Tails From Provence

Rodney’s Saga asked :

“… what are the various prizes shown in your photo? Very different from what one gets in the US”

Well now.  That’s a very good question.

To start with, the rosettes can be any colour.  There’s no debating with the French as to which colour is for first place, red or blue.  Nope.  To date, at every show I’ve attended (including the National Championships), rosettes are all a uniform colour scheme – and that’ll be whatever colour scheme the show organisers choose.  I’m sure it makes sorting the rosettes easier for the show secretary.  Edited : First place also frequently gets a trophy.  I wouldn’t know about that – YET!

Secondly, most venues gives a little commemorative plaque to a select few riders.  Maybe the first, maybe first and second, maybe first, second and third; or maybe (as was the case with Le Pilon two weeks ago) everyone who receives a rosette.  This is what you’re meant to do with them :

When I was doing Le Big Trek with Anne, we came across a closed-down equestrian centre with this impressive display on the locked doors :

It was quite poignant to see such a display of previous glories in a place that had been abandoned for years.

You rarely get these plaques in Ireland or the UK, but they are sometimes given out at big or international shows.  We have two from doing Dressage Home Internationals with Aero when Tansy was a Junior Rider, one was from Myerscough in England and the other was from Marlton in Ireland.  The one from Marlton is a really nice brass one and it came to France with us (it’s included in the photo below); the one from Myerscough was attached to Aero’s stable door in Cork and is still there, as far as I know.

Of course, my guys don’t have stable doors any more, so my collection of little plaques is gathering dust in the office.  Maybe I should start tacking them onto the side of the field shelter?  Or stick them onto a cupboard door?  Or a cork board? although the latter sounds like something that a fifteen year old would do…

A lot of the venues give little goodies out to the rosette winners as well.  To date, I’ve been the happy recipient of a notebook, a key ring, a massage set (which one of the dogs ate), a salt lick, two bags of carrots and a dream-catcher, which has been hanging in the garden and is now bashed to bits.  At the National Championships, all participants received a gear bag with a few goodies in it.  Unfortunately, my gear bag went home with someone else and I haven’t retrieved it yet.  Sniff.

In Ireland, the norm was rosettes (Red 1st, Blue 2nd, Yellow 3rd and open to interpretation from there on) at every show.  Trophies, coolers and saddle-cloths would be given out to major prize-winners on special occasions, at the end of a league, for example.  Or you might receive a cooler and a saddle-cloth along with your prize money at one of the bigger shows.  Yes!  Prize money!  Sometimes we would receive cold, hard cash in the worlds of show jumping and showing!  But it was rarely anything to get excited about – one time, I received a cheque in the post for the princely sum of £3.24.  Way-hey.  (It was for a class with no clock round, so all double clears divided the prize fund.)

So there you have it, amateur equestrian prizes in France compared to their counterparts in Ireland.

Would any of my friends from other countries like to weigh in with their stories for comparison?

Ooh, could we turn this into a blog hop? I’ve never done one of them!

If anyone wants to do a post on this, I’ll link you on here 🙂

Time limit of December 31st.