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 Take a (playable) Tour of
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 | Images of the Day by Team Nellie |
This year only the swallows and the farmers kept their side of the deal. You can always rely on a farmer to moan. Round here they're driving A class Mercedes, and when they cross a field to bring in some cows they wear more bling than Snoop Doggy Dogg, but they're still all doom and gloom. Maybe the girl didn't turn up to polish their Krugerrands; I don't know.
Anyway, the weather confounded all expectations by baking the ground hard for a month then changing to overcast and uncomfortably muggy for the morning of the ride; the sort of day when you wish it would get on with it and rain.
This time last year teamnellie was there to compete, Richard riding a horse from Brittany who was having his first attempt over the distance and on whom he?d never sat before while I crewed with the horse?s increasingly excited owner. Yesterday it was intriguing for us both to get a different perspective. When you're riding you see things in terms of mud or overhanging branches, flat sections to put on speed, hills to climb up or run down. If you're racing around in a car trying to get to a crew point, your day is bends negotiated, traffic lights cursed at. You might get a fleeting glimpse of a big house, an old church, some kind of plaque, a monument. You have no idea, really, of where you are.
This ride starts and finishes at the local racetrack, as do many major rides in France, and the first section of 27km uses old farm and forestry tracks in a series of long, straight and fairly flat runs to the first vet gate, at the Haras du Pin.
In 1714 King Louis XIVth's 'first horseman', one François Gédéon de Garsault, was asked to find an appropriate venue for horse-breeding. The owner of the Buisson d'Exmes and the Seignory du Pin, near Argentan, was 'persuaded' to hand it over to the King, and on April 2nd 1715 the order was given to transfer the original Royal Stud from Saint-Léger to Exmes (it's pronounced "Em").
The purpose was to establish a breeding programme for military remount, using State-owned as well as private 'approved' stallions. On the eve of the French Revolution, the Stud accounted for 196 stallions and 132 "approved horses". After a period of uncertainty, the State-run stud institution and the associated stallion farms were reinstated by Imperial Decree - the gold-plated bees that are worked into the wrought iron main gates are one of the symbols of Napoleon I.
The Haras d?Exmes then became the Haras du Pin. Now, the Haras is an internationally renowned centre for carriage driving as well as part of the French National Stud network, which operates on lines fundamentally unchanged since its foundation, and it was under the gaze of this extravagant "Versailles for horses" that the first riders in to Vet Gate 1 submitted their horses for inspection.
The majority of riders had ridden the first stage at a conservative 16.5kph. The weather had lightened with the day - ideal for endurance but tiresome for photographers - and most were able to present their horses within three minutes. The organisers were making use of an electronic timing system so there were no queues of crew waiting at the tables for pieces of paper, just a discreet mini-headcollar with sensors on the horse, wires under a line of sand at all entry points, and a network of Asus Eeepc laptops to make sense of it all. Glorious when it works, and thankfully it did.
The timing system had been brought up from Southern France by its devisor François Kerboul. The majority of France's 3,000 endurance riders live in the south - an eight hour drive away and, this year, only one ? professional Carlotta Dupas - had made the trip north. The second stronghold, dominated by the Ollivier family and their Armor stud, is in Brittany, an area that starts a hundred miles west of Argentan and finishes at the Atlantic Ocean, and the Bretons were represented by over twenty of this year?s fifty starters. Argentan has somehow managed to stay under the radar of the helicopters-and-cheque-books end of international endurance - whether the organisers are happy about this or not I couldn't say, but it does mean that, even though the premier endurance event in this part of the country, it has retained a delightful family atmosphere.
Three or four times a year the Family Pivain and their little eleven year-old arab mare enter a 90k ride and, though they sometimes withdraw after the first vetgate if they feel Aurore D?Or is not quite right, should they continue in the race they tend not only to win it at 17 or 18kph but pick up Best Condition as well. Gabriel (father) and two kids crew for Tania (mother) who knows her horse so well that they don?t use a heart rate monitor. She just looks in her eyes and knows when her pulse is low enough to present - usually within two minutes of arriving at the vetgate. So it was today, putting Aurore at the head of the field. First through in the professional class was Gaelle Ollivier Jacob on Kandy Armor.
