The spring sun floods the parking lot with insolence. As recently as seven weeks ago, it was still full, but today is bleak plain. Suddenly, a mini-tractor breaks the silence. At the wheel, Caroline Confente begins a new day. It will necessarily be long and exhausting.
“Since the start of confinement, we have never worked so hard,” said the co-manager of the Thionville-Cattenom equestrian club. “We work with living things. You can’t leave a horse alone in its box: you have to take care of it, take it out, make it work ”What Caroline, her buddy and her three employees have been doing full time since the start of confinement.
“In addition to our 40 horses and ponies, we have around 30 horses on board. We were not going to leave them behind on the pretext that their owners could no longer come. So, we insured. The daily schedule was posted on Facebook, with supporting photos. “We kept in touch like that …” The owners appreciated. As support, they organized a participatory prize pool. “It allowed us to buy a few bags of pellets …”
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Hygiene and common sense
On May 1, Caroline Confente chose to welcome the owners back to the center. A government decree authorized him to do so for a week, “but we never received instructions. Everything was blurry. I waited for the Federation to give recommendations, but nothing came. “
So Caroline did according to her common sense: “We set up a table where people sign the regulations when they arrive. They are allowed to stay only one hour a day – only one person per stable. We provide them with gloves, gel, we ask them to disinfect the ramp of their box when leaving, to take their trash. And they are not allowed to feed their horses. There is a curfew at 6.30 pm ”. A proper health protocol, in short.
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A passion job
This partial reopening is just one step in an ocean of uncertainty. “We don’t know when the equestrian centers will be able to reopen” and the turnover has melted since March 17. “We had to organize three competitions, internships were planned for Easter, a works council had also reserved …” […] We try to keep our spirits up, but it’s hard. Fortunately, we are doing a passion job. That’s what keeps us going. ” Top hearts.
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