A man, a plan, a castle… Axel judging at C in the Grand Prix at Wiesbaden

Saturday morning, I wander onto the cross country after the Pony dressage class is finished. I’m used to being a credentialed photographer for these things, but at this show I am Frau Richter (Mrs. Judge), so instead of trotting down the edge of the galloping track on the press access, I meander with the massive throngs on the spectator paths. It’s been a cold, wet spring in Europe, but today the sunshine is glorious, and folks are turning their faces up to it. I’m always amazed, though, that fair-skinned northern Europeans simply don’t wear hats. In the States, everyone would be wearing a baseball cap, and I would be wearing my faded teal straw boater. But the sun here is kinder, I hope. The crowd movement is different from the States, too: where at home people choose a fence and camp there, here the crowd ebbs and flows. Because of this, I can step in and get photos at a variety of fences in spite of the large number of people.

The last rider on course is Ingrid Klimke. Can you say national hero worship? I can tell where she is on course because of the swell of noise that follows her as she gallops around the course. No need for crowd control whistles to announce her arrival, just listen for the wave of cheering. She wins the event on FRH Escada. Later, we are sorry to hear about the death of Dirk Schrade’s King Artus following the cross country: his Olympic partner had been in third place, and had finished with a clean round, but collapsed from an aortic tear while cooling out.

Ingrid, however, a few hours later is piloting Dresden Mann to a 70% in the dressage Grand Prix. She has just moved this horse up to the Big Tour from the Young Horse (8-10 year old) Grand Prix. He’s a stunning stallion, a horse for the future. In this age of specialization, how many riders can do both disciplines so well?

As I have come to expect at these grand European shows, there are children and dogs everywhere. While I photograph the Grand Prix from a vantage point behind “A”, I at some point have a dachshund asleep on my foot, a terrier ask me for a treat, and a large dog of mixed breed accost me with his dangerously wagging tail.

Behind me, children are wading in the fountain. One little girl, dressed in her weekend finery, steps in barefoot, only to discover that the bottom is just slippery enough for her to slide, still upright, to the deepest part. Which elicits giggles until she realizes that she can’t get traction to walk back to the edge. The entire group she is with forms a human chain, reaches for her and just as her fingers are inches away … splash! Fortunately her dunking only causes her to giggle more. Beyond her, a pair of tiny sisters gleefully dash about in the sun while shucking off as many articles of clothing as they can before their mother can catch up with them, little boys make up games while wearing paper crowns, preteens pretend to be ponies, and children of all ages hang over the rails of the warm up area, dreaming of riding their very own piaffing horse.

The dressage competition itself is a visual treat, with the pink and white facade of the castle as the backdrop. I wonder if any horses notice the kids doing gymnastics on the lawn between the arena and the castle, but I figure the thick crowd between the judge’s boxes might block their view of the cartwheels and handsprings. The afternoon light is liquid and golden, the cast shadows from the grandstand creating long patterns across the sand. The view from where I am standing, near the in gate, is made even more special because Axel is judging: he rode in his very first show here, at the age of nine, and today, in his last year of judging internationally, he has the honor of presiding at “C” for the Grand Prix.

The Wiesbaden Reit und Fahr Club pin, circa 1938. Axel wore this in honor of his mother, who was a member at that time.

Cross country day crowds

“Fountain Girl” and her rescue party.

Ingrid Klimke and FRH Escada through the keyhole jump.

Ingrid Klimke and Dresden Mann, and Goncala Carvalho and Rubi

Isabell Werth and Don Johnson accepting the Grand Prix award … with Axel as one of the presenters.

Nathalie zu Sayn-Wittgenstein and Fabienne

Once upon a time there was a princess who rode her horse on the emerald green lawn of a pink castle that overlooked the Rhine river.

Okay… a whole lot of dressage royalty, including one actual princess (Nathalie zu Sayn-Wittgenstein from Denmark). And while the spectators stand on the emerald green lawn, the dressage arena itself is covered in high tech footing installed specifically for the show. But it really does look like a setting out of a fair tale.

The castle grounds are now the Biebricher Schlosspark, a public park that for 77 years has hosted this multi-faceted and visually gorgeous show. Where else can you watch a three-star cross country in the morning, then wander up toward the castle to see Grand Prix dressage, and when you’re tired of that, follow the cheering toward the jumper stadium for a Longine’s Riders Tour class? And for something different, there is a vaulting competition, and a carriage driving scurry.