A word of explanation about these classes. 2008 saw a huge upheaval in endurance regulations when the powers-that-be decided ride organisers had it too easy (joke) and to bring the sport into line with other equestrian disciplines by insisting you choose between riding under a professional, amateur or club license. With a club license you can only ride up to 60k (38 miles) so Saturday?s competition was divided into professional and amateur classes - 13 Pro's, 36 Amateurs, almost all of whom had ridden here before.
As they left the Haras with the sky still overcast there were twenty horses all within a few minutes of each other and no casualties. The Boschers ? father Jacki and daughter Karine ? work tirelessly for the sport and run an endurance centre in a region called Suisse Normande, putting on rides throughout the winter so the dedicated can keep their horses competition fit. At this stage Karine was in 15th place, Jacki 21st. Johanna Strang, a truly impressive multilingual Finnish lady who works in Paris is crewed by Geoff, her recording engineer husband. With her British-bred mare Felizja, Jo launched a David-style attack on the French Goliaths in 2005, finishing fifth European in the Championships. They both took a year's rest from endurance last year and it was lovely to see them back. Caroline Paul, a young smiling rider from Brittany was riding her father?s anglo arab Lamtara de Kerlieu, on whom she had been vetted out lame at this Vet Gate last year. The teenager Catherine Richard riding Love Story, the only coloured horse - correction; pony of unknown origin - in the ride, who tends to be always the bridesmaid and is yet to have a major win, looked great. And young Erwan Serrand, crewed by his parents and the owner of the lovely liver chestnut stallion Aragon de la Varde. Your correspondents must declare an interest: we were hoping Aragon would do well as we have a foal by him... Stallions rarely if ever reach podium positions in France. Their recovery rates tend to be affected by the presence of masses of mares, or other stallions, or other horses generally, and it is thought that they just protect themselves that bit more. A stallion, they say here, will never give you his all. They also say "you tell a gelding, you ask a mare but you negotiate with a stallion".
The second stage is thought to be the hardest of the ride, in the sense of "most technical". It's 35 km of hill work, and the tracks up and down those hills are secret little byways and hidden lanes that are muddy and wet and have been rutted and churned by tractors. First, though there's a climb into the little town of Exmes itself, a get-off-and-lead climb, before a clatter down through the medieval main street, and into the dark woods. Last year Richard turned a corner into a clearing just here and came upon a vision, a young blonde lady wearing what seemed to be a short nightdress, sitting bareback on a huge white carthorse like some angelic hippy love goddess, with a beautiful blonde child in front of her. No-one mentioned her this year so presumably she's moved on. But then, no-one else seemed to have seen her last year, either...
Beneath Mont-Ormel memorial a tiny track drops down the cliff and through the back gate into an equestrian centre whose amiable Irish proprietor serves excellent cheese baguettes and holds to the belief that a bottle of wine, once opened, must be finished. Although Andre Coriou, on his good horse Jolie Quatre Vents, had moved up 12 places to take the lead earlier it was Catherine Richard who came into view first, quickly followed by a group of ten. No Coriou. Suddenly he appeared, with four others who had formed the head, coming in from the wrong direction. During a vain attempt to avoid branches and brambles Andre had missed a marker and put on an extra 2km - and incurred a 9 minute disadvantage from which he would never really recover.
Richard remembers the next, third section as the hardest; not for technical reasons - it's pretty much flat - but because, at 37km it's the longest. Not only that but while the first 10km are in the direction of home the route then doubles back for another 10km. A horse can lose morale.
We headed straight for the first village, to see the horses through, and found ourselves in St Lambert-sur-Dive. If you're a rider, you come down a lane towards the church here. Just by the church your crew meet you with water, you tend to your horse and you're gone. The cars do a u-turn and head to the next place.
The Polish general named his hill "Maczuga", or "Mace". As well as the retreating Panzer division he intended to head off a second army attempting to break through and rescue their comrades. Throughout August 20th German units able to slip past the 4th Canadian Armoured Division at Trun, together with SS units on the other side of the gap, stormed the Polish position ceaselessly. Surrounded, and running low on food, fuel, and ammunition, the Poles held fast until relieved the next day by The Canadian Grenadier Guards. In all, they lost 2,300 men. But in a stunning display of valour, the unwavering Polish soldiers had sealed the fate of the German forces in Normandy. However, on August 18th, armoured cars of the South Alberta Regiment and infantry from The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada had left Trun for St Lambert-sur-Dive.
