12 September 2011

The MC, le dressage, and hard rain

Here's another series of pictures that I took at the horse show at the Haras du Pin in Normandy. The man in the red jacket was the master of ceremonies for the whole event, and he also gave a demonstration on dressage, or training. One web site I've seen calls le dressage "teaching the horse how to learn."


I was pretty happy to get the last picture. The horse obviously didn't stay in that pose very long, but he repeated the trick several times. My camera was so slow that I had to anticipate the animal's and trainer's movements and press the shutter release in advance.

Meanwhile, here in Saint-Aignan, it rained hard for most of the day yesterday. We forgot to put the rain gauge out in the morning so we'll never know exactly how much rain we got. No mater, what we do know is that « il a plu comme vache qui pisse » — it really came pouring down.

This morning the weather report says we are getting the remnants of Hurricane Katia. I think we've also had what was left of Irene and Lee. Rain is predicted again today, but not as much.

13 comments:

  1. The last photo is absolutely awesome!

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  2. Fab pics! Well done. We used to drive past the Haras du Pin regularly, when we 'commuted' from London to Preuilly. I always craned my neck to see in, but you don't see anything really from the autoroute, malheureusement.

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  3. Great photos !!
    We're having unusually foul weather here in the UK too, which is a shame as a nice September is what often helps to brace us for the next six months.

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  4. Ken, just to give you an idea of the "wet"... here in GP we had 29.8mm of rain... and we came up Amboise way yesterday for the Féte du Courge at Montreuil and whilst, on that side of the Loire it was fine and sunny, the parking area was awash with mud. Also as we approached the Loire, over your way the cloud bank was deeper, darker than we'd seen here and definately 'losing weight' in a big way.... so I dare say you may well have had more!!

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  5. Thanks, Tim. Walt remembered our rain gauge at about 3:00 and put it back outdoors. It had nearly 14 mm in it this morning. I think you are right: we got at least 30 mm yesterday, and maybe 35 or 40.

    Susan, the Haras du Pin is 10 km or so from the A28 autoroute. You wouldn't see it from the car.

    Jean, :^(

    CHM, merci.

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  6. Holy cow, that's lots of rain!

    Those photos are great, Ken:)

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  7. Wonderful pictures, especially the last one.

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  8. We got a lot of rain from those storms, too.
    The MC was really good at the Haras.

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  9. Beautiful, beautiful shots, especially the last!

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  10. We are jealous of the rain you're getting! All we got last night was a storm of brown dust....no rain.

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  11. Other than making money from doing a show, what point is there to making horses learn "tricks"

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  12. The Black horse is really beautiful Ken, I am enjoying your pictures and stories of your holiday.
    Here in Scotland we are having a full gale just now, hopefully it won't get any worse.

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  13. I'm joining the chorus of photo admirers. I've never succeeded in timing my slow camera as well as you did. Sometimes, my fast-moving subject (usually a kid) isn't even in the picture.

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