Original subtitles

Once upon a time, there was a white stallion.

Five-years-old.

Strong, fiery and fast.

He was born one spring day here in the south of France.

He's a Camargue horse.

He takes his name from this region which stretches

over kilometres between the sky, the land,

and the sea.

We're in the Rhone delta in the Camargue.

A vast swampy zone,

land for raising for raising horses and bulls

which live as if in the wild.

Quiet, simple men, the herdsmen or guardians

watch over this little paradise where many species coexist.

In these parts, the horse is lord and master.

His is the story I shall tell,

and that of his lineage in the privacy of animals

who rarely let down their guard.

Let's go with the stallion.

Follow him as he gallops.

We'll discover a Camargue that is unexpected,

vast and unpredictable.

This morning, the white stallion approaches

a group of mares.

In this corner of Camargue, he is the dominant male.

This one has no colt and it's the season of love.

The mare moves away.

An invitation, no doubt.

At any rate, he follows.

Then the courtship begins.

Elegant but energetic.

The stallion is vigorous, robust

and will not let her out of his sight.

He'll need to show tenacity to win her over.

The survival and the quality of the species

depend on the selection of the strongest parents.

The stallion can sit up and beg as much as he wants.

It's the mare that chooses the moment.

And this morning she has chosen, and allows him.

In 11 months time, a colt will be born from this union.

A pure Camargue horse.

Demarcated by the arms of the Rhone,

the heart of the Camargue delta has been a listed

nature reserve since 1927.

There are so many different species here

that it's considered as one of the richest

and most diverse parks in Europe.

Its lagoon ecosystems are particularly well-reserved.

Here, there are 26,000 bulls.

They don't really live in the wild but they come and go

year-round in large open spaces.

When spring comes, the newborns must be counted and sorted.

This is the job of the guardians.

Riders used to an outdoor life,

just like the American cowboys.

As well as their work sorting calves born in the spring,

they choose the finest animals from amongst the bulls

to take part in the races in the bull ring.

The horses aren't scared of bulls

and the bulls are not weary of horses.

They know each other.

Both are used to living in herds in the open air.

Parters through the ages,

driving the herds of bulls together,

the Camargue horses and the guardians

are a rare example of ancestral harmony

between man and animal.

Hey! Hey! Up, up up up!

Up, up up! Hey!

Up, up up!

When their sorting work is done,

the bulls leave with the men

and the horses return to their destiny.

Free to come and go according to their pastures

and their desires,

the horses form bands where family ties reign.

With the young still following their mothers,

you sometimes see groups of 30 or 40 mares

accompanied by their offspring.

The guardians regularly try to spot solitary males.

They choose their stallions for reproduction

and for riding.

Today it's our stallion.

This magnificent five-year-old horse that interests them.

They have already captured him several times.

They're embarking on the slow process of training him.

He lets it happen and enters the arena.

Man has never hurt him.

The key word is trust.

The guardian knows the horse so well.

Knows its fears and its great capacity to adapt.

This hand gesture is not just a caress,

it's the sign of tacit trust between them.

It's the result of repeated contact,

respectful of the animal and its behaviours.

This is the first time he's had a saddle on his back.

It's a tricky phase.

Every last action is performed with gentleness

and precision.

For now, the stallion remains calm.

But suddenly the instinctive fear,

this weight on his back feels like a predator's attack.

Once again the man will reassure him.

Gently, according to a ritual that the horse

is beginning to understand.

The guardian won't be riding the stallion today,

but one day he well.

Such is the fate of these half-wild, half-tame horses.

For now, the stallion returns to the vast marshy expanses

where he will continue to play his role of reproducer.

Almost a whole year has gone by.

It's spring again.

The mare is ready to give birth,

11 months after she met our stallion.

The grass is fresh and tasty.

In the fine weather the vegetation is chock-full

of vitamins and minerals.

These nutrients are essential to the quality of milk.

Already in this month of may, foals are appearing.

The fruit of the love of our stallion and his partner

is slow in coming.

Everyone seems to awaiting the happy event.

But now she's moving away.

A sign, because mares often go off

on their own to give birth.

Her birth should take place in private.