The first person we run into on Friday morning is non other than the inimitable George Morris. Retired from coaching jumper Team USA, he is here training Doda Miranda and Athina Onassis de Miranda who ride for Brazil. It’s a quiet morning for the jumpers, so he hangs out with us by the dressage arena, discussing the relative merits of shoulder ins with Axel and Uwe. He admits that he’s secretly always wanted to be a dressage rider. When he says that, I think, he has spent his life teaching riders to do dressage between fences, and the jumping world is so much better for it.

The show is held Friday through Monday on the holiday weekend of Pfingsten. The crowds are huge and casual. Entire families comes to watch, and they bring blankets and lawn chairs and have picnics in the grass under the ancient trees. Aside from the usual suspects clustered at the in gate, they are not necessarily dressage aficionados, but having been to this show every year, as well as watching dressage on tv, they are enthusiastic, cheer for every contestant, and sigh when a change is missed. Parking? There is no parking. Riders and officials take shuttles from the hotel, as we did at Hamburg, and spectators arrive by the bus load.

Beside the Grand Prix, the dressage competition ranges from Ponies to Juniors to Young Riders…. And let me tell you, these kids can ride. Every one of them has an excellent seat and position.  Every one of them knows how to present a horse in a test. Few of them give away any points with inaccuracies: they ride into the corners, they do their transitions at the letters. By the time they graduate from the Young Rider ranks, they have ridden up the center line in dozens of CDI competitions, they have navigated crowded warm ups, narrow paths between ranks of spectators and tight arenas surrounded by popping umbrellas and the clatter of catering.

Semmieke Rothenberger and Golden Girl

The jumpers are barely a hundred meters away, in a beautiful grass arena shaded by huge trees and surrounded by grandstands and the requisite VIP tribune. Turn right, walk down the tree lined avenue overlooking the stadium, through the vendor village, and you’ll arrive at the edge of the cross country course. It twists and turns to take advantage of limited acreage, and ends with three fences in the jumper stadium. This makes it an incredibly walkable and accessible course for spectators.  Almost all the cross country jumps are “skid” fences, moveable with a fork lift or tractor…. Because most of the year, this is just a public park. In the middle of a town. Behind a castle. On a river.

There is amazing shopping, of course. Handbags and hats, scarves and saddles. Warm pretzels, cold beer, pastries and candies, bratwurst… All the things that I shouldn’t be inviting to stick to my ribs and hips.

My favorite spot near the dressage is a cafe at “E”, where I can sit with a coffee or a white wine under monstrous Henkel umbrellas and watch the dressage a few yards away while getting photos of the competition with the castle in the background. Yes, yes, I’ve mentioned this sort of lounging spot in previous posts from previous show, but this is truly beautiful besides being comfortable. Besides, it’s the last stop on our 2013 European Hardship Dressage Tour, so I’m savoring the moment.

Shopping galore at Wiesbaden

No lack of sweet things to eat!

Some young fans enjoying the jumping

How many dressage warm ups have a view of a castle?

The Wiesbaden crowd, reminding me of a Seurat painting.

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grand Jatte: George Seurat

Uwe, Axel and George Morris, nattering about dressage.

The conversation continues in front of the castle….

Fred Astaire would have been proud!

I’ve got lots to write about our stay in Wiesbaden, but today I just have to share some of the photos from the Grand Prix Freestyle.

The weather has been better than expected here all week…. Until about an hour before the Grand Prix Freestyle started. It wasn’t just the forecast showers, unless you interpret “shower” as “dump buckets of water from the sky”.

When we arrived at the arena, just about the time that the rain started, the covered grandstand was already full, and there were spectators lining the rest of the ring several deep, all sporting rain gear or umbrellas. At the moment, they were watching an endless award presentation for the vaulting competition. Teams of kids were standing in formation in the pouring rain – in their competition attire. Freezing, I’m sure! I turned to Axel, and his brother Uwe, who had joined us for this show, and said about the crowd, “I’m sure they’ll leave after the awards.”

