French Exchange

Amelia and I have been to visit a riding school in France with the view to organising and exchange visit between some of their kids and ours. We arrived in Charles du Gaulle Paris on Friday and we were met by Sylvie the owner of the riding school after lunch we went to the riding school where we were shown around and then Sylvie’s husband John took us out on a hack. It was so nice to ride in such beautiful countryside with not a car in sight. Although John did take us up this rather steep hill and then galloped back down it and up the other side. He and Frances (English speaking guy who came with us as John does not speak English) were laughing at Amelia who took off after them but I decided this was a good time to teach my horse that it cant always just go with the rest and thank goodness he saw it my way and we jogged down half of it and then cantered the rest. Later we met Isabelle the riding instructor that we stayed with who had originally contacted us. Saturday was a very busy day at the school. There are three schools two indoor one very small for young riders and a large outdoor school. The majority of the children from 4 to 12yrs ride shetland ponies when they begin, then appear to move on to other horses and ponies when they have the basics of riding. The system seems to work very well and although I would say our more experienced kids ride better, their younger ones are far better than ours. The reason for this is because their expectations are different. The ponies are no better than ours some worse in fact but the kids do not grumble they fall off, they get on and they sort it out. None of the ponies wear boxes and they do bite, one bit me but thats ponies for you the kids and parents realise that. Amelia and I had a go in the vaulting lesson. The horse FanFan is a 16hh very large cob. Its definitely not that easy to stand up whilst moving, some of the children doing the vaulting are as young as 4yrs old. Sunday was their open day which started with a show jumping competition. I don’t think I have ever seen so many kids fall off in one competition but everyone got up and carried on. One child fell off a shetland which then galloped around the arena, approx 10 kids and three dogs chased it and when they caught it they chucked the kid back on and she carried on around the course. Amelia was given a horse to jump, very unlike the ones she is used to but she came third on it. After there was a barrel racing competition which Amelia came 2nd in and Sylvie and I had our own barrel race on two shetlands (I won). Next was the vaulting display followed by a TREC demonstration and then several musical rides for all ages. Lunch was mussels and fries Amelia was horrified and just had the fries I enjoyed it and especially with the Kir (French Liquer in white wine) that came with it. Saturday afternoon we visited Chantilly which is known as the Capitol of the Horse it has 2,600 thoroughbreds ridden by 600 jockeys, Europe’s largest Polo Clubs with between 300 and 500 hundred horses and 600 hundred horses for leisure purposes and the Museum of the horse, They have sand covered tracks with white rails up the main roads like we have bicycle tracks and miles of sand laid gallops and tracks through the forests. Amelia and I particularly enjoyed the French way of life where eating socialising and wine drinking every evening seem to be the way of life. We could definitely get used to that. Although not many people spoke English everyone was very friendly and went out of their way to make us welcome. We are hoping to arrange an exchange next year we will try to find out on both sides which kids would be interested and pair them up,  the French are planning to come here in April and us going there in July.  Pictures are on the Gallery www.talygarnec.co.uk/Gallery.php

Posted on Thursday, September 25th, 2008 at 1:19 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.