This French Sport: Horseball

“She has been mine for eight years now,” Nicolas tells me.  “It is a special relationship.”  I’m looking into Nicolas’ deep brown eyes and I’m wishing that he were talking about me, or any woman at all for that matter, but he’s not.  He’s talking about Erica, his horse, andthey do indeed have a special relationship.  Erica, a beautiful and extraordinarily powerful machine, and Nicolas, an IT technician by day, together hold the title as European Horseball Champions, six years running.

Horseball is hands down the most frightening, awkward and exhilarating game I’ve ever played.  Two teams of four riders race down a pitch roughly the size of two basketballs courts and attempt to send what looks like a volleyball in a straight jacket through a suspended ring, slightly larger than a basketball hoop.  Imagine a cross between basketball and rugby played on giant mammals galloping at full speed.  Players must pass the ball at least three times without dropping it between three different players in order to have a goal count.  During a game of reasonable quality, viewers can expect fifteen or so goals to be scored.

The game is only twenty minutes long, but is played at a lightening-fast pace.  The sheer power and speed of the horse leaves no room for hesitations.  Players must be fast, fearless and aggressive and the potential for injury is astounding.  Riders could get hit by the ball.  Riders could get thrown off of the horse.  Riders could even be trampled by a whole team of horses.  The pitch itself is 230 feet by 100 feet, just barely bigger than two basketball courts, and is made entirely of dirt or mud considering that games are played rain or shine.  With eight horses plowing through each other to reach one goal (eleven feet high and just over three feet in diameter, dirt gets kicked up and riders could easily get bucked off.

On top of all this, there are no designated positions and riders are allow to, nay encouraged to, try and ram theirhorse into another players’ in hopes of stealing the ball. The sideswipe, a move I had previously seen only in movies involving fast cars and cliffs, is a powerful and terrifying tool in the world of Horseball.  In order to make their bodies agile enough to pass and (shudder) dive for the ball, players essentially stand the entire game, locked on to the steed beneath them only by thigh muscle and a pair of stirrups.

The game consists of four basic moves; the pass (which is forcefully executed like in basketball), the grab (literally racing over and grabbing the ball out of someone’s hand), the shoot (lobbing the ball up through the hoop nearly twelve feet above), and the pick-up.  Although each is fairly simple on its own, combined with riding and watching the strategy of the other team, they become difficult for average players and nearly impossible for people who, like me, have the coordination of a drunk elephant on stilts.  The pick-up is by far the most difficult to master.  The ball is essentially a soccer ball fitted with six leather straps, making it “easier” to swipe from the ground.  Should it be dropped (God forbid), riders protected only by helmets, lunge around the horse’s ribs mid-gallop to retrieve it.  I cannot complete this move to save my life.  I can walk beside the ball.  I can have my horse walk on top of the ball.  I can even disdainfully watch my horse kick the ball, but I cannot pick it up.  “Put your ass here,” says Baptiste, another Horseball player and instructor at La Grange Martin Equestrian Center, pointing to a spot halfway down the horse’s side, frightfully close to the ground.  The moment I try it, I feel like someone in a baton-twirling outfit riding a trick pony in a 1950s parade.  People can’t possibly do this move while moving, much less galloping.  Nicolas shows me what the move, which is done multiple times during the course of a match, looks like executed by a professional and my face immediately turns red as Eloa, my horse, farts loudly and kicks the ball one more time.   Horseball is a phenomenon that has spread through France like wildfire.  Despite its English name, the game was born in Bordeaux twenty years ago when Jean Paul Depons, a riding instructor and rugby player, was hired to create a game for the French Equestrian Federation that would spice up traditional dressage exercises.

The game would have to be easy to learn and fun to play while reinforcing riding skills.  Thus, Horseball was born, but not introduced to Europe until ten years later.  Today, Horseball is a vital part of riding instruction.  France currently boasts the greatest number of teams in Europe (600 total in the country, 18 in Paris alone), with riders spanning all ages and ability levels.  Children as young as eight play little league versions of the game while their parents (and sometimes grandparents) play on their own teams.  Though women’s teams do exist, the game is completely co-ed with one out of every three players being female.  Players usually participate in thirty games per season and each spring, riders compete for one of eight slots on France’s prestigious national team, a team that has consistently beaten out squads from Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and Great Britain (to name a few) to claim the European Championship.  Nicolas has been playing on the national team for six years now and says that the squad only practices together for two weeks before competing.  “You have to be ready,” he says demonstrating the pick-up for the fifteenth time.  “You must be the best.”

While the sport may be popular in France, there’s no such thing as going pro.  During the day, Nicolas works in IT, then squeezes practices and games into nights and weekends.  For now, Horseball only exists in Europe, but that’s temporarily.  Nicolas spends at least one month out of the year taking demonstrations and workshops to Canada, Australia and the U.S.  Clinics across North and South American, the Middle East and parts of Asia all indicate that it won’t be long before Horseball becomes a staple in the sports community.  The game has also caught attention from celebrities such as American country singer Shania Twain (reportedly a huge fan).  Bernard Malaise, owner of La Grange Martin, is currently looking for American investors to help start a Horseball program in Ivy League universities.  “I think that Horseball would be very good in the U.S.,” Nicolas says to me.  “Americans love shock.”

As Nicolas wraps up the lesson with me, three children, no older than ten, wait on ponies to use our pitch.  Looking at their tiny helmets and scaled-down version of the ball, I think to myself that they look like comical satires of the power and prowess Nicolas and Erica exhibit.  It appears that the children are to actual Horseball players what rodeo clowns are to riders.  When play begins, I laugh under my breath as the children fumble to get the ball.  Like me, they’re afraid of the ball, they’re afraid of the horse and they’re afraid of each other.  Knowing that I have at least mastered the totally useless skill of making Eloa kick the ball a sizeable distance, I take a moment to gloat, but am abruptly interrupted by hints of fluidity seeping into the children’s game.  Slowly I watch and realize that they’re not just better than me, they’re MUCH better than me and there’s nothing more humiliating than getting schooled by a group of eight year olds on ponies.

Horseball is a game of strength and coordination, but not just of the self.  It involves coordination your own body, coordination of your body plus the horses’, and coordination of you, the horse and the team.  The ability to make each of these parts work in tandem is what makes the game complex and enjoyable.  Developing an innate sense of how to guide the horse, how to place yourself in just the right position and how to make your team one fluid unit are what separate a good Horseball player from a great one.  Nicolas estimates that after learning to ride it takes around six years of practice to become a proficient player (he has been playing the game for twelve years now).  Between Eloa and I, the level of communication was almost nothing.  We each clearly had different ideas on the best way to go about playing this game, ideas so different that I think I may as well be riding a team of a team of disgruntled teenagers.

Between Nicolas and Erica, there’s a pervading sense of grace and within five minutes of watching the two of them race about the pitch, I come to think of the horse as less of a separate, living creature and more of a mobile extension of the player.  Special doesn’t even begin to describe this relationship, it’s more like soul mates.
Lessons at La Grange Martin Equestrian Center are 20 Euro an hour and range from one to three hours.  For insurance purposes, it is preferred that visitors already know how to ride.  Dress appropriately, be ready for limited English and come prepared to be sore, but exhilerated for the next three days.

Reservations should be made to no less than one to two weeks in advance.

Centre Equestre de la Grange Martin:

96 avenue du General Leclerc, 91190

Gif-sur-Yvette (RER B, station Courchelle)

Online: www.grangemartin.com

E-mail: [email protected]

Telephone: 01.69.07.51.10