Tails From Provence

I’m going to go back a year before I fill you in on the second day of competition at Le Championnat.

Last year, the Equifeel organising committee introduced a drastic new rule for competition, which was intended to eliminate the possibility of abuse.  Any time a competitor touched his/her horse, with the stick or even with the hand, they would incur a penalty of -2.  Sounds perfectly reasonable, until you realise that this also means that a competitor cannot even give their horse a reassuring pat or scratch while doing a particular test – all rewards and reassurances must wait until each individual test has been completed.   What was even less reasonable was that this new rule was introduced, not AFTER the national championships, but on their eve.  Quite literally – it was announced at the coaches briefing session the evening before Le Championnat.  Can you think of any equestrian discipline where this would be considered acceptable?  Imagine riders turning up at the World Show Jumping Championships and being told that although they can carry a whip, they’re not allowed to use it!

We all grumbled.  We all thought it was insane to introduce it at that particular time.  But then all the French people stopped grumbling and got on with it.  And I decided that I’m the foreigner, it’s not my country, not my organisation, not my rules, so I’m not going to complain.  And I didn’t.  I didn’t even mention it in my blog at the time.

With that in mind, it should have come as no surprise to me that, once again, the Equifeel powers-that-be decided to implement more new rules on the eve of Le Championnat.  But in my innocence, I thought that surely they wouldn’t do it again – everyone had complained so bitterly the year before.  Ha.  Silly me.

This year, they extended the ‘no touch’ rule.  Now, if you opt for a 15 or 20 point contract, you are committing to not touch your horse at all.  If you do touch your horse, it’s an immediate zero for that particular atelier.  Harsh.  They also redefined some of the rules for the different tests – I’ll explain these as they come up.

And yes, I’m making excuses.  Or preparing you for what’s about to come.  Read it whichever way you like.

*****

We no longer had Mr and Mrs Paris to help us – hence the shortage of photos in this post.  This time, MC and I assumed that YA would do his own thing and we made our way to the Parc Equestre in our own time.  Aero was slightly less anxious going through the Intersection of Doom, but he became more and more stressed as we wound our way through the trees on the other side of it.  He glued himself to Quieto, who was taking it all in his stride – it was his fourth visit to the Parc Equestre, after all!  Once we got to the manège, I took Aero off to one side and worked him a little, to try to get him listening to me and to establish some sort of a connection with him.  He tried his best, but he just couldn’t settle.  Eventually, I brought him back to the shade of the trees where MC and YA were waiting with their horses.  Aero whinnied at Quieto as we approached and then he and Quieto settled into a serious session of mutual grooming, scratching each others’ withers and loins energetically for a good ten minutes.

This calmed him down no end, but oh boy, it was a big mistake.  You’ll see why in a moment.

We were going in inverse order of ranking, so YA was the first of our gang to go, with MC going two horses after him.  As soon as Quieto left, Aero started to become anxious again, calling and calling to his buddy.  Oops.  It seemed that the lovely mutual grooming session had caused Aero to become ‘connected’ to Quieto rather than to me!

Thirteen horses later, it was our turn to go.  The very first test that day was Pivot (pirouette), which is definitely our weakest thing.  To make it even harder than usual, it had to be done with the handler on the right hand side of the horse.  There was no question of me going for a fifteen or twenty point contract here – we would go for ten points, where we ‘only’ had to do a quarter turn, and I could hold Aero ‘normally’ with a lead rope.

We stomped our way through it.  One foot stepped out of the hoop on the ground; he dragged the hoop around a bit and I ended up touching him with the stick near the end (for a ten point contract, that’s a -2 penalty).  We ended up with three -2 penalties, so we scored four points.

Heigh ho, it could have been worse.

Next up was the Four Leafed Clover.  I decided to be brave and go for twenty points.  It worked, we scored our twenty, but I realised as I did it that the connection I had with Aero was very fragile.  He drifted away from me a couple of times, and it was difficult to get him ‘glued’ to my shoulder once again to continue.  Still, I managed.  Things were not going too badly… maybe my dream of a top ten finish was possible.

The next atelier was one of our party pieces – Reverse and Return.  We do this for twenty points normally – ZIP ZAP done.  But this time, the organisers had added a twist – those damned barrels full of pool noodles.  For twenty points, the horse would have to back up along a seven metre ‘lane’, passing between the barrels at the end.  Well, I thought of how scared Aero had been the day before when faced with the barrels of noodles.  And I thought about how brave he had been to eventually push through them.  And I said I would just go for fifteen points – he would have to reverse a mere four metres, finishing well before the barrels.

