Championnat de France 2015 - Day 2

So after the usual crap night's sleep in a tent (better than last time because we had an air mattress, but still not ideal as I was sharing with both the kids who are fidgety buggers) I was up at 6 to get sorted for day 1 of the competition. We had breakfast (remembered to bring proper tea bags this time so no thé pas bon for me), rounded up the horses, loaded them and set off back to Lamotte.

Obviously the car park was miles away from the event, and the trailer/lorry park was miles away from that, so it was back to the dust and dangerous cyclists again. It was pretty busy even at 8am and Kinna's teddy bear ears were flicking all over the place taking it all in....

It was also pretty warm already, Éowyn and the dog were running through the sprinklers to cool off!

We arrived back at the monstrous indoor school to find the usual chaos of yelling people, yelling horses, barking dogs and flying arrows just to add to the excitement. One of the Important Guys In Charge (wearing his official gilet to make sure we all knew how important he was) came over and opined that Ali's arrows were "too pointy" so we had to hurriedly scrape the points off on some concrete.

 

Then it was time for a quick warm up as they were in the first "pool" (the way they pronounced the English word made me think they were talking about chickens at first) and they were off. Predictably, Kinns wasn't too keen on going away from her friends into the dark recesses of the manege and did some suitable prancing about and snorting, but eventually deigned to actually go down the run. When it came to the cantering runs, she decided she'd rather gallop, and Ali found the wall at the end coming towards her rather rapidly.......!

But she managed to pull her up without running over any Important Guys In Charge or small children and at least the speed got her some time points. She even managed to get some arrows in the targets, including a 4

Still finished last though by the end of the first day's competition. But then she's had nowhere to practise in the UK (I'm working on that). Johan did better in the second "pool", Kinns had slowed down (a bit) by then.

 

And Carla on Quetsch did pretty well too.

We emerged blinking into the heat of midday and set off to yomp back to the trailer with the horses then go in search of food. Lots of fancy-dress dressage going on, like a quadrille but with various numbers of competitors. Some good costumes on show!

Also, sadly, a lot of gadgets on show, they even allow de Gogues for archery....

After lunch it was back to the nice cool manege for the Club 1 competition. Kinna had to come along and watch her mate Idaa strut his stuff.

Then we decided it was time for ice-creams. By this time Éowyn was flagging so I took her back to the campsite for a shower and a rest. Naturally she crashed in the car on the way back and was then bouncing around all over the place.........luckily they had some games to keep her amused.

 

No meschui this time so once the others were back we went out for a pizza and came home for an early night. Which would have been easier had some of our fellow campers not stayed up late drinking and yelling....even the bloody sheep on the farm were loud. I hate camping!