Harini Rajendran, a 15-year-old girl from Coimbatore has made the city proud by bagging the eighth position (14-18 yrs category) in the recently concluded Junior National
Equestrian Championship at Bhopal. A self-confessed animal lover, Harini says that she absolutely loves spending time with
horses.
"I took up
horse riding in 2014.The equestrian club had just made its presence in Coimbatore and I wanted to give it a shot. I just wanted to ride the horse and see how it felt. But, soon I fell in love with the sport," she says.
Harini says that spending time with the animals takes you to a different world altogether. "We are so used to being with human beings that when you talk to animals, it's an extremely different feeling altogether. It is all about adapting ourselves according to their mood. Sometimes, they are naughty and sometimes serious. It's essential that you understand the mentality of the horse. After getting on top of the horse, you need to spend the first five minutes assessing their mood. You need to go for a walk and help them relax, only then, can you start riding the horse."
Harini says that she had absolutely no fear while getting on a horse for the first time but she had her own set of challenges. "In fact, I was quite excited about it. Initially I felt like I had no balance while sitting on the horse. You have no idea when the horse can get scared. The smallest of the noises can scare them. And, if they get scared, they will immediately start running. Sometimes they puff hard and all that can pull you down. I first figured out how to relax the horse and make sure I don't fall down, and then things got easier."
Harini is now riding a
thoroughbred breed horse whose name is Orient Glory. "I think riding one particular horse is no fun. If you deal with many horses, you gain more knowledge about horse riding. Since, I am competing in jumping events (100 to 105cms), I am riding Orient Glory. If it was a different category, I would be riding another horse. When the fence height goes up, the communication between you and the horse should be better, so that you can clear it without trouble. Orient Glory accepted me as its partner so competing became easy. When it comes to jumping events, thoroughbred breed and
warmblood breed suit well."
How much time does she invest in training the horse? "It depends on the horse, some horses start cooperating with you soon, while some won't even let you sit on them because it may think we are restricting its freedom. Trained horses are easy to deal with. Green broke (who has recently learned to accept a rider on his back) horses are really difficult to train. So, you have to invest a lot of time to train these horses. You can take them for a slow walk and understand their mentality only then can you make them behave according to your need. Since I love spending time with animals, I spend more time with the horses. After the training, I feed them and help them take bath and then I trot on them before leaving them in the stable."
She further shares that one doesn't get the same horse all the time. If a competition is approaching, we try different horses and see which suits us and start practising with that. Only before competition, you train with one particular horse. At the other times when there is no competition, I experiment with different horses. The trainers assess me and the horse and then decide which horse should be given to me for regular practise. In the first year, they gave us trained horses. After that, we start dealing with new horses. New horses have a lot of energy and you have to train them from the scratch. It is extremely taxing because when it's new its only aim is to pull you down."
The winner is chosen depending on the minimum amount of time he/she takes to complete all the fences in the competition. "There are two rounds in our competition. In the first round, there are 12 fences and the rider has to make sure the horse clears all the fences without disturbing them. Once you clear all the fences, you get selected for the next round. Here, they choose five fences and ask you to clear them. The person who clears them at the shortest time is declared the winner."
She adds saying, "In this competition, only our club from Tamil Nadu took part and it was extremely difficult. This is an expensive sport so only few people show interest in this and there are only few competing in this sport."
