's parents. The manege still exists and is managed by Henk's brother, Bert –Jan.

Henk never rode poneys. At the age of 4 he started riding his first horse. He always rode in the classes, that were given by his father and mother. Mostly he rode horses from customers who had no time to ride their horses.
Henk's father died when he was 18 years old. The whole family had to take care of the stables. So Henk never had the opportunity to do internship elsewhere.

The only special trainings Henk had were with the Junior- and Young riders teams. Albert Voorn and Piet Raijmakers were the trainers at that time. Since years Jan Schreuder is his trainer for dressage. But Henk learned mostly by observing good riders and maybe still more by observing mistakes of those riders.

Henk didn’t choose to run the riding school.The sport and the business attracted him more. In 1996 he started riding for Hans Dings. With his horse Juriquilla, he achieved his first international successes. In 1997 he won the Grand-Prix of Zuidlaren. With the horses Faust Z, T.J. and Elena, Henk won many Grand-Prix. In 1996 and 1997 he won the Grand Prix in Oslo and the Derby in Eindhoven.

Henk's brother Bert took over the riding school and Henk went on and started a show- and dealingstable.
His girlfriend Frida Berggren plays an important part in this. She also rides horses, but she mostly manage the business of FPH stables. Frida is from Sweden and in 1996 she started to work as a rider in the Netherlands. Later on she worked in Belgium and America for several stables. In 1998 she rode in the team of Young riders at the European Championship. She often brought horses out up to Grand Prix level. 
She had her own stable before she started a relationship with Henk.