More than 770 riders took to the track at the show jumping competition organised at the Steeve and Mathilde Rousseau Stables for three days last weekend in Amilly.
Fabrice Dumartin, riding Alvin du Reverdy, won the 1.40m Pro1 Grand Prix on Sunday. After a clear round and a bar in the jump-off, the Lorraine rider, based in the Paris region, finished ahead of the rider from Burgundy-Franche-Comté, Frédéric Alvès, and the Norman Ludovic Borg.
At 60 years old and having never embarked on a professional career, Fabrice Dumartin regularly competed at the highest level, taking part in prestigious events, winning the Nations Cup in Hickstead (England) and the Grand Prix of Lucerne (Switzerland) in 1998 with Allégretto.
Bad luck with the Olympics
First reserve at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and pre-selected for Seoul-1988 and Atlanta-1996, he will not be able to go all the way. The horses, with which he was pre-selected, died of colic just before the Games. “It affects a lot and it calms you down.”
After a break in 2017, the rider returned to riding a year and a half ago, in a “very amateur” way, with his only horse, Alvin du Reverdy. “I had entrusted him to very good riders who were unable to sell him. So I got him back,” he explains.
Aged 14, Alvin du Reverdy is a complex horse. “He is very difficult to ride, has enormous physical resources, he is very respectful but extremely sensitive. He must work a lot the day before competitions.”
Having competed on Saturday and Sunday, Alvin was a tough guy on the first day. “When he’s calm, he’s an easy horse to ride, otherwise he can be unmanageable. I think horses have to be in a great mood to go out on the track.”
Before embarking on an equestrian career, Fabrice Dumartin started out in football, playing in the youth team at FC Metz, alongside Carmelo Micciche and Marco Morgante, who would go on to become professionals. Fabrice Dumartin would leave his cleats behind in 1978, the year his father Aimé became president of FC Metz, succeeding a certain Carlo Molinari, before the latter took over the reins of the Lorraine club in 1983. Since then, Fabrice Dumartin has become the head of a real estate development company, and now rides at the Écuries Richard Breul in Marcoussis (Essonne).
“I work during the week and ride on weekends, it’s up to the staff at the stable to look after the horse. I don’t go there very often but the whole organisation, aside from that, is very serious and structured, because I don’t know how to do it…”