After 6 hours of fighting they were only half-way through (yesterday I walked through that village; it took just over 1 minute). Over the next two days outnumbered and isolated Canadians waged war against a desperate enemy. Currie, with all his officers killed or wounded, kept his lines intact, shouting encouragement to his thinning ranks and directing the fire of his few remaining guns. He single-handedly knocked out one of the giant Tiger tanks. In 60 hours of continuous combat the unit destroyed seven tanks, a dozen pieces of heavy artillery and killed, wounded or captured 2,900 enemy soldiers. When the fighting stopped, Currie fell asleep standing up.
For his "courage and complete disregard for personal safety ... his conspicuous bravery and extreme devotion to duty" Currie was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration in the British Commonwealth.
Typhoon pilots strafing the retreating German lines reported being overcome by the smell of death. Dwight Eisenhower described "a luxuriant countryside where all life had brutally ceased". Sometimes, it's important to get off your horse and find out about the land you're riding over.
Through Trun, past the memorial to another, earlier conflict, then the ride turns back south towards the hippodrome. Many rides in France are "clover-leaf" events - a series of loops back to the same place. These are excellent news for organisers, who don't have to worry about bussing vets and timekeepers all over the countryside, and quite good for crews, who can set up a base camp. For a horse it can be wearying, being asked to go out again and again, and for this reason rides like Argentan - a 100km loop followed by a 20km loop - are popular with riders. But it's still asking a lot of a horse to go back out when, understandably, he thinks he's done for the day, and so it is with mixed feelings that one feels one's horse brighten up and quicken again as he realises he's on his way home. Furthermore, even if you pass, the third vet gate of an FEI 120 features a compulsory representation with Ridgeway ten minutes before the horse sets back out; a lot of stiffnesses and some metabolic issues get picked up here.
Along the sides of field after field of corn which, if not as high as an elephant?s eye, would certainly be above his knee caps. During this stage Aurore D?Or took a fall and the Pivain family, who don?t do sulking, retired her with all of them still looking beautiful and buoyant. At the hippodrome the sun had come out to play its traditional role of making the vetting area, held on the perfect-but-reflective going of the sand track, several degrees hotter than the cool grassy grooming area. Johanna Strang?s horse, in season, took an uncharacteristically long time to present; eight minutes instead of her normal two. The Boschers were going round at closer to 14kph than the leader?s 16+ so it wasn?t going to be their day on the podium either. Aragon was still very much in the race, sitting confidently behind Fabrice Creignou on Dune d'Azat and Annick Thiepault on Ourmak Ar Veuzic. Ourmak, after a rather excitable first vetting, presented immediately and therefore gained a valuable couple of minutes. In the amateur section Caroline Paul, who was riding Lamtara faster than he?d ever been asked to go before, and having grinned all the way round the ride as she whizzed through each checkpoint only a few minutes behind the leaders, found herself in second place (amateur) behind Valerie Capelle's Ramshah F, the leader of that class having been eliminated at the re-check.
So it was a bunch of five, three Pro's and two Ams, who set off ahead for the last 20km. Caroline, Fabrice and Erwan soon made up their respective deficits to regroup with Annick, leaving Valerie Capelle behind. It was clear that the Pro class would be decided by a sprint. For Caroline, vets and accidents permitting, victory in the Amateurs was in the bag; all she had to do was decide whether to contest the others even though she could not share their podium.
A slightly surreal feature of this ride is that the last couple of kilometres go through a housing estate, across a municipal playground and along the back of some allotment gardens, then across a final corn field before bursting through a gap in a hedge onto the racetrack. Serrand had kept Aragon just behind Thiepault and Creignou until they hit the final bend,then he spread his hands out wide in a way that would not gain approval from Willie Schumaker and let Aragon go, to float a length ahead in a way that Schumaker would have been very happy with.
Team Nellie