“In the last four years, I can see participation in the equestrian sport grow. The level of competition has increased tremendously with more riders and horses in the fray,” says Satyajit.
While Satyajit, an automobile photographer