Even though there are no more predators in Camargue today,

they still exist in horses' instinctive memory.

The birth went well.

He has joined his mother but stamps his feet at her side.

Clumsy. Fragile.

The mare is recovering her strength after the birth.

It took him only 20 minutes to learn to walk.

His life starts here among the aunts and sisters

to whom his mother introduces him.

For with the horse family,

though the stallions come and go as if they ruled the roost,

this society is matriarchal.

It's the mothers who set the codes.

They who feed, they who educate.

The newborn already has a girlfriend.

Like him, she's not white.

They won't have the colour of their race

for two or three years, perhaps longer.

This filly, just a few days his elder

is showing a fiery character.

He too is already galloping.

Learning about speed, defying the wind and enjoying it.

The first few days, a foal will learn

to control its momentum.

To coordinate its eye with space,

missing obstacles instead of banging into them.

In a few weeks he will have grasped his world.

For months, he will live in the middle

of his manade, or herd.

Here they live in the open air

and rely on themselves to find their next meal.

It's the beginning of a long apprenticeship.

There's so much to learn.

Particularly memorising places and their uses.

Rest, pasture, shelter.

There are 10,000 horses in the Camargue.

The great majority mares with their young.

At the height of spring when the young

are strong enough to start travelling,

their mothers gather in larger groups and head south.

They know that they will find enough food

to enrich the milk with the nutrients needed

to make their foals grow.

On their way, the first grasses form the start

of a vitamin-rich diet.

Appearing out of nowhere, as is his wont,

the stallion comes sniffing around the mares.

Protective and ready to defend his young when attacked,

he hasn't just come to fulfil his paternal duties.

He inspects each one.

Some are still suckling.

Others are heavy with future foals.

As the fox, like the powerful kite,

is no threat to the young, the stallion leaves

and the manade finds peace again.

Other inhabitants have settled in this corner of the delta.

Herons from all around the Mediterranean

nest by their hundreds in the quiet Camargue tamarisk.

In all, 350 bird species gather here.

The Camargue is a paradise for migrating birds.

Located right in the north-south corridor,

it's the perfect place to rest and nest

for several-hundred-thousand birds annually.

Most flying species are indifferent to the horse,

except the jackdaw.

Which comes gathering hairs from the horses back

for the comfort of its nest.

Another bird is the horse's constant companion.

The cattle egret.

Naturally enough, he earns his pittance from horses.

Both their parasites and the insects revealed

by hooves on soil.

And when he wants a moment's quiet for digestion

or reflection, he perches on the horse

to inspect his domain.

The growing foals will have to learn, as did their elders,

to tolerate their winged companion's

little hooked feet on their backs.

By now these cattle egrets are probably

the finest horsemen around.

The diet of grasses comes to an end.

As they have learned from preceding generations,

the mares know that with the season advancing

their foal's growth requires new food resources.

They must make their way to the ponds and marshes,

and new pastures.

At this time, the land is still under water,

but not enough to prevent them grazing on a grass

that's exclusive to the Camargue.

Water couch.

For the mothers used to spongy terrain,

it's easy enough.

But for this year's foals, it's a tricky lesson.

The silt-walking course.

With all the gentleness and delicacy a mare can have,

the mothers show their young the way

and the way to walk.

Now it's up to everyone to manage.

The colt has grown, but his first time in the mud

is a little adventure.

Other species are perfectly adapted to this habitat.

The spoonbills sift the silt with their prospector's beak.

The pond turtles, feeling in need of meat,

swallow worms, molluscs and rotting carcases,

cleaning the mud of scoria.

Each has a part to play.

Big or small, they participate in a lagoon ecosystem

whose biological diversity is among the most precious

in Europe.

Imitating the mothers, the foals begin weaning.

With the couch grass, they learn to tell the difference

between good and bad grasses,

and the art of snapping it up level with the water.

Spring slowly gives way to summer.

Birds fly north.

Others from the south replace them.

The horses remain.

Here they're well suited and scared of neither hot sun

nor heavy storm.

Besides, they know just how to wait out a storm.

They assume a motionless posture.

The water flows over the protective cover

formed by their hairs.