They both shook their heads. They grew up in Wiesbaden, and they know this crowd. “They’re not going anywhere,” I was told. I was dubious. There was a bite to the damp breeze and I wondered if I was wearing enough layers.

They were right.

Those fans stayed not just until after the last musical ride, but but they stayed for the awards, too – at midnight, in rain that simply never let up. I am utterly in awe of them. They cheered for everyone, enthusiastically, before and after every single ride.

I decided if these riders were crazy enough to ride in this weather, and these fans were crazy enough to watch them, then I would be crazy enough to photograph it all. Fortunately the ringside cafe was bedecked with huge Henkel awnings, but even so, everything was really damp by the end…. It is nights like this when I remember why I spent a small fortune on my Canon Mark IV: weather sealing! Not to mention its amazing ability to see in the dark.

So hear you go!

Update: the rain never let up last night, and by this morning the warm up footing had washed out. So the last day of dressage competition at Wiesbaden was cancelled.

The amazing, intrepid crowd

Susie Dutta and Currency DC

Currency DC, steaming out of the arena.

Isabel Werth, inciting the crowd to riot. A deduction of .5, but hey, if you’re going to ride in the rain, you might as well have fun!

One handed pirouette by Luis Principe and WorldPerformance from Portugal

Ingrid Klimke and Dresden Mann. Forget about the pouring rain and the splashing puddles for a second: who wouldn’t want to sit like this?

Ingrid Klimke and Dresden Mann.

Rubi  and Goncalo Carvalho went at 11:30 pm and the crowd was still there.

Fabienne Luetkemeier and Qui Vincit Dynamis, winners of the Hamburg Dressage Derby.

The Jumper Derby and Dressage Derby are a few hundred meters apart physically at Hamburg, and light years apart in requirements. But they both require mad skills.

At Hamburg, there were three different Derbies: the Under 25 riders, who did a test at Prix St George level; the Grand Prix riders, who did a shortened Grand Prix in the final; and the Pony riders, whose tests are the FEI equivalent of our USEF 2nd Level.

For each Dressage Derby at Hamburg, riders first compete in a qualifying class. The top three horse and rider combinations in each set then compete in a unique format: first the three riders complete a shortened version of their test on their own horse, then each rider switches horses to do the test twice more. This is a spectator-friendly class: there are only 9 rides, and the crowd gets to see exactly what is going on in both the warm up and the test itself. It’s a great test of professional riders, who have to be able to get the most out of a wide range of horses, which is why it was the format for the German Professional Riders Championship a few weeks ago at Hagen.

Just like the jumper derby, the horse that excels at this type of competition may not be the one that gets the glory on every other weekend: this competition requires fitness and stamina in order to do three tests in an hour and a half’s time, and it requires a somewhat sanguine attitude that will tolerate three different riders in that time frame.

On the riders’ part, it takes superior “catch riding” skills in order to assess and connect with a horse in the five minutes allotted between climbing aboard and riding up the center line. You can be sure that  each rider has been keeping a careful eye on their competitors in the warm up all week to get a feel for what their approaches are. One wonders, though, if riders make decisions many weeks prior to this competition: do I bring my most accommodating horse? Or my most difficult one? If I bring the difficult one, what are the chances that I won’t be able to put in a good enough test to even qualify for the Derby final myself?

Sometimes it is very clear who the winning rider is: if they put in a good test on their own horse, and then score better as a guest rider than the original rider did on the other two horses. In the Under 25 class, for instance, the winner had rides of over 70% on all three horses. The original score of one horse was 69.7%, and our winner rode the horse to 70.5% in the third round, after the third place rider could only garner a 65%. In the Grand Prix Derby, Fabienne Luetkemeier rode her own horse to a 73%, and then bettered the score of both her competitors’ horses to scores well over 70% as well. Fabienne, by the way, is only 24, so keep your eyes out for her in the future!

So what do you do in those five minutes of warm up? It’s the equine equivalent of speed-dating, and just like speed-dating, you try to get as much pertinent information about your partner as possible. You ask as many questions as you can, without spending all the energy the horse has, especially before the last round. Honestly, I saw a lot of walking in the warm up ring – you can get a lot of information at the walk. You test the throttle: you test the brakes. You ask about bending. You ask, “what’s your favorite color?”  …. just kidding! But perhaps you ask what the horse expects as the aids for the changes.

