{"id":11612,"date":"2025-12-30T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cavalliecavalieri.com\/?p=11612"},"modified":"2025-12-18T14:57:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T13:57:25","slug":"interview-paolo-torlonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cavalliecavalieri.com\/en\/2025\/12\/30\/interview-paolo-torlonia\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERVIEW JEAN FRANCOIS PIGNON"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I cavalli, la potenza dell\u2019amore<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>

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Susanna Cottica<\/p>

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Jean Fran\u00e7ois Pignon is one of the greatest equestrian artists.<\/p>

His charisma, mastery, and joyful, yet wild connection with his horses have made him famous and appreciated worldwide.Thanks to his extraordinary talent, passion, sensitivity, and empathy, Pignon is able to bring to life inimitable emotions with his horses. It is magic, intimate communication, elegant harmony. <\/p>

Pignon, in a natural and instinctive way, speaks to his horses, communicates, and plays with them: \u00abMy relationship with horses is an instinctive and natural complicity, made of mutual trust and silent empathy.<\/em>\u00bbJean Fran\u00e7ois Pignon tells his story, his thoughts on horses…<\/p>

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Gazelle<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>

My first mare was named Gazelle, a small Camargue horse. She taught me everything, inspired me, and paved the way for an intimate relationship with horses. When she arrived, I was nine years old. I learned everything from her. I discovered the extraordinary generosity of horses and a sensitivity we can\u2019t even imagine.<\/p>

From Gazelle, I learned to pause, to wait for the horses\u2019 time, to never take advantage of their generosity. When a horse enjoys being with us, it\u2019s an extraordinary moment. It requires patience, which isn\u2019t exactly a human quality. Gazelle was my teacher, my guide. I dedicated a film to her, \u2018Gazelle: A True Story.\u2019I grew up playing with horses until one day I was asked to perform a small show at my local\u00a0 town festival.<\/p>

So, at seventeen years of age, I performed my first show. Someone noticed me, and from then on, I started being invited to local village festivals… My family was very modest, and since I was paid to perform, I continued. From town to town, one day the organizer of Cheval Passion in Avignon, one of the most important equestrian events in the world, saw me and asked me to put on a show. <\/p>

From that moment on, little by little… it became my job. I started taking my shows everywhere; At that time, I was the only one doing freestyle at the time. Everyone complimented me.<\/p>

My fame grew, and with it, my ego. That\u2019s when my problems began. I thought I was the best. For example, I couldn\u2019t accept that my brother was doing freestyle like me; I was jealous, proud of myself. The better my shows got, the prouder and more ambitious I became. Then something happened that changed me, leading me to become who I am today. Around that time, Gazelle had a health problem. For me, it felt like the end. Gazelle was the love of my life, the most important being, more important than family, more important than everything. One day the vet told me the situation was very serious. I was desperate at the thought of losing her. Then something happened that changed my destiny.<\/p>

A friend told me that only God could save Gazelle. I didn\u2019t know God, so I asked him to help me understand. My friend began to pray, and I did too. He prayed to God to save Gazelle. I started crying during the prayer. Even today, I get emotional thinking about it… \u2018If you believe in miracles, the miracle will come,\u2019 my friend told me. \u2018You\u2019re responsible now. If you believe, it will happen; if you don\u2019t, it won\u2019t happen.\u2019 In order to save Gazelle, I said, \u2018OK, I want to believe.\u2019 <\/p>

And I prayed intensely with conviction. Two days later, Gazelle was fine. From that moment, I understood that it is God who guides us with his love. From that day, my whole life changed. I was 33 when this happened. I\u2019ve believed in God for 23 years now, I trust him. <\/p>

I pray and read Bible verses. Today, I thank God and the horses for what I have and what I am. My life has become a dream, and I bring my message to people during my shows. My life is harmony with nature, the universe, horses, and all of God\u2019s creatures.<\/p>

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The spirit of horses<\/strong><\/p>

The older I get, the more I understand horses, and the more I realise the enormous difference between horses and humans. I\u2019ve been looking for harmony with horses for forty years, and I\u2019m still searching today. <\/p>

They are so different from us that I don\u2019t know if it will ever be possible to find it.My experience in Patagonia with four Criollo horses who had been traumatised by humans taught me so much. I spent forty days in silence to connect with them.<\/p>

There, I learned the profound nature of horses and what we represent for them: a danger to avoid. Horses perceive the slightest tension from us as brutality, aggression… <\/p>

So, try to imagine their level of sensitivity… silence, calm, patience, joy, security but with delicacy, inner peace: these are the elements needed to reach the spirit of horses. All enclosed in love. I\u2019d like to bring this into the world of humans, the powerful love of horses. <\/p>

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Photo Credits Stefano Secchi<\/em><\/p>

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I cavalli, la potenza dell\u2019amore Susanna Cottica Jean Fran\u00e7ois Pignon is one of the greatest equestrian artists. His charisma, mastery, and joyful, yet wild connection with his horses have made him famous and appreciated worldwide.Thanks to his extraordinary talent, passion, sensitivity, and empathy, Pignon is able to bring to life inimitable emotions with his horses.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11645,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,126,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials","category-featured-en","category-focus-on-en","category-71","category-126","category-61","description-off"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cavalliecavalieri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cavalliecavalieri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cavalliecavalieri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cavalliecavalieri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cavalliecavalieri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11612"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.cavalliecavalieri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11663,"href":"https:\/\/www.cavalliecavalieri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11612\/revisions\/11663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cavalliecavalieri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cavalliecavalieri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cavalliecavalieri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cavalliecavalieri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}