Poor Aero was so worried about those damn barrels.  He didn’t realise that I’d gone for the ‘easy’ option and that he wouldn’t have to pass between them!  He couldn’t reverse straight because he felt he needed to keep them under observation – they were dangerous, you know! – so he kept stepping out of his zone, incurring a -2 penalty each time.  We ended up earning just five of our possible fifteen points here.  I should have gone for ten points – I could have reversed with him, giving him confidence, and we’d have been better off in the long run.

Sigh.  Hindsight is wonderful.

(Aside : I’m not grumbling about adding the noodles to the Reverse-Return, by the way.  I reckon it’s perfectly acceptable to dress up the tests at the National Championship.  It’s like putting fancy flowers in a dressage arena.)

Put it behind you, I told myself.  The next atelier was Transitions, in the round pen.  This is normally a twenty pointer for us, but I felt our connection was even weaker after the Reverse Return, so I opted for the fifteen point contract.  Aero had to start in the Departure/Transition zone, facing me; do two circuits of the pen and make a transition, entering the transition zone in trot and changing to walk while in the zone.  Then we had to change direction and do the same thing again, finishing with him in the zone, facing me once again.

Our fan club and helpers extraordinaire, Mr and Mrs Paris arrived on Friday to cheer us on.  They brought extra food and we had a great meal that evening.  On Saturday, they were all geared up to help taxi people to and from the Parc Equestre and to feed and water all of the GAEC de Pimayon competitors as needed.

Alex was judging the Elite class, which was starting at 8.15am, so she and YA set off early.  We all wanted to watch it, so Mr and Mrs Paris swung by the chateau to pick us up, so that we could leave YA’s truck in Sisi’s paddock for shade.

The elite competitors have to face freestyle tests, which are usually based on one of the seventeen tests on the ‘Club’ list, but always with an evil twist.  I’ll do a separate photo post later on the Elite tests, for anyone who is interested.

We had enough time to stay and watch the whole class before we had to leave to get our horses and ourselves ready.  It was damn difficult… MC was thinking in terms of next year so she was very interested in how it went.

We went back to the chateau, caught and groomed our horses, were fed by Mr and Mrs Paris (<3 those guys!), loaded up and finally headed for the Parc.  Funny, I wasn’t feeling nervous at all.  MC was – she was much more wound up than usual, but we all felt that she had a real chance of doing well.  I guess this was putting more pressure on her.

We arrived in a convoy, with MC and I in the leading truck, YA behind and the Parises bringing up the rear.  MC and I were told where to park but, somehow, in between the entrance to the truck parking area and where we stopped, we lost YA and the Parises.  The Parises found us after about ten minutes, but where was YA?

“He parked, unloaded the horse, jumped onto her bareback with just the halter and set off!”

Um… ok… a bit strange!  He’s a wound up kind of guy.  Maybe the stress got to him and he just had to get up and go?  Apparently he made it as far as the entrance to the Parc Equestre, where he was told he wasn’t allowed to ride bareback!

Anyway, MC and I made our way into the mêlee that is the Parc Equestre at Championnat time.  If you haven’t experienced it, nothing prepares you for it.  There are horses and ponies crammed into the Equestrian paths, dressed for every discipline, some of them dressed most spectacularly for fancy dress.

Thanks to Helen of skyfaxa.blogspot.com for this photo 🙂

The other paths are quite literally packed with pedestrians, bicycles, scooters, segways, golf carts and official vehicles, going in both directions.  This is all very well until you get to a point in the middle of the Parc where everybody – equine, human and vehicular – must go through the same intersection.  Aero was impeccably behaved until we reached this spot, but it was just too much for him and he had a mini-melt down.  I couldn’t blame him – that particular spot was horrific, and most of the other horses found it very stressful, too.  Quieto coped a little better, but our nerves were all fraught by the time we got to the manege where the Equifeel competition was taking place.

MC was sixteenth to go – the first of our team.  I followed eight horses later.  Aero was ok in the warm-up.  Not as good as at home, but he was listening to me.  Finally it was our turn…

First thing was Deplacement Lateral.

We are good at this… I went for the twenty point option, where you do it either at liberty or with the lead rope draped over your forearm.

We did it, not as smoothly and seamlessly as we do at home, but heigh ho, twenty points in the bag!  Woohoo!

Next was the slalom.  On a good day, we would do this for fifteen points, with the lead rope connected to the halter via an elastic band, but I played safe and opted for ten points (lead rope connected normally).  I was right to be conservative…

…we had an anxious moment early on…

…but we finished well.

A clean ten points.