The horses were generally well adjusted to the whole thing, which speaks volumes of both the horses’ training and the riders’ prowess. There were no meltdowns or obvious disagreements. A few pirouettes might have been a bit large, and there were a couple of missed changes. The ponies, being a bit more transparent and opinionated than horses in general, perhaps scoffed a bit more at the process, As one pony rider jockeyed her mount past us in the arena, we could hear a lot of hard breathing from the saddle as one tough junior fought to get her third-round pony past a “you’re not the boss of me” moment.

Axel mentioned that he really enjoys judging Derbies — he is one of the few Americans to have judged this class — “it’s a broadening experience,” he says,”even after about a zillion years of judging!”

Three good riders, one good pony!

The Hamburg Derby course 2013. Click the image to see a large version

The course has been the same since 1924.

The track is dead simple: right lead around the outside, up the center, left lead around the outside.

There are no bending lines, just a few related distances, nothing of what we would consider “technical” in the world of Grand Prix jumping. There are only two striped rails on the whole courses, there are no standards in the shape of Shamu, or painted in the sponsor’s colors. There are no flower pots filling out the jumps. There is nothing on this course but old fashioned, permanent or natural looking fences. The only nod to modernity are frangible standards that collapse when a horse hits them rather than causing a rotational fall.

It is the most difficult jumper course in the world, and just completing it is an accomplishment.

Normally, in the VIP tent at a Grand Prix jumping event, three quarters of the patrons are not even watching the horses, they are talking amongst themselves, planning evenings or sealing deals. Not so here.  This is riveting. Everyone is watching as the first horse begins:

The left standard of the first fence is part of the arena rail, so the crowd is just inches from the white flag. There may be umbrellas, because the rain starts and stops. Children may be running toward you as you approach it. You will be followed by the boom of a flying camera. The second fence is a redwood colored oxer, which visually blends into a shaded part of the crowd behind it. The rails fall easily from flat cups. Make a right turn toward the in gate and jump up an Irish bank, drop down for one stride across the in gate access and launch up and over the second Irish bank.

Continue the right turn and head for the water. This is an open water: no leading hedge, no potted plants decorating and demarking the edges of the span. Just a wide expanse of blue water to be cleared. Stretch over it, take a half half and wait for nine or ten strides to a tall grey vertical. A sweeping right turn under the many eyes in the two story VIP tribune, and approach the Hamburg Bank.

Launch up over the first white rail onto the bottom step of the bank. It’s a forward two strides to the next up rail to the highest level. At this point, at the flat top of the world, a horse will pause to figure out how exactly to get down the nearly vertical 16 feet of the back face. It was more straightforward in the qualifying round, with a clear galloping path beyond it the landing. Now there is a 1.6 meter white vertical placed one stride from the bank, and here, vertical means vertical, not a hint of a ground line to help find the take off spot.

Horses deal with this top of the slide question in any number of ways. They stop and stare. They test the slope. They back up. They rear in confusion. The brave ones walk to the brink, fold their hocks, lower their haunches, slide down and then bound over the vertical.

Clear this and the crowd will go wild. You’ll need to get your horse’s attention before the next fence, which is another part of the redwood colored second fence, this one a vertical…. No ground line on this one either. Continue right hand up the arena’s center for a vertical redwood gate. Gallop straight ahead for the massive birch oxer, a fly fence, then turn left for a living hedge and white rails beside the main grandstand. The crowd is ten deep, and they are an arm’s length outside the red flag on the right standard.

The Railroad Crossing in and out that comes next consists of two rails. That’s all, folks. A rail at the top of the standards, followed in one stride by a rail at the top of the standards. No filler, no ground rail, just five feet of air with a four inch thick pole over it. Think thats easy? Hans Guenter Winklers’ horse, decades ago, decided to go right under it instead of jumping it.

Turn left toward the Pulvermans Grob, named so because Pulverman, the original course designer, was year after year eliminated here.  If you’ve ridden cross country you’ve been over coffins like this one: vertical, one stride, ditch, one stride, vertical…. But there are no penalties for rapping them on crosscountry. Here those rails come down if you breath hard on them.

