Life as a 14-year-old jockey apprentice at France's sole equestrian academy, Le Moulin N'Avon, starts off resembling a romantic period piece in "Lads and Jockeys," set as it is to the strains of jazz and lit like a moody Parisian bar. But as the camera zooms in on slender, barely pubescent boys lugging around saddles as big as themselves or cleaning out stables at the crack of dawn, that dreamy feeling goes away. Quickly, you realize (just as the newly accepted students do) that everything that goes on here is about hard work, discipline and endless labor. And, in the end, there's no fanfare and no rewards, or even the guarantee of a seat on a racehorse.
Those deemed unsuitable are filtered out at a fairly early stage and relegated to positions as caretaker and stable hand — a cruel fate for boys who had come with high hopes for a glorious future. Some of them can't take it and pack up for home. Others may stay, but the misery on their faces is plain. The best out of the crop stay to work and aim for excellence whether they get to be on the saddle or not. "Lads and Jockeys" is a documentary, but director Benjamin Marquet pulls out the stops on noninvolvement — he obviously feels these lads are special, and he dotes on their words and expressions like a proud father. He not only loves them, he totally admires them.
The academy accepts 30 students each year over a three-year period and during that time, the boys live and breathe horses. Away from home and sleeping three to a room in a spartan dormitory, the first-year students are immediately recognizable for their anxiety and bad horsemanship; they can ride but are clueless about being with horses, which is why the instructors emphasize: "Everything you give to the horse comes back to you, good or bad." This includes scrambling into jerseys and grabbing manure forks at 5 a.m. to clean out the stables, water the horses and clean the tracks. It includes polishing the saddles, rubbing down the horses and cleaning out manure when the day is done. On weekends they're free to spend time in their rooms or go out on day excursions (on one occasion three good friends visit the Champs Elysee in Paris, and during term breaks there are dance parties and the like) but for the most part, it's a life lived with, and for — horses. When asked why he chose to come to the academy, one sweet, bespectacled boy pauses for a long time and replies: "Ummm . . . I think it's just that I love horses."