Happiness in this world is formed by these three things: a beautiful sun, a woman and a horse
Theophile Gautier
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Boarding an equestrian is boarding a haven of peace, a tribute to the senses.
Horses and dogs mix and the smell of manure invades the stage.
From somewhere comes a voice.
An Amazon, for example Judith Porcel, teaches classes, and that voice is accompanied by the rhythm of the gallop.
Children, and especially girls, frolic in the stables.
They enter the stables.
They trample mud and dry animal waste.
They hug, comb and whisper in the ear of Job, Nemo, Nesca, Florita and Thor.
"Isn't all of this beautiful?" Marie Follet tells me.
Marie Follet (52) is the mother of Judith Porcel (and Edith, her younger sister) and she has light eyes and her Castilian is guttural, like that of the French who left their place of origin to settle in it.
“I was eleven years old and I already dreamed of this,” he tells me.
It is summer (summer in autumn) and Marie Follet contemplates her work, the Sol Solet equestrian center, one of the three horse schools that have made their way into Sant Just Desvern, a kind of sanctuary of the discipline.
(and really, the discipline is in luck: it grows among creatures, it has been democratized, it has multiplied after the pandemic, which is when many, together, discovered the virtues of outdoor exercise; it is estimated that it gains 20% interns throughout the country)
"Did you dream of this?" I ask him.
-Jacques, my father, was an industrial mechanic. Collette, my mother, a housewife. We lived in Déville-lès-Rouen, in Haute-Normandie, and I was a lousy student who read a lot and also looked out the window a lot. Xavier, one of my brothers, was born with Down syndrome and cardiovascular problems and the doctors prescribed life in the countryside for us and that's when we went, to the countryside. My parents found a house like Asterix and Obelix's and rebuilt it. Living in the country led me to horses.
-How?
–During a bike tour I discovered a farm. I went and offered to clean the stables every weekend. Six months later they let me ride. She was eleven years old.
And what about that passion?
-When I was growing up I used to draw horses and I had a room full of posters. I fell asleep hugging my first helmet. She made money mowing lawns and babysitting and investing it in the horses. When I was 16, I read an advertisement. They were looking for a horse groom in Marseille, 1,100 km from home. I won the job and left, and played in the French All-Contest Championships, although I returned home three years later: that was not enough for me. I went on to sell material in a Decathlon until I sent my CV to three destinations: England, the United Arab Emirates and Catalonia. Five days later they called me from here. And I was blown away.
-Why?
–I was thinking of Barcelona’92, the bow and arrow, my childhood myths. And suddenly I was going to live right here!
She landed in Catalonia and married Ángel, and Judith and Edith were born and her employer was frightened by the first pregnancy and fired the pregnant woman.
And in the midst of pregnancy, she saw herself touring this scenario that today is her horse farm, and that was then a messy land occupied by old stables, a painter's workshop, a mechanic, a chicken coop.
And he said to himself: "Here!"
–But I cried in the shower when no one was looking. And the banks did not help me. And I wanted to develop my passion, like my brother who is a cook or the other, a carpenter, or my sister, who is a florist.
And his godparents helped him (T.D. and Antonio P., so he asks me to cite them), and now 300 children a week pass through here, and 61 horses and ponies grumble in his stables, a project that he has raised with his hands, not without setbacks, because seven years ago she overcame breast cancer with a mastectomy and five operations.
I barely spent ten days off. I couldn't be home, leave this.
–And what does the horse have, that those who like it like it so much?
-It is transparent, it gives you what you give it. It gives you a love story that you will not have with another human being.
–¿...?
I have seen girls cry in the stables. They don't hide there, and they go with boots and not with dresses or little shoes, and they step on the horse waste. They come with passion, with their faces uncovered. Ls likes the touch with the horse because it always maintains a regular temperature. And when riding it, the movement reminds them of our mother's swing, when they were inside her. And they brush the horses, and they smell them, and they hardly ever change ponies. Horses understand when someone tries to dominate them, or if a child is weaker. And they follow the leader.
And who is that leader?
–Packs are defined by alpha males, like Brownie.
And he points to a black specimen that leads the line on the track.
Dice:
“Look at Brownie. He is neither the most handsome nor the oldest. But he is the smartest. The rest is up to him. Nature is like that, and that's why I value his attitude and his character, and not beauty. Many times, the ugliest is the best, the one that has no problems with horseshoes or flies and never gets sick.
– And why are there more women than men in the horse racing?
–That happens here, eh?, with the Iberian males. Combing animals is more affective. But in England, Iceland or Sweden there are also many men, and the same in France or Italy.
