Show-jumping contest trots back into Mumbai after 21 years

Aroma is what Yashaan Khambatta likes to call the smell of horse manure that hangs thick in the air at Mahalaxmi Race Course. As a three-year-old, this scent had often made Lalbaugbased Khambatta look out of his father’s car, eventually luring him into the world of horse riding.

The 30-year-old is now among the top riders in India. He famously made it to the finals at the 2014 Asian Games with his trusty French horse, Olgy, who has a “heart of gold”.

The bite marks on Khambatta’s body right now are friendly pecks from his new eight-year-old German mount, Lorenzo, whom he is training for the National Show Jumping Championship in Mumbai this week. The city is hosting this Equestrian Federation of India (EFI) championship after a long gap of 21 years.

“Show Jumping had lost its sheen in Mumbai,” explains Riyhad Kundanmal, honorary secretary of Amateur Riders Club (ARC), one of the oldest civilian riding clubs in India with over 1400 members. But, he adds, “The sport is reviving now with the infusion of corporates and professionals taking it to another level.”

Fresh in the afterglow of the success of Indian equestrians such as Fouaad Mirza who won silver medals in at the Asian Games last year, “it’s the perfect time to bring the equestrian event back to the city,” says Shyam Mehta, president of ARC. The winners of this week’s contest can hope to represent India in international tournaments such as FEI World Championships and the Olympics.

Only six Indians in the history of equestrian sports have reached the Olympics so far. Makeshift stables have sprung up at the Race Course to host the expensive four-legged athletes, “darlings” who must be massaged regularly and fed oatmeal and bran. Also competing will be a handful of retired racehorses that have been retrained for show jumping.

Their naturally high-strung nerves are calmed by leaving them in an open paddock, gently riding them to get them off their front foot to their haunches and “grooming them like babies”, says Kundanmal.

Through this event, the riding club is hoping to popularise the “gender-neutral” equestrian sport. “Show jumping, unlike polo, is not about strength,” says Mehta. “Women can beat men.”

Equestrian sports has a storied history in India, according to a new book on the 52-year-old Equestrian Federation of India, to be released at the competition. An initiative of the Indian Army, the EFI has produced eight Padma Shris and one Arjuna awardee so far.

In fact, polo as well as tentpegging, a sport in which riders carrying a lance or sword must spear and pick up a peg from the ground while at full gallop, were “India’s gifts to the world,” says a local equine enthusiast. He suggests tent-pegging is not recognized as an Olympic sport because the Europeans “don’t stand a chance against UAE and India.”

While modern equestrian sport was introduced by the British Army, it was the Indian Army that kept it alive after Independence. For a long time, however, Army riders were not allowed to compete in international competitions because of the lack of a national body.

That changed in 1967 when equine enthusiast General P P Kumaramangalam established the EFI. Soon, Indian equestrians Dfr Raghubir Singh, Capt GM Khan and Dfr Pralhad Singh brought home the gold, silver and bronze respectively from the Asian Games Eventing competition in 1982.

Today, with five high-tech facilities for breeding across India apart from training academies, the Army has opened up the sport to civilians.

Closer home, ARC is trying to combat the perception of Show Jumping as an elite sport with reasonably priced riding camps and courses. Young riders such as Yahvi Mariwala and Iyanah Mehta—whose spinal injury from a fall as a kiddid not deter her from getting back on the saddle-—believe local schools and the government should help spread the sport further.

However, Mumbai’s infamous lack of space and monsoon present some hurdles.

Khambatta, who plans to compete in the Asian Games 2022 with his biting partner Lorenzo, says Mumbai’s temperatures are also a bit high for European horses. Still, the return of the equestrian event to the city has energised many local riders who would like Show Jumping to get off its high horse.