They turn their backs to the wind.

All save the matriarch,

who keeps an eye peeled for possible dangers.

It's time now for the young colt to learn about

social ties in the herd.

Grooming congratulations are the best way

to get better acquainted.

The coypu also takes advantage

of the sun's rays to freshen up.

Imported from South America in the 19th Century for its fur,

it fled to Europe's wetlands.

Settled in the Camargue since the 1950s,

it no longer bothers nor surprises the horses.

Weighting seven kilos, it's a part of the landscape.

Part of everyday life.

With the hot weather on the way,

the foals have now become robust.

They're three-to-four-months-old

and are now ready to face the rigours of the summer sun

which strikes the land of marshes teeming with insects.

At the height of the day, still with no more shelter

than the open sky, the young sleep

lying on the ground.

Later they'll learn like their parents to sleep standing up

with one eye open.

Over the summer, the worst of the Camargue's scourges,

mosquitoes, are a constant torment for the horses.

40 species are found in the Camargue.

That's the highest concentration of these insects in France

and it's very hard to get rid of them.

One way is by hitting the road again,

towards the freshness of the lakes and the sea.

In summer, winds from the south dry up most of the marshes

and only the largest of the lakes retains any water.

The largest among them is the Etang de Vaccares,

named after the black cows of which

there are so many in the Camargue.

12-kilometres-long, its shallow, cooling waters

are a godsend for the mares and their offspring.

It's on these shores, legend says,

that the horses coming from the north over millennia

had to halt because they had reached the sea.

There's even a saying that the guardians repeat

which says that a horse is not a Camargue horse

until it has seen with its own eyes, its reflection

in the waters of this legendary lagoon.

The slightest breeze refreshed by humidity

is a precious treasure.

The mares, like their charges, save their strength.

They move around slowly, less and less,

just to find something to graze.

Here on the banks of Vaccares,

the air is crisp, almost free of the clouds

of mosquitoes from further inland.

But other insects have taken over

and the heat is still there,

so the mares use the only fans available to horses.

Head to fail, each helps the next to get rid of flies.

Summer will soon be over.

We see it in the first flights of flamingos.

They head off for the shores of the Mediterranean

and Africa.

Some will cover up to 6,000 kilometres by air

before returning to lakes in Algeria, Mauritania

and other lands in the Sahel.

These high-altitude kings nest every summer in the Camargue.

In late-August they'll scatter once more.

In early autumn, though the sun is still with us,

the vegetatian seems to be catching its breath

after months of drought.

The foals have reached the age of six-months.

Their coat has changed.

Today they're speckled grey,

a sign of their moving up to a new class,

the juveniles.

The juveniles are pretty strong today,

matching their parents in both speed and power.

Proud, impulsive adolescents,

they form transient groups

founded on friendships formed at birth.

Soon the males will be separated from the females

and future meetings will be dictated by the inflexible rules

of the survival of the species.

When the last pink flamingos finally leave the marshes,

the cold winds will blow over the Camargue

and the horses will take refuge in the reed beds.

The mistral is the worst of the winds

that blow in the Camargue.

Rushing in from the north and the Rone valley,

it can gust to 100-kilometres-per-hour.

When it blows, summer or winter,

it blows for three, six or nine days straight.

The reeds and rushes that grew all summer are useful

either as wind-breaks or as easy-to-chew food.

Loaded with vitamins by the summer sun,

this vegetation prepares the young horses

to face the harshness of winter.

It's not just the winter wind

that intrigues impetuous youth.

Some of them have already picked up the scent.

It's the guardians.

Themselves riding Camargue horses,

the guardians don't worry the young ones,

and curiosity trumps fear.

When this group feels too hemmed in and wants to take off,

it's too late.

They're already surrounded.

All possible exists are closed to them.

The only way out is the one left empty by the guardians

and they rush towards it.

The guardians know how to steer their mounts.

They also know how to lead the herds.

From 'mener', the French for "to lead",

comes the word manade,

a pocket-sized herd that would fit in your hand.

And the foal we saw being born

has fallen into men's hands today.

He's just one year old.

