A nice ring to it

Lisa Crane had never heard about Louisiana Tournoi.
The 33-year-old grew up in Ruby, an unincorporated community along La. Highway 107 in rural Rapides Parish, and that is where she developed her passion for horses. From riding horses on her family’s property while attending Buckeye High School while balancing motherhood with rodeo competition, Crane has spent a significant amount of her life on top of a horse.
Yet in all those years and travels, Crane never knew about “Le Tournoi.” That all changed at last year’s Louisiana Tournoi, when Crane watched her boyfriend Keith Saucier ride in the ancient event of jousting.
In that instance, Crane was hooked on the sport.
“The first time I came out here and watched him do it I was fascinated by it,” Crane said. “The whole time I was thinking ‘Oh I want to do that.’”
Saucier added, “There was no doubt that she wanted to be involved. You could see it in her eyes.”
There was just one minor hurdle that prevented Crane from fully immersing herself into the sport. No woman in the event’s previous 66 years had ever grabbed a lance and saddled a horse in the competition.
The unwritten rule was that women were not involved in Tournoi, unless they were crowned the Tournoi Pageant Queen.
“I was always told that no women were allowed,” Saucier said. “But we looked at the bylaws and there was nothing that said a woman couldn’t do it.”
The Louisiana Tournoi is seeped in tradition.
According to historians, the sport was first followed by the knights of France. Major Marcellin Garand, the founder and first mayor of Ville Platte, brought Le Tournoi to Louisiana from France.
After decades of decline, Judge J.D. Buller, along with WWII veterans, helped revive the sport in 1948. After originally being associated with the Fourth of July, the tournament began running in conjunction with the Louisiana Cotton Festival, which began in 1953.
For the six-plus decades since then, dozens upon dozens of men have been crowned champion but not once had a woman even competed in the event, much less won it.
The fact that Crane will be the first to do so this Sunday, has bothered some.
“In any sport, in any tradition anytime you go and there is something new there are going to be people that like it and there are people that don’t,” Crane said. “There’s nothing that any of us can do to control that besides push forward and hold your head up and go on with it.”
Added Crane’s friend Debbie Lafleur, “It’s always been a man’s sport and now a woman walks in and is going to run in it,” said Lafleur, who’s grandfather Alvin Soileau was the 1964 champion. “It is huge.”
Crane will need to have a huge amount of concentration come Sunday when she gets on her horse Lil’ Evil to compete.
The Tournoi competitors, or knights as they are often referred to, wear traditional knight garb on horseback while trying to capture, with a lance, as many two-inch in diameter metal rings, hanging from posts, on a semi-circular quarter-mile dirt track.
The rider with the most rings, and the quickest time, over the three heats is crowned champion.
“The level of your skill of riding has to be on point,” Crane said. “I have done just about everything on a horse but this is different. When you go around a barrel you drop that outside reign and you hold on to the saddle horn and you pull and spin that barrel and go onto the next barrel. This one is all about hanging on with your legs and focusing on that two-inch ring. There is nothing in barrel racing that you have to spear that is two inches in diameter. Nothing compares to this than actual jousting..”
For Crane, who Saucier describes as having great vision, lancing the rings came easy. During her training, Crane routinely got five to six rings and even notched seven a few times but that was at a far slower gallop.
“The biggest challenge was going full blast at the first turn,” Crane said. “When you are going full blast and that horse is getting it and you get to that first turn it is a whole different ball game. You have to shift yourself, your leaning and everything. You can’t hold on at all. You got a lance and you got reins. That’s been the biggest hurdle.”
Another hurdle for Crane during the past 60 days of training, has been balancing gearing up for the competition with running her new business with Saucier. The couple co-owns and operates Uptown Cakes on Main Street in Ville Platte.
“It’s been very, very tricky,” Crane said. “We have to manage our time well. It’s either I am at the bakery and he’s getting the horses ready or he’s at the bakery and I am getting the horses ready. With both of us running it is very tricky.”
The business of making cupcakes will be put on hold this coming weekend as Crane will be getting ready to compete against 15 other riders, including her boyfriend. Saucier has ridden in the event 10 times, finishing as high as eight one year when he snagged 16 rings.
Despite the friendly competition with Saucier, Crane is modest in her aspirations of riding in her first Tournoi.
“I want to show to myself that I can do it and that I can go out there and be a good competitor with all these people that have been doing it for years,” Crane said. “It would be a great accomplishment to place in the Top 10 with all these people that are such good riders.”
As for breaking ground as the first female competitor in the Tournoi’s history, Crane dismisses the significance to herself personally and instead is focused on what her riding can do for the sport she has quickly fallen in love with.
“I would be lying if I told you that I didn’t want to win,” Crane said. “That would be a giant lie. Yes, everyone wants to win. As for do I think I have anything to prove because I am woman and all that jazz, the answer would be no. I am just another person running the Tournoi. I just happen to be a woman.
“It’s not all about me,” Crane added. “It’s about keeping the old French tradition alive. I know we are breaking the tradition with having a woman ride in it but if brings notoriety to the sport so be it. I don’t care if I get 16th out of 16th. If it draws a bigger crowd so be it.”