Left past the VIP tribune, over a wall that is made of real stone, not painted plywood. Past the grandstand again, straight for a two stride combination of ditches and rails,  left turn up the middle of the arena and finish over a brick wall.

This year we are treated to a jump off: two horses tied with four faults each. There were no clean rounds this year…. But that is not unusual.

The Hamburg Bank, from the side.

Huge Derby crowd

Some days… are just one of those days.

A hairy moment at the top of the Bank.

The approach to the first fence.

The Railroad Crossing

The path between the jumper warmup and the arena

The Hamburg show grounds is in the Blankenese (pronounced Blank-uh-NAY-seh) area just outside the city of Hamburg, close enough to the Elba river that from the dressage arena we can hear the ships’ horns in the distance. It is an area of tree lined streets and large, handsome houses. Many of those on the south side of the see-and-be-seen Elbestrasse are set well back on carefully tended properties which also abut the river. There are wooded bike and riding trails throughout, and everywhere there are flowering shrubs and bushes that have just popped into bloom with the new spring.

My first impression of the Hamburg show grounds: how on earth do they cram so much into so little space?

Where Hagen is expansive, and Saumur is just plain spread out, Hamburg is all about using every available centimeter. The space for the dressage field of play is just a meter or two larger than the 20×60 arena. The VIP area is RIGHT next to it, so close to the arena that if a horse doing extended canter from M to K took one extra jump, his rider could order a beer at the bar. The judge’s box at E is actually inside the VIP tent, and the one at B is between the long side grandstands.  On the other side of the vip tent is the warmup, which is also 20×60, and that seems to be the only riding-in area. If there is a place to lunge, i haven’t seen it. Pressed up against the warmup is the van parking, and I give major props to the folks who organize that…! Once all the horse boxes and trailers have been squeezed in, I think there isn’t enough room to park a scooter in between.

A few steps beyond the dressage grandstand is the beginning of the trade fair, and in the middle of the trade fair is the jumper warmup, which is only a bit larger than the dressage arena. One vertical, one oxer, sometimes 20 horses, moving at every possible speed. Right beside the jumper warmup is a food court: stands for bratwurst, pretzels, crepes, ice cream, and of course lots of places to buy beer.

But if you buy beer, be sure you’ve got an extra fifty cents in your pocket: German shows are the only places that I’ve ever seen that require you to pay to use the toilet. Why they don’t just add the pence to the price of the beer, I don’t know, but the Toilet Matron with her hand out for your coin as you head for the loo certainly takes away the incentive to purchase liquids!

Jumpers make their way from warm up to the main arena by way of a narrow path that runs beside the food court, past the prize Mercedes that someone is going to win, between the crowd ropes across the main spectator path, and through the tunnel below the officials’ tribune.

And then they have arrived in the legendary Derby Field. Dotted with natural obstacles including water, ditches, hedge, stone wall, a grob and two banks, it is a huge, galloping field surrounded by covered grandstands, sloping spectator berms, and a two story VIP tribune. The signature Hamburg bank is huge, which is apparent when a group of officials pose atop it for a photo. It is two leaps up and a slide down the back, and it has tested the mettle of many a horse and riders.

Parking is, to put it mildly, severely limited. We are instructed to take the shuttle from the hotel, because there simply isn’t any place to park. Spectators take the train, or bus, or walk or bike. When we arrived by shuttle (and no, the judges aren’t riding the bus, the shuttle service is provided by the show sponsor, Mercedes), the access roads are more like alleyways between barriers. I’m very glad we are being driven by a local professional!

The pony-sized award squadron for the Pony Derby.

Blingy browband, anyone?

The sight of the flying camera caused a bit of consternation for a few horses when the entered the competition arena, oddly, because it was perfectly visible above the warm up as well.

We have been on the road for four weeks tomorrow. We left on Tax Day, and today it is Mothers Day. If my Facebook feed is any indication, a large number of my friends have either just given birth or have just become grandparents, or foals have just arrived, or there is a new puppy in the house. I apologize if I haven’t sent my congratulations and my best wishes for a full nights’ sleep: I blame it on spotty hotel Internet. So to all the new moms ensuring that there will be a future generation of human babies who are raised teething on rubber curry combs and making sand castles in the corners of riding arenas, and to those who have ensured that there will be horses for those children to fall in love with, and puppies who will fall in love with those children, I salute you.