He now has to undergo an ordeal

and his instinctive fear makes him nervous.

So as not to lose their horses

or let them mix with other herds,

the guardians mark their livestock.

After the struggle, they take care of the young horse

but his terror is stronger.

Tied up every which way,

he has no choice but to let it happen.

The operation seems barbaric but it's carried out swiftly

following a precise ritual.

Branded with a red-hot iron, the young horse

is now clearly identifiable as belonging to a given owner.

The distinctive star-shaped sign doesn't affect

his independence which he will recover in a few moments.

With this symbol on his hind quarters,

the young stallion is now placed under man's protection.

While waiting for his possible call-up

perhaps one day to be ridden,

he can return to his own.

Several months have passed.

Months of a Camargue winter where the wind,

the cold and the damp tend to send nature to sleep.

The animals huddle into themselves

and look forward to the day their vitality will return

like sap through a reed.

Our young horse has made it through the winter

without a worry.

He has even grown bigger and stronger.

And like all males, most of the time now

he'll be leading a solitary existence.

Well, not completely solitary.

As the days become milder,

everyone shakes off his torpor.

The sun will soon be here.

Time to wake up.

The great egret stretches its wings

in a comfortable movement.

The coypu nibbles a few tender shoots,

and the cattle egrets are on the alert.

The boar family has grown

and everyone is busying themselves to find sustenance.

The water rail, most discreet of marshland guests,

is doing his best to hold out until the good weather comes.

Perfectly adapted to their milieu, the horses have a secret.

How to snatch, underwater

the delicious shoots of aquatic weeds.

But to reach them, you have to hold your breath

and graze underwater.

A trick the Camargue horses have long mastered.

The first flamingos begin to return.

Heralds of the summer.

The ducks, winter guests in the Camargue,

will leave room for new arrivals

by flying to the north of Europe.

Easily led, the incoming flamingos

are all going in the same direction.

Taking their lead from their neighbour,

they strut around in search of a partner

with whom to make a home.

Soon more than 30,000 will be nesting here.

The cycle of seasons has rolled around once more.

Coats once black or brown are now speckled.

Others have finally turned white.

In the awakening marshes, everyone is trying

to find their place.

Spring is well under way and under the burgeoning

urgency of hormones, tempers flare.

Like all his brothers and fathers before him,

our young stallion, guided by instinct,

seeks to reproduce for the first time.

Free but not easy,

this young mare refuses our stallion's approach.

Could he be too small?

Not handsome enough?

Too weak?

Is he not already fast and fiery?

Rejected and dejected,

the young stallion can only wander off.

The mare refuses, two possibilities.

Either he isn't good enough or he hasn't yet proved himself.

In truth, each herd has a dominant stallion

and the mares save themselves for him.

If he means to replace him, our young stallion

must pit himself against that stallion

and beat him or be beaten.

Here he is.

First you weigh up the race.

Then you attack.

The struggle is merciless and it's hard to say

which will prevail.

Once the fight is begun, neither will yield.

Yet a time inevitably comes when one of the two

must accept his defeat.

Either through weakness, fatigue and lost hope,

or because the opponent is manifestly stronger.

Our young stallion has proved himself the more valiant.

Now it is he who bears the burden

of perpetuating the species.

He must ensure the continuation of the noble lineage

of the Camargue horse.

A mare is available.

He can smell her and find her by heading upwind.

But, will she want him?

Is he strong enough?

His fight in the marshes will not have been in vain.

Courtship can commence.

It's the first time for both of them.

But instinct guides them.

Instinct, the magic of fleeting love,

and the power of the young mare's pheromones.

In his turn, the young stallion has passed on

his victor's genes to his descendants.

For yet another generation,

the Camargue lineage is maintained.

Its genetic richness perpetuated.

In the Camargue, each year is a constant renewal.

The migrating birds have invaded the marshes.

Soon the hesitant flight of their young

will fill the sky with new life.

As for the Camargue horses, they will carry on galloping.

Keeping pace with the seasons,

fed by an ever-generous nature

and protected by the distant but benevolent

presence of man.

What other race can boast of perpetuating

the natural life cycle of horses,

as it has existed since the dawn of time?