Every horse girl in Poland grows up hearing two words like they're a fairy tale: Janów Podlaski. The oldest stud farm in the country, sitting out east near the Bug river since 1817, where some of the most beautiful Arabian horses in the world are born and raised. This August I finally stopped saying "one day" and went to the Polish Arabian Horse Days myself.
Getting There
It's a long drive east — the kind where the cities thin out and Poland turns into the version of itself I love most: fields, storks, little roadside chapels. I've written before about how the countryside is the part of my life that isn't content. This trip was supposed to be exactly that. I still took about four hundred photos. Some things you can't help.
The Parades
If you've never seen an Arabian horse move in person, no photo prepares you. The breeding parades are the heart of the event — mares and stallions presented one after another on the green in front of the old stables, tails up like flags, that floating trot that doesn't look entirely real. I work in an industry obsessed with posture, presence and movement, and I'm telling you: nobody on any runway has presence like a Janów mare who knows she's being watched.
The National Show
The Polish National Arabian Horse Show runs over the first days — classes, judges, scores, real sport under the festival surface. I went in knowing almost nothing about how Arabians are judged and left having opinions, which is the sign of a good day. The crowd is its own show: breeders who've been coming for forty years, kids on the fence rails, buyers from all over the world.
Pride of Poland
The famous part. On the final evening the stud holds the Pride of Poland auction — the one that's been making headlines for decades, where horses from this quiet corner of Poland sell to the world. The atmosphere is somewhere between a gala and a held breath: numbers climbing, a horse standing perfectly still in the lights, and a whole room understanding it's watching a piece of Polish heritage change hands.
What I Took Home
No, not a horse. (I checked the prices. It's a no from my bank account.) What I took home was quieter than that — a reminder of why I ride in the first place. My whole working life is about being looked at. Horses don't care about any of it. At Janów, surrounded by the most looked-at horses on earth, what struck me most was how calm they were about it. There's a lesson in there I'm still unpacking.
I'll be back next year. If you see a girl by the fence rail in riding boots she absolutely did not need to wear, say hi.
Want to know when I'm going to an event? It's always announced first on my events page and my Instagram. And if you missed it, here's the post that started all this — why I ride in the first place.