Saumur--the National Equestrian Riding School

We have now entered the Loire Valley. In this town there is a castle but then I saw that this is where their national equestrian school is. In the course of our lives, we've been to the National Stud in Ireland, the one in Vienna and the one in Spain. So there was no way we could miss the French one. 

This school was founded after the defeat of Napoleon when their cavalry was decimated. They didn't want to

lose their knowledge. All of the horses are geldings acquired at the ages of 3 to 5.  These are the big horses like the Hanoverians. They use regular size horses for dressage, etc. They told us it takes 5 years to teach them the 3 basic moves they must learn.  

The coolest quote is:  at the end of the day, the horse needs to be as happy as he was at the beginning of his day. 

They have shows just like the others but we missed it.