Alexandra Ledermann - Le Haras de la vallée

Summary
Lily lives on her uncle Dylan's ranch. The resident evil banker / racing stables owner wants to seize their land if the ranch can't pay off their debt. Luckily, Lily has a special bond with horses, and both her friend Sarah and legendary horse whisperer Grant recognize her talent and encourage her to take part in competitions. Lily needs to train so she can compete first locally, then internationally, to win prize money to save the ranch!

Game Design
Game uses Jade Engine (Ubisoft tool for creating games like Beyond Good & Evil or Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time).

Gameplay
The center of the game is the ranch Lily lives on with her uncle Dylan. From there, you can access the stable to take care of your horse, and to take it out onto the map (mostly open world, but you need to go into the barn to leave the ranch).

Horse Care
They all happen on a timer and you can fail them.

Brushing
Brush. Both sides. Every so often, a red marker will light up, signalling where the horse would like to be scratched right now. This is time sensitive, if you don't scratch the itch, you fail the brushing mini game.

Hoof Picking
Pick at the dirt. Clumps will fall off. Do not scratch the areas that are already clean.

Mucking Out
Use the hose (controlled by mouse) to wash all the dirty straw and manure into the drain at the back of the screen.

Breaking In
In order to be allowed to take the horse out into the open world, you need to gain its trust by breaking it in first.

There are different levels of minigames you need to complete in order to gain the horse's trust. The first level is touching the horse's itchy/sore spots (3-4 spots will light up subsequently and you need to memorize the order and touch the horse in the right order).

Riding
Free Riding Training: Show Jumping, Steeplechase, Cross Country Competitions: earn points locally so you can start internationally

Quests
There is plot. It is progressed mostly by picking up the phone, going to the location the caller specified, and listening to them say something they could have told you on the phone. In between, there's training quests or learning new skills (e.g. being shown how to breed foals). The plot consists mostly of Lily needing to improve her riding and training for bigger competitions, interlocked with the shady stuff her antagonists are up to.

Mini Games
You can herd chicken (at Dylan's) and sheep (at Sarah's farm), which is once for tutorial's sake, and then just for fun.

Differences between Releases
The PC version on CD is only sold in a package with Alexandra Ledermann - La colline aux chevaux sauvages (at least in Germany), without advertising (except in one phrase on the package, and one phrase in the manual) that it is part of the package. The box only contains the manual for the second part.