An equestrian team’s creditable outing at a dressage competition in Bengaluru has reinforced the city’s standing in the jockey circuit and also helped shatter the stereotype of horse-riding being a privileged avocation.
The three horse-riders who represented the Auroville-based Red Earth Riding School at the FEI world challenge dressage held all over the world by the Federation Equestrian Internationale (the International Equestrian Federation), hailed from humble backgrounds.
“This, to me, is the biggest takeaway from an event as prestigious as the FEI dressage contest,” said Jacqueline, RERS founder, who sponsored the candidates.
In the preliminary test R. Arun won the first place with Haggler and Kali Varthanan came second on Iberica, while in the elementary test all three horses were competing and swept all the three medals with V. Vikas winning with Campera, R. Arun in Haggler winning the silver and Kali Varthanan taking the bronze. In the slightly more difficult medium level test V. Vikas bagged the gold with Campera.
The FEI conducts the challenge all across the world annually and the event in Bengaluru’s Embassy Riding School grounds represented the southern leg. The same set of jurors travels all over the world to judge riders performing dressage routines with varying degrees of difficulty.
Ms. Jacqueline is equally proud of her three horses that performed simple to complex dressage tasks in perfect harmony with the riders at the event to come on tops.
Campera and Iberica are Spanish mares who entered the RERS stables in January this year and Haggler is a former Indian racehorse who was re-trained at the school.
Guillaume Laurent senior trainer accompanied the team.
Being an away-event —the horses are in home conditions when contests are staged at RERS —the animals had to be transported in a horse truck to Bengaluru. Incidentally, RERS will host the ‘Pondicherry Equestrian Challenge’ PEC in the last weekend of January and first weekend of February.
According to Ms. Jacqueline, all the three riders know the horses very well because they just don’t ride them but they multi-task as care takers and instructors in RERS.
“To train horses to be precise and in control of every single step requires many years of training,” says Ms. Jacqueline, for whom a dressage routine is akin to a graceful tango of man and beast.
The communication between the horse and the rider has to be so fine tuned that it appears to the audience as if the horse is performing on its own. “In fact, the horse is being manoeuvred by the rider with very subtle signs on whether to stop, go faster, back or side-wards. It should look like a very well-choreographed dance,” she said.
