The Jumping International de Bordeaux returns to center stage from February 2 to 5, 2023 and will celebrate 50 years of passion and emotion.

This Golden Jubilee will see the return to the ring of the best riders in the world – it’s a tradition in Bordeaux -, but will also offer an anthology of sports and entertainment as only the horse can offer such diversity. To start this unique program on Thursday February 2, an opening evening show with one of the world’s biggest stars of equestrian shows, Jean-François Pignon, followed in the second part by the Dressage Battle, a new version of this discipline. Olympic:

Jean-François Pignon, 30 years of complicity with his horses

Jean-François Pignon and his fourteen horses will be the first part of an evening show that promises to be outstanding. Back from Patagonia, where he has further deepened his approach to the horse that he will provide at the start of his performance, the artist talks to us about his faith, his love for horses, the sensitivity with which it is necessary to convince them and not to contradict them and of his encounters with show jumping champions.

Fourteen horses on the track! How do you control such a “herd”?

With this herd, I try to communicate with their own codes in order to make myself understood easily and to obtain a good relationship. Indeed, for a long time, but especially since my adventure in Patagonia, I noted how the relationship was the basis, it allows me to have the concentration of the horses without conditioning them by dressage. For me, with horses, there are two possible paths. preferentially, the natural attitude of every human being: that of wanting to control, therefore to train horses to obtain their obedience. , tell yourself that the ideal is that the horse gives with desire and is with us for pleasure, so build a bond based secondly on the relational.
How and on what criteria do you choose your horses?

Surprisingly, today, I no longer choose my horses. During the first years of my career, I was looking for love at first sight before buying a horse. Now, I surrendering to my belief in God, it is with total confidence that I took the horses that presented themselves on my route! The last example is my six black fillies which were given to me by my veterinarian because I had saved their hyper-sensitive father who was terrified of humans.
How do you manage to establish such trust, such complicity between them and you?

As I said before, trust is obtained through relationships. In Patagonia I received this message in spirit: prayer prompts, spirit guides, and love is integrated. When I rely on these three things, whether with horses or in life, a sense of well-being sets in.
Is there a horse that would have succeeded in replacing Gazelle, the mare of your debut, in your heart?

Not really ! But each horse weighs no less in the balance. I look at my horses with the same love and I strive to find in them the most beautiful qualities there are. This to return to the previous answer: only love builds. As it is important that I love each of my children with the same love, it is the same with each horse.

You will return to Bordeaux for the third time after 1997 and 2005, what is special about this event for you?

The Jumping de Bordeaux is for me a great souvenir car that I feel every time the organization trusts me on the program that I propose. This year I will host the evening in two parts. The first part will be the explanation of everything I have discovered about horses. For this, I will meet a horse with whom I will try in forty-five minutes to attract him by arousing his interest and his desire and not by playing on the comfort-discomfort duality. It’s a new concept that I developed during my Patagonian adventure. The second part will be my new show, Black and White, with and my fourteen horses, which also lasts about forty-five minutes…

At the end of the show we reserve a surprise for the public…
You often perform in sporting events such as the Jumping International de Bordeaux: do you have discussions with competition riders? Do they come to you asking for advice on the relationship with horses?

I admire competition riders. It’s a fragile job both sportingly and financially. I have always been able to relate easily to these riders because I also think that what helps us is that we are in no way rivals. We’ve been seeing each other for so long that there are obviously affinities that have been built. Being quite poor in English, it is obvious that I feel closer to the French. We have determined common points since we are in contact with the same animal. But it’s also true that our approaches are likely to diverge because we don’t have the same objectives… When these riders ask me for advice, I’m always quite embarrassed because when I see their route I really have the impression that I don’t I don’t have much to teach them. It is obvious that when everything is going well, there are not too many reasons to ask questions. Maybe I could have helped his riders in difficult cases, but it never really came up. It must be said that they arrive in well-prepared international show jumpings with very available horses. I don’t pretend to be able to solve all the problems, but what I do know is that I always try to put myself in the shoes of the horses.

Jean-François Pignon in a few lines…

This autodidact, is passionate about this animal from his youth when his father buys a young filly, Gazelle, and a rare complicity settles between the little boy and the animal. It is quite naturally that Jean-François turns to the horse trades by paying with his brother, Frédéric, an equestrian show troupe which makes them travel through France. In 1991, Jean-François Pignon presents for the first time alone a number in total freedom: it is the beginning of his success. The two brothers each taking off for solo careers and Jean-François, travel the world to present his numbers. This jack-of-all-trades also shot a film, Danse avec lui, where he played alongside Mathilde Seigner, co-wrote a book with his wife, Un chemin vers la liberté and directed his own feature film, Gazelle.

He has just gone out with Florent Pagny, and shot with him in Patagonia, a film, 40 days, 4 criollos and silence, where the trainer sets himself a new challenge: to educate four native horses in their natural environment, in total freedom, in the camp of the famous singer. Jean-François increases his herd to fourteen horses which he will present in Bordeaux in his show Danse avec les Chevaux.

DISCOVER HER WORK HERE

The Dressage Battle: when an Olympic sport becomes a show… but remains a competition!

In the second part of the evening, the show wins with six dressage champions who will compete in duels of dressage tricks. The elite of French dressage riders are shaking up the codes of their discipline. Warning the eyes ! Atmosphere, music, rhythm and energy, amateurs and neophytes will rediscover the values ​​and technicality of high-level dressage during these unique Battles. Two teams face to face. Each made up of three French international riders, including a “U 21” (Young Riders category). Challenges, duels to bass and then high school tunes, movements taken from the Olympic Dressage Grand Prix: supported*, piaffe**, passage***, canter pirouettes****, changes of foot at the time*****. Spectacular, aesthetic, elegant, sporty, technical and above all demanding, this discipline requires the rider to listen to his horse in order to establish a real climate of trust. The riders will be confronted one against one and judged by professional dressage judges, but also by the public, from the stands or at home, in real time via the Internet! An exclusively Bordeaux way of reinventing dressage, bringing it closer to the public, making it more accessible and interactive. From 10 p.m.

* the horse moves laterally by crossing its legs

** he trots on the spot, prohibition to advance

*** he trots in slow motion, relevant his knees

**** he turns on himself on his hind limb

***** he gallops on the right foot, then the left without respite giving the impression of dancing

USEFUL INFORMATIONReservations: www.jumping-bordeaux.com