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| What is...? / Freestyle dressage |
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Freestyle dressage
... the world-famous horse show of Frenchman Jean-Francois Pignon.
Absolute control over your horse, without external aids or influences,
is called freestyle dressage. Usually, the audience is deeply moved by
such a performance. After all, many horse owners manage to control their
horses only through punishment and fear. In his unique horse show, Jean-Francois
Pignon shows that there is another way.
Whenever the slight, yet muscular Frenchman enters with his four greys
and one pony, the hall erupts. Pignon works without halters, lunges or
whips, but still the horses obey him like puppets on invisible strings.
He lets them dance, charge at him in seeming viciousness, only in the
next moment to cuddle him again, and then tear through the hall with him
standing on their backs without external help.
His sensational show "Le Pardon" gets the audience to shake
their heads stunned amazement or explode in sheer euphoria and wild cheering.
According to the German equestrian magazine St. Georg (January 2006),
this two-hour program has "some Parzival with a bit of Westside Story,
seasoned with a spot of battle of the elements, and a very generous measure
of horse."
Jean-Francois Pignons presented his breath-taking show during the Mallorca
Western Festival 2006 and 2007.
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