The third atelier was the Embûches.  Normally there are just three things to do, with a time limit of two minutes.  For the Championnat, we had five things to do, with a time limit of three minutes.  It was almost the same as what the Elite competitors had had to do : go over a tarpaulin, a jump, ground poles, go through a curtain of streamers and pass between two barrels full of pool noodles, with the noodles twisted inwards so that they completely blocked the passage between the barrels.

Normally, I would do the Embûches at liberty for twenty points but, as soon as I saw the pool noodles, I knew I’d be doing it for ten points.  The closest thing to the pool noodles that Aero has ever seen was a bullfinch jump back in his eventing days.  He attempted to clear that – it was a good five feet high – and he frightened the pants off himself.  I had visions of him attempting to jump the noodles…

It started great.  The tarpaulin… the jump… the poles.  Even the curtain of streamers went well, although he squeezed out at the side a bit (but still inside the boundary of the obstacle).  All we had left was to pass between the barrels, pushing through the noodles as he did so.

He stopped, not knowing what to do.  I could see the thought processes :

Do I go around?  No?  Are you sure?  Around the other side?  REEEEALLY?

Do I jump? (Lowers himself on his quarters a bit).  No?  It’s hard to jump from a standstill, maybe I’m not meant to jump.

Go through, you say?  Noooooo I can’t… it’s a barrier!  I’m not allowed go through barriers!

I have to confess, I ended up standing on one side of the noodles, hauling on the lead rope.  Eventually… EVENTUALLY… I could see Aero practically close his eyes, screw up his face, put on his Big Boy pants and say “Ok.  I’ll try.”

and he went through.  Cue massive verbal praise from me; we legged it to the end zone and halted smartly.  Just within the time limit.  PHEW!

We picked up two -2 penalties; one for knocking over a cone at the tarpaulin and one for me touching him with the stick while trying to get him through the noodles, so we scored a total of six.  The girl judging it assured me that any score at all there was a good thing and, when I looked at the scores afterwards, more than two thirds of the competitors took a zero at the Embûches.

Two ateliers to go and I was pleased to have scored no zeroes so far!

We were in the round pen for the fourth test.  This was Le Cercle – basically, control the horse on a circle at liberty.

Of course, being in such a strange place with loads of people watching, he was a bit distracted and uncharacteristically difficult to stop and turn…

but I managed eventually

and we scored another clean fifteen.

The last atelier was Saute à Longe, jump on the lunge.  I was choosing between the fifteen point and the twenty point options here.  For twenty points, he would have to go back and forth over a jump four and a half metres away from me.  For fifteen, it was back and forth over a jump just one metre away.  I went for fifteen.  Playing it safe!

The only photo I have of Saute a Longe

He trotted into the jump, slowed and hauled himself over it.  Then he turned and jumped again, more cleanly.

No good, shouted the judge.  The first jump wasn’t good enough; it doesn’t count.

I sent him over and back again, but Aero was a bit pee’d off – as far as he was concerned, he’d done his job.  He jumped, turned, ducked out, glared at me, stopped, turned, jumped… I actually forget what he did.

But the judge was already shouting, No, that’s okay…

Was our time up?  Had we scored a zero?

No, no, the judge assured me.  Just minus 2 for the first awkward jump.  It was fine after that.

So thirteen points scored.

I was pleased with how it had gone for us.  I knew I should have a total of 64 points.

MC had had two zeroes, the first in the slalom.  Quieto had done it perfectly, for fifteen points.  She was so thrilled that as soon as he passed the last cone, she stepped into his ‘zone’ to praise him – instant zero for crossing her boundary!  She was furious with herself.  Then in the Embûches, she had wasted a load of time at the curtain of streamers, asking him to go right through the streamers, rather than allowing him to duck out the side a little as I had done with Aero.  By the time she presented him at the pool noodles, she was out of time, but she admitted herself that he wasn’t going to go through the noodles.

YA was pleased with his round.  He had picked up two zeroes in the slalom and the embûches as well, but he had scored well elsewhere, giving him a total of 53, the same as MC.

Later that evening, the scores were posted.  I was dismayed to see that my ten points from the slalom was not registered, leaving me placed just ahead of my teammates on 54 points.  Nonetheless, we were all placed in the low twenties – not bad out of 64 competitors.  The organisers assured me that the scores as posted were just preliminary and, sure enough, next morning my ten points was counted.  I was thrilled to see that I was in joint 11th place!!

It was all to play for, as they say.  Could I possibly get into the top ten?

PS Huge thanks to Madame Paris for taking the photos on Saturday.