In the indoor arena of the equestrian center of Mauguio (Hérault), managed by trainer Christian Jannin, every morning, Verity Smith, a dressage expert, turns tirelessly with her mare, Daisy de Nîmes.
The session is intense.
The internationally renowned rider is totally focused.
In the middle of the track, France, her mother, Welsh, seated on a plastic step, chants letters aloud with a strong accent: A… A… A… B… B… A… Each letter corresponds to a figure dressage and at a precise location on the 20m by 60m of the competitive arena.
Verity is blind.
And these codes shouted on the fly by the scobies (volunteer criers) of her team are the only benchmarks she has to perfectly execute the different imposed postures.
The dressage exercise is a real challenge for her.
She must place her horse to the nearest decimeter on the track to obtain the best marks.
“Dressage is like artistic dance, like a tango.
Mount and rider must form a pair in perfect harmony and the horse must also understand that his partner is blind.
It's a long job, a year for an able-bodied person and eighteen months for a blind like me, ”explains Verity, when brushing Daisy de Nîmes, groping, after the session.
She is also a writer and singer-songwriter
“The horse has been my passion since I was three years old.
I lost my sight when I was eight years old due to meningitis but I still continued to jumping until the age of 14 before quitting… Because it had become a bit too dangerous.
And I branched off towards dressage, ”she says.
In the 2000s, the blonde squire joined the British Paralympic team, before settling in Nîmes and claiming French nationality to join the France team.
In 2019, twist of fate, Szekit, her magnificent bay horse, fell ill, then disappeared after having won with her about fifty grand prizes, including in front of very well-sighted riders.
What do the vagaries of life matter!
His future?
Perhaps the uncertain Tokyo Olympics next summer.
The selection tests were postponed to February.
But Verity is more surely aiming for the great meeting of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. "I have set myself the objective of integrating the French Paralympic team, but also the French team of able-bodied", she launches. as an astonishing challenge before humming “Supersonic”, a song that she herself wrote, composed and performed, like a hymn to youth, in the blessed time of the Rio Olympics in 2016.
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Because Verity Smith is not just a kind of fairy on her horse.
She is also a writer and singer-songwriter (two albums to date) with a beautiful timbre of folk voice that mixes her walks with the flamenco of Pepe Martinez and his musician friends from Nîmes, her adopted land.
It is in the Gard that she settled down, marrying the human warmth, the sounds, the sun and the scents of this land whose colors she wants to defend.
"France, Occitania, the city of Nîmes constitute my new homeland where I feel so good," she adds with imperturbable enthusiasm on the road to her destiny.