Here at The Hamburg Derby, the Kinderland area is chock full of kids playing on the inflatable climbing wall and bouncing on the bouncy mats, and wide eyed, getting autographs from their favorite riders. And while there are no pony rides like there were at Hagen, there are fiberglass horses of different sizes for little girls to climb onto and sit dreamily upon.

I have discovered that Mothers Day is celebrated in some form, on some date, every year, all over the world. It crosses religious, political and geographic borders. It is one of the few universal things that we celebrate as a species.

So happy Mothers Day to all the mothers that i know, and a special Mothers Day greeting to my own mom, who drove me to riding lessons when i was a horse crazy child, and worked two jobs so I could go to summer camp at the Thomas School of Horsemanship, who provide paints for a budding artist and then didn’t complain about the mess. Happy gardening, mom!

Axel: Judging around the world!

Posing in the DressurStadium

It’s just rape seed (which canola oil is made from), but the endless fields that we drove past are beautiful!

It’s a 12 hour drive between Saumur and Hamburg. In the US, I’d consider pushing all the way through in one day. But driving in Europe is different. For one thing, we are driving on roads that we’ve never been on before, reading road signs in foreign languages, and listening carefully to our GPS, who, while all-knowing, describes exit ramps as “slip roads”. Add to that the different driving style of Europe – freeway driving here, as I’ve mentioned, is not a case of parking the car in the middle lane, cranking up the tunes, hitting the cruise control and sipping a cola. Oh, we are NOT talking about a spectator sport here! This is heads-up, adrenaline-fueled, watch the rear view mirror for flying Audis, get your ass in and out of the passing lane – crisply, I might add – kind of driving. I like it. It’s orderly, and 99.9% of the drivers adhere strictly to the rules. But it’s exhausting. By the time we got to Aachen, we pretty much fell asleep with our clothes on.

In the morning, I had the feeling I had been here before. And then I realized that on our first trip together to Aachen, in 2000, we had stayed at the same hotel:

2000 was the year that Axel and I were married. It was also the year that Axel judged the Sydney Olympics. And as was the practice at the time, European show organizers jockeyed to have the Olympic judging panel judge their shows in the months leading up to the Games. So we did a tour, and Aachen, as always, was the crowning jewel.

By then, I had traveled to Europe many times, for a variety of photo assignments, before meeting Axel. But Aachen in 2000 was my first big European dressage show. The Holiday Inn that we stayed in was within walking distance of the Aachen show grounds, and it was therefore the hotel that the officials and the “A” list riders stayed at. When we arrived at the hotel desk to check in, all around us were riders and trainers who I’d only seen photos of. I realized that even though I’d been the official photographer for just about every big show in the United States over the course of my career, this, in fact, was the Real Deal.

The bigness of Aachen was an eye opener. Two huge stadiums, with sell out crowds for both dressage and jumping. I was credentialed as press, but I was also Frau Richter (Mrs. Judge). So my dog tag was nearly an all-access pass, and I went back and forth between the two arenas, photographing and ogling. It was rainy and cold, so there was shopping to do as well: Aachen has big shopping, too. Which was a good thing, because it was July, and silly me, expecting it to be summer, I’d only brought one sweater…. Fortunately one can fix oversights like that at the Aachen show!

The caliber of horses was an eye opener, too. To win here, it wasn’t a question of just putting in a mistake-free test: the quality of every movement had to be high as well. I remember watching Farbenfroh, the chestnut horse of Nadine Capellmann’s, who was always on that fine line between genius and madness. He was probably the first of the “new” style of horse, the kind with extraordinary range of motion in the shoulder coupled with huge carrying power behind. His way of going was so different to me that it didn’t compute in my eyes, so when Axel had a break after judging him in what was a high scoring Grand Prix ride, I asked him, what do you do with that trot? He was grinning: there is nothing judges like better than to judge amazing horses. “Well,” he replied, “First you decide if it’s a 9 or a 10.”

First lesson learned: it’s was a whole different world over here.

It amazes me now how quickly this world became my new normal. Axel had, of course, been a part of it for years, had known many of the trainers, and had watched some of the riders grow up. But my understanding of the standards, catechisms and customs of the upper echelons of dressage began to be refined that week in the summer of 2000.

