This is nice! This is fun! Photo by Tilly Berendt.
It hasn’t been, shall we say, a normal start to Les 5 Etoiles de Pau, the final CCI5* of the 2025 season – but then, we keep reminding ourselves, when is France’s showpiece event ever truly normal? When the cross-country course is decorated with fake spiderwebs and oversized spiders and the spectators are pestered by leather-clad dominatrix horses, Marie Antoinette on stilts, and odd little men in pony suits, what’s a little bit of creative rescheduling among friends, really?
Alice Copithorne’s Fort Arthur Little Dolly and a man I have to assume is her father, quietly wishing his daughter had been keen on ballet instead. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Pau is always a bit of an anomaly where scheduling is concerned, anyway: rather than holding the first horse inspection on Wednesday and then putting on two full dressage days on Thursday and Friday, they always host the trot-up on Thursday morning and then one short, slightly sideshow-feeling session of dressage that afternoon, before proceeding on to a normal schedule from then on out.
That was very much the plan for managing this week’s line-up of 54 horses and riders, too, until Storm Benjamin rolled in off the Bay of Biscay and brought with him wind speeds of up to 119kph, as well as scattered torrential downpour. As of yesterday, the forecast for today looked like we’d see a dumping of some 14mm of rain throughout the morning, well into the 10.00 a.m. trot-up, and then a slightly drier but extremely gusty afternoon. By this morning, that forecast had cheered up – slightly – but the officials on site opted not to risk the wrath of the high winds. The trot-up was moved to a rather dim and dusky 5.00 p.m., and all 54 tests to Friday; whether psychological support services have been offered to the grooms and riders with three horses to compete this week remains to be seen.
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” – Mary Oliver. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
When we did finally get around to that late first horse inspection, the heavens truly committed, and anyone who was here for last year’s underwater event, where several minutes’ worth of course had to be taken out of the competition, was struck with a particularly violent bit of PTSD. Remember when Pau used to be the sunny event? Remember that? I do. Sort of. Now, it feels a bit like we’re swimming the horses over from Chincoteague Island. We might try to buy Ballaghmor Class for $500 and a handshake.
Boyd Martin and Cooley Nutcracker face the elements. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
The ground jury of President Christina Klingspor (SWE), Angela Tucker (GBR), and Eric Lieby (FRA) did well not to drown in the merry little flood plain that formed at their end of the trot strip, and our 54 competitors, representing nine nations, had faces with subtitles as they did their bit to advance to the next bit of this week’s X-Games.
Two would get the special treat of heading to the hold box, getting progressively wetter and more fed up, before re-presenting. That was Great Britain’s Steven Heal and the Holly Hub Syndicate’s five-star debutante Hagonda, and New Zealand’s Jonelle Price and the second of her three rides this week, Olympic partner Hiarado – but both, happily, were accepted upon the second go-round, though after some prolonged discussion for the latter.
Same, buddy. Steve Heal and Hagonda get some exposure therapy at the first horse inspection. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Tomorrow’s schedule – sorry, hang on, we need to take a moment to close our eyes and have a few restorative deep breaths – will see dressage begin at 9.30 a.m. local time (8.30 a.m. BST/3.30 a.m. EST), with our three-horse riders first up to bat in the ring. Our trailblazer for the competition will be former Pau winners Jonelle Price and Grappa Nera, and she’ll be followed by Bubby Upton and the stalwart Cola. Then, it’s Tim Price and the former Georgie Campbell ride Global Quest, before we move into the slightly more sensible two-horse rider rotations.
Emily Hamel and Corvett come to Pau to tick off the last of the Northern Hemisphere five-stars on their bucket list — and we reckon it’s got to be the wettest one, too. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
We’ll have our heads down and our minds on flying changes and half-passes (and, let’s be real, the glorious prospect of indoor sports) all the way until 17.30 (16.30 BST/11.30 a.m. EST) or so, with just under an hour’s lunch break, which is just enough time, by my calculation, for all of us to have a wee, a coffee, and a short, essential cry in a dark corner before it’s back unto the breach. What a treat! Now we just have to hope that Storm Benjamin is crap at walk pirouettes, otherwise we might find him back on top of us and the ground jury might have to take up my suggestion to skip dressage entirely, and instead make all assembled competitors pick a score out of a hat. Genius often isn’t recognised until long after the holder’s career and life have ended so many decades from now, when that’s how we run eventing, please give me my flowers, okay?
For now, we’re off to wring out our underthings and rethink our life choices, but we’ll be back soon with lots more from the World Aquatics Championships very soon. Too soon! Help.
EN is proud to welcome Horsepal onboard as the sponsor of our Pau coverage! Horsepal is a newly-launched heart rate monitor brought to you by Tom MacGuinness, founder of Horseware and an FEI eventer and endurance rider, who’s brought his decades of knowledge to practice in the design of Horsepal. You can now purchase Horsepal directly to the UK and Europe — learn more here.
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