Gustaf Adolf Boltenstern, Sr.

Gustaf Adolf Boltenstern was the son of a major and his German female cousin from Pomerania. While still at school, at the age of 18, he volunteered for the Life Guards on Horseback. After graduating from secondary school, he attended the military school and joined his regiment in 1882 as a second lieutenant. As a lieutenant he completed the Military Academy in 1894 to become instructor and later stable master at the riding school. After spending a year at the court riding school in Wien (Vienna), he became stablemaster at Strömsholm Palace. Boltenstern was promoted to captain and in 1908 to major, when he was appointed head of the riding school at Strömsholm. In 1912, he was transferred to the Life Regiment’s Hussars as a lieutenant colonel. Three years later, he rose to the rank of colonel and became second-in-command of the Life Regiment’s Dragoons. He retired from military service in 1921 but remained in the reserve.

At the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, he competed in dressage and earned a silver medal individually on his horse Neptun. At almost 60 years of age, he returned to the Olympics and finished third in the final scores. However, he was disqualified for practicing in the ring prior to the competition.

In 1889, he married Amelie Charlotta Hedvig von Dardel. Gustaf Adolf “Gösta”, the youngest of his four sons, earned four Olympic medals, including two gold, at Olympic Games between 1932 and 1956. During his military service he was made Commander of the Order of the Sword and Knight of the Order of the Polar Star in Sweden, and Knight of the Russian Order of St. Stanislav, and earned the Danish Order of the Dannebrog, the Belgian Military Cross, the Prussian Order of the Crown and the Turkish Meschidie Order etc.