This time in Aachen, there were no crowds. The only people on the premises were those working in the offices beneath the main jumper stadium grandstands. The grounds looked so different, so pristine, practically bucolic. We gadded about, we posed each other for photos. We reminisced. And then we got in the car and headed for Hamburg.

Candlelight dinner in the wine cave.

We have not starved on this trip.

As a matter of fact, we have had to conscientiously skip certain meals of lesser importance, thinking ahead to inescapable encounter with narrow airplane seats at the end of this trip. Fortunately, at each stop we have done a great deal of walking. But the food and wine surrounding the Saumur show are difficult to turn down at any time of the day.

It starts at our hotel, with its flakey croissants and pain au chocolat, and its buffet of hams and salamis and cheeses. It continues at lunch, with multiple delectable salads, a main course of fish or chicken or pork, topped with a sublime sauce, plus a variety of desserts. The desserts are each quite small, which is a good thing, because each taken individually isn’t quite a calorie bomb. But who can take one individually? They have ranged from creme brulee to lemon creams to petit fours, to pudding of every shade. Repeat daily!

We move en mass at dinners. There are 21 judges and numerous other officials at this show, so we fill up a room with dressage noise and travel stories in a variety of languages. All the dinners are at lovely restaurants, but there is one that stands out:

We arrive at the winery of Bouvet-Ladubay. It is in a building made of massive bricks of the local honey colored stone, in the efficient yet elegant architectural style of the region. We swarm into the vestibule, where we are greeted with glasses of champagne. The evening light is soft and golden, and I pose the entire group in the adjoining garden for a photo. From there we are guided into the wine caves, which are almost dark and moodily lit by candles in sconces. We pass side tunnels packed with cases and casks of wine. And then the space opens into a wider cavern. Tables are set with tall candelabra and crystal and white china on white tablecloths, and there are gifts wrapped in red at each of our places. The light stones of the arching ceilings reflect the candlelight, and everything is bathed in its warm glow.

It is a place for speeches and giving thanks. It is a place for reveling in the wines of the establishment, a different one for each course, paired beautifully with the meal itself. Most important, It is a place for savoring the company of our companions, this traveling circus that is international dressage, this family of voyagers from all corners of the dressage universe. We may have last seen them a week, or a month, or two years ago, but we continue conversations that we were having at our last meeting as if we were never apart. This is the good stuff: I will miss this part the most when this final year of FEI judging is over.

Even though it is late, it feels too soon to leave. We step out of the cave into the night air, enjoying the wash of floodlights on the winery’s exterior.  When we return to the hotel, we gravitate as a group, naturally, to the bar, not because we need anything else to drink, but because we don’t want the evening to end.

Swag, Saumur style

Dinner in the cave

Saumur CDIO officials

The bridge over the Loire at Saumur

From Brugge to Saumur, we routed to the west, through Rouen, rather than smack dab through the middle of Paris, which is the way Google Maps suggests. (Come on, Google, you’ve got Street View, you know what Paris traffic can be like!) The last third of the drive was in grey light and intermittent rain, and we had flashbacks of previous trips to Saumur that were rainy for the entire duration.

Our hotel, the Adagio, is right on the Loire, and our room has a view downriver, which I immediately capitalize on by doing an iPad sketch out the window. It is a tiny room, though, and I go on a hunt for a bit of space in which to do my yoga. After exercising my creaky French with the receptionist, I am shown to a small meeting room which I am welcome to use to exercise my creaky joints. It too has a view of the river, so this week I can do my asanas while watching the Loire roll by. I know, this is indeed a hardship!

The vet inspection for the CDI horses is held in one of the many indoor halls at the Ecole National d’Equitation. This one is constructed of laminated hardwood, in a bit of a freeform design… Easier to see it in a photo than to describe it. It’s chilly, and there are a lot of horses who are ad-libbing, including some very creative airs above the ground. We all then head to the Amphitheater for the draw. Part of this show is a CDIO, a team competition for Ponies, Juniors and Young Riders, so the first order of business is the chefs d’equip’s draw for team positions. This being France, the team positions have been written on the backs of the labels of wine bottles. The chefs randomly select a bottle to find their team’s placement, then are delighted to find that the bottle is theirs to keep.

The vet inspection at Saumur