The Origin of Fronde et Fonce℠

The name brings together two French words. Fronde, from fronder, means to rebel against, challenge, or defy established thinking, authority, or the status quo. Fonce, from foncer, urges someone to charge ahead with conviction to seize the opportunity. Together, the phrasal command embodies Karine’s provocative philosophy of impetuous audacity and mischievous cheekiness to stalk and mock conservative tenets maintained by the sport of show-jumping: "Haters know nothin’. Hold my beer." 

Show-jumping is an equestrian sport governed internationally by the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI). In this English riding discipline, a course designer challenges entrants to achieve the fastest, fault-free ("clear") navigation through a turn-filled track of 12 to 14 knockable obstacles. These obstacles can be configured as single jumps, doubles, or triple combinations, and they stand at heights between 1.60 and 1.65 meters (5'3" to 5'5") in an Olympic arena. Although the skill of a team is most visible while it flies over each obstacle, it is the pre-run preparations and the virtuosity between the obstacles that are underappreciated by the casual spectator. It is this portion of the course that offers opportunities that advanced riders like Karine exploit.

Riders begin their training learning the fundamentals of distance, balance, rhythm, and approach. As they develop competitive strategies, the negotiation of those obstacles starts accommodating interpretations rooted in the team’s capabilities. During her junior years in France, Karine would walk a course, just like her fellow competitors would do, but she would extend the reconnaissance another three or four, or even five times, studying its geometry until she could imagine the entire ride from the saddle.  Keen observers watching the reconnaissance from the stands will note the common lines being adopted by the riders. However, Karine recontextualized that conventional route, elevating it to an allegorical fundamental from which further competitive ingenuity could emerge. Opportunities to question what might be gained with a tighter turn and a slightly skewed approach, or even perhaps adding a little ground if it meant less ground for other jumps, were mainstay considerations that were often addressed.

Consider an approach to a fence: the angle at which a horse jumps influences the path available toward the next obstacle, while the number and length of canter strides help determine whether the horse arrives in a position to clear it. An experienced competitor already considers these relationships; Karine was willing to explore beyond margins of prudence. She would even contemplate an approach so acute as to account for her horse brushing the upper rail, knowing that as long as the rails remain in their cups, the rattling alone was insufficient grounds for a fault. Such a line leaves precious little room for variation, demanding a devoted partnership between horse and rider.

Karine’s imagination and instinct to pursue those margins earned her a reputation long before anyone thought to give the approach a name, and she garnered nicknames like “Hari-Karine”, a portmanteau that blended her name with bushido’s honorable act of suicide to describe her daring kamikaze missions through the course. Karine won several junior national championships riding lines others considered perilous and recalls reaching the podium with remarkable regularity, often with spectators even wagering on her handiwork. Karine never particularly cared for the nickname. It attributed unfettered recklessness to what she considered the product of disciplined preparation, sagacious judgment, and innovative ingenuity that she takes pride in. 

Her show-jumping philosophy partly inspired Tech n Tack's guiding words, “Redefining Equine Fundamentals.” For Karine, conventional wisdom becomes the fundamental upon which further possibilities are explored. It represents generations of accumulated knowledge, established techniques, and accepted margins of performance, all of which provide a foundation for the competitive imagination. The winning spirit has always compelled athletes to test the outer reaches of their abilities, ingenuity, and resolve. At those margins, ambition encounters genuine risk, daring becomes a competitive virtue, and the smallest advantage may demand the greatest conviction. 

There is, of course, a point at which even the most carefully considered strategy must surrender to the uncertainties of working with another living creature. A horse can approach with different expectations, land out of balance, or offer an opportunity its rider never anticipated during reconnaissance. And this is where Karine draws upon the horsemanship she calls Avec Justesse℠, through which horse and rider cultivate an intimate rapport founded on mutual understanding, trust, and respect. That relationship yields a confidence that not only invests in an assurance that the horse will follow, but, more importantly, invests in an assurance that the horse shares the ambition and will follow through.

The search for a name to encapsulate her experience into a consultation service began with a much smaller piece of French mischief: petit malin, a term of affection Karine had once used for her husband, suggesting someone clever, resourceful, and perhaps a little too pleased with finding an unconventional way around things. Their exploration wandered through French slang and the earthy influence of Louisiana culture, eventually landing on two terms akin to a Formula-1 R&D frondeur tuning a racecar just shy of “hand-grenading” the engine and the gutsy fonceur piloting the vehicle to a championship against all odds.