There's no French equivalent of the word "faults", apparently. This makes the bilingual announcements in the RDS sound uncannily like the Eurovision Song Contest, as horses get "quartre points" for knocking one fence, "huit points" for knocking two, and so on. Frank McNally at the RDS reports
The big difference from the Eurovision is that everybody here is aiming for "nul points", whereas if you get the dreaded "douze points", you don't need the votes of any jury to tell you you're not going to win.
But even if they have no word for them, the French had enough faults at the end of yesterday's Aga Khan Trophy to prevent their predicted three-in-a-row in Ireland's greatest show-jumping competition.
Instead, the only hat-trick at the RDS occurred when Irish anchor-man Billy Twomey threw his head-covering in the air at the end of his second nul-points performance, the one that ensured the cup would stay at home for the 21st time.
This is one competition that we win even more often than Eurovision.
The latest victory had a special resonance, however, after the debacle of Ireland's Olympic preparations. Yesterday, the summer of discontent was made glorious by August sunshine, as chef d'équipe Ned Campion accepted the glinting trophy from the President and the team took it on a noisy lap of honour.
Minutes earlier, the audience in the RDS had been hushed as Cork-born Twomey and his mount Luidam went for glory. Showjumping is one of the few sports where a crowd's excitement is measured by the depth of the silence. Even so, when the horse brushed the first part of the triple combination, the collective intake of breath was so violent, you feared it would suck the pole off. It didn't, happily, and the roar that greeted Luidam's last-fence clearance must have frightened the ducks in nearby Herbert Park.
The result was a triumph for Eddie "Boomerang" Macken, whose comeback as team coach is now complete. Or perhaps not. After what he called "the most stressful day I've had at the RDS for 30 years," he sounded cautiously optimistic about Athens: "With a little run of luck, I believe we have a chance of coming away with something".
Today is day four of the horse show marathon, and those who've been attending it every day will be in danger of hitting the wall. This is also a big risk for competitors in the day's feature event - the Puissance - where horses jump a brick-built structure that grows higher with every round.
A jump of seven and a half feet will probably win it.