LONELY RIDERS

For some years now, people have been telling Marc Bertran de Balanda that he doesn’t have much longer to live. In spite of having lost both legs, a lung and probably many other things, Marc has never seemed so alive… A former instructor with the Saumur Cadre Noir, an international show-jumping champion, a major figure in the world of equitation, a tireless and uncompromising ladies’ man, he now lives in his long-suffering wheelchair in a stable stall that has been converted into a tiny two-room apartment for him… And although he no longer rides, he is getting ready to end his life like an old horse in these stables in the countryside near Paris. His continued survival hangs by just a few threads: hearing the horse in the next stall lie down in its straw at nightfall, waiting for day to dawn with the arrival of Martine, his carer and a delightful temptress in her ever shorter skirts who pampers him with indefinable affection and, finally, waiting for sunset and the appearance of young Edmond, a promisingly graceful young rider of 18 whose skill on horseback is matched only by his taciturn nature but whom Marc describes as “his treasure”. The three of them form an essential team, cut off from time and the world around them, where each minute offered to Marc extends his life… with fragile moments,