Riding, a Production Line of French Sport Champions

French sport has often been able to rely on its riders to find the way on to world and Olympic podiums. The result of a long tradition, and even more of a sound national organization for horse-riding.

By Alain Mercier, journalist

Alexandra Ledermann, the first woman European show jumping champion.

The lack of medals at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 doesn’t make the slightest difference: horse-riding is still a French specialty, ranked fourth in the list of providers of Olympic medals in French sport, behind fencing, cycling and athletics. At the Tokyo Games in 1964, it even saved the country enormous embarrassment with Pierre Jonquères d’Oriola, on the last day, winning the individual show jumping event, the only Olympic title of the French delegation.

Proof of this glowing health is that in the French team success never remains the property of a single rider for long. It changes hands with effortless ease. In 1988, Pierre Durand and his legendary horse, Jappeloup, had won the gold medal at the Seoul Games. Two years later, equestrian sport had eyes only for Eric Navet, world champion in both individual and team competition. In Atlanta, in 1996, the baton was passed to Alexandra Ledermann, daughter of a Norman rider, bronze medallist at the Games, then three years later crowned the first woman European champion.

What is the secret? It is an expertise rooted deeply in the past. The tradition of French horsemanship dates back long before the introduction of Olympic competitions. Historians even believe it began in the mid 16th century, at the time of the Italian wars. The gentlemen of the kingdom are said to have taken advantage of the trans-Alpine battles to learn the art of horsemanship and to bring its rules back home. At the end of this century, a certain Duplessis-Mornay founded a Protestant university in Saumur, where horsemanship was taught by Monsieur de Saint-Vual, Louis XIII’s personal equerry.

Expertise dating back hundreds of years

Later, the French Revolution overturned this structure, but riders on all sides never ceased to consider Saumur the capital of horsemanship. In 1825, Charles X established the Royal Riding School here, soon to be known as the Cadre Noir. Two hundred and fifty years later, in 1972, it became the Ecole Nationale d’Equitation [the French National Horse-riding School]. Today, the entire world speaks with respect about the quality of its teaching and the French team never starts a new season without a detour over its show jumping courses.

The other reason for French success owes nothing to the past. More prosaically, it is to do with organization. Since the 1950s, horse-riding has set out to establish a structure, without losing sight of the fact that there are, not just one, but several ways of enjoying equestrian sports. Riders keen on the sporting side, whether or not they compete, can join the French Equestrian Federation (FFE). Children can become members of the Pony Club of France. Those who enjoy hacking can join the Association Nationale du Tourisme Equestre [French national tourism on horseback association]. For a long time these three institutions worked separately. Then Pierre Durand, the former Olympic champion, elected to the presidency of the FFE in 1993, undertook to bring them together under one banner. He failed and resigned. But his successor, Jacqueline Reverdy, the only female president of an Olympic sport federation, achieved it in 1999.

One and a half million riders

Immediately after the Second World War, France had about 20,000 riders. Today there are one and a half million of them. In 1987, the Fédération Française d’Equitation recorded 200,000 registered members. In 2001, its membership exceeded 400,000, enough to slip it into sixth place among French Olympic disciplines in terms of the number of practitioners. In the mid 1980s, it was estimated that 40,000 children went pony riding. Today they are said to be 360,000.

As a result, the elite of French riders have a great deal of money behind them. At the FFE, the national technical department, responsible for the top level, has a budget of over five million euros - quite a tidy sum - enough to maintain a solid French team in the three Olympic disciplines: show jumping, three day eventing and dressage. And when there isn’t the money to keep the best mounts in the country, the partners all chip in. In January 2002, the Hauts-de-Seine Regional Council agreed to provide support to the FFE for the Olympic preparation for the Athens Games of Eric Navet and his horse, Dollar du Mûrier, coveted by several foreign owners. The one aim - to wash away the shame of the Sydney Olympics in 2004.
French riding will present itself in good order at the World Horse-Riding Games in September 2002 in the Spanish city of Jerez. The dressage discipline has taken time to recover from the departure of Margit Otto Crépin. This French horsewoman, of German origin, silver medallist at the 1988 Seoul Games on Corlandus, long held French dressage in the palm of her hand. Today, it feels bereft and barely able to find replacements capable of joining battle for the world’s top places.

In show jumping, this is a crossover time of the generations. Older riders, like Eric Navet and Hubert Bourdy - now forty-five - and his horse, Helios, Michel Robert, on Olympia, Edouard Couperie, on Pro Pilot II and the everlasting Hervé Godignon, now committed with a new mare, Calypso d’Herbiers, have a firm hold on the reins. But several young riders, including Olivier Guillon, aged thirty, with his mare Baladine du Mesnil, are pushing the door of the French team.

In three day eventing, the best French riders are often still the most experienced. Jean-Lou Bigot, Jean Teulère, Marie-Christine Duroy and Rodolphe Sherer have several Olympic competitions behind them, but continue to set a brisk pace at the head of the national horse-riding team - to the great delight of a French team performing better than ever.

Article Courtesy of:  French Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Alain Mercier, journalist

 

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