Success on borrowed hooves

“With your own horse,you know what pace to ride it at. You pick up on small things like how hard its breathing is,to let you know whether you can push it hard over an obstacle or whether you need to slow things down,” says Swittens.

The host country—Thailand in this case – benefited by riding their own mount for the competition. In such a situation,the horse you get depends entirely on luck as the remaining teams draw lots from a pool of horses provided by the host country. This format,while leading to some obvious shortcomings,makes sense for countries or individuals who lack funds to transport their own steeds. “It’s like going on a blind date,” says Major Danni Swittens,another member of the team. “You go in hoping for the best and once you meet each other,you look for signs that you have something you can work around,” he says.

Using the blind date metaphor,Swittens might have chosen to pick up the bill and head home when he approached ‘Ratnakampol’ a week ago. On seeing him,the small dark bay horse threw a tantrum and reared. Other members of the team have similar stories. And the reaction was brought about despite it not even being the first time the horse and the rider were meeting. 

Both horse and rider have to qualify for the Asian Championships. The Indian team had infact traveled for two qualifying tournaments in Thailand earlier in June winning a team bronze and silver. That was also when they first had a look at their horses of whom it was widely accepted they had drawn the short straw.

Less time to adapt

The team had gone in to the qualifying rounds with a couple of days notice,and the medals they won then bears testament to the quality of the riders. To give an indication of the challenge,the Japanese team—current Asian Games gold medalists who competed at the Olympics —were eliminated during the qualifying for the championships on their leased horses.

For the Asian Championships,the Equestrian Federation of India had the team leave nearly a week before the competitions,hoping to give the riders a few more days to adapt to the horses. Mrityunjay Rathore,says that all horses improve under good riders,and even his own horseYuenyong showed heart and trusted the rider. But with a two month gap since the last time the horse and rider rode together,all the work that had been done had come to nothing. “The fact is that in the two months you haven’t been with them they have gone back to their original owners. In Thailand they are ridden by young amateur riders so they pick up all those bad habits once again,” Sangram Singh says.

In effect the horses and riders were starting from scratch once again. “My horse was completely green. By this I mean that it would get spooked by nearly anything it wasn’t familiar with,” Sangram Singh recalls.

Dafedar Rajender who serves in the Army’s Remount and Veterinary Corps where he trains horses,may have thought he had some advantage but quickly learnt otherwise. “You need 6 months to properly work with a horse. You can’t make it unlearn all its bad habits in a week,” he sighs.

The sheer ineptitude of his mount left Sangram Singh uncertain where to begin. “Yountrakan hadn’t even been properly schooled.You wan’t to get the animal to trust you and gain confidence so you need to work slowly with it. But at the same time you realise it lacks stamina and so you want to boost it by making it work. But if you work it too hard it may be physically unable to compete in the event itself,” he says

For Rathore,the national dressage champion,Yuenyong’s uneven gait—the result of poor schooling —and obstinate insistence on sticking his tongue out (a sign the horse dislikes the presence of the bit in his mouth, indicating a lack of trust in the rider) would have seemed a cruel joke. Rathore,who has competed in numerous borrowed horse competition over the course of a near two decade long career, was more accepting. “The first thing you do is to lower your expectations. You might want a lot of things but the horse simply wont be able to deliver. You focus on the basics and then hope for some luck,” he says.

Over a week’s time,the riders did their best to raise their horses’ ability and increase their confidence.

Swittens recalls how Ratnakampol would simply baulk at the sight of one particular obstacle. Swittens ultimately had to stay with his mount for several hours until late evening when it finally made the jump. While moments like these gave the team hope,on the eve of the competition,no one underestimated what they were going against.

India started reasonably well in the dressage competition. Swittens on Ratnakampol,in fact,was in individual first place at one stage before the Thai riders on their personal mounts and a Hong Kong rider,who had imported her horse from Britain,went ahead.

The dressage while technical is still the safest stage in eventing. The sport itself is one of the most dangerous in the world – with all riders having to wear an arm band carrying information about the rider’s medical history,insurance,medications,and blood type. Riders do perish,crushed under tumbling half-tonne horses on the cross country stage. Unlike in the final show-jumping stage,in the cross country,horses are on full gallop and the obstacles are solid. A stumble at 50kmph invariably results in the animal somersaulting – with the riders hopefully thrown free but often crushed underneath his mount.  The Indian riders were now up for that stage.

When they first walked the 3.5 km course,trying to plot their ride,they knew the day would be hard. The championship course, they say,was simply beyond the level of the leased horses in the competition. “Initially we told each other that we were here to win although once we saw the cross country course,we joked with each other not to go and kill ourselves on the course,” says Rathore.

Sangram Singh almost did.

The trouble for most riders came on the ninth jump out of a total of 25.  The obstacle comprised a six foot wide ditch bounded on the far end by vertically piled logs. Nearly every horse again including a few of the host nation,froze at the sight. “If the horse doesn’t want to go,then he’s not going to go. He has his own sense of self preservation,” says Mrityunjay. Of the Indian team,it was Sangram Singh who nearly went the distance. A hard pushing artilleryman,Singh knew his horse had a tendency for ‘dishonesty’ and petting in practice aside,the only way to get it going in the cross country was to push it. Forcing it ahead,Singh was at the 23rd obstacle,just two away from pushing India to a silver,when the horse physically unable to stick the landing,buckled and suffered a full rotational fall.

While both the horse and rider escaped serious injury, the fall kept India to a bronze.

Going for gold

On their return to India,Sangram Singh swears that if he had his own horse – Ramses —he would have cleared the course with ease and the India might well have been competing for gold.  It is a belief shared by the rest of his teammates. “One thing I guess you can take back apart from the bronze is a newfound respect for your own horse,” says Swittens who on getting back to Jaipur immediately rode him. “ The partnership I have with him,is something,that I can’t replicate with any other animal. We competed against guys who were the best in Asia and if it wasn’t for the fact that we weren’t on our own horses,we would have matched them perfectly. When we go for the Asian Games next year,we will be on our own horses and I have enough confidence that we will be able to fight for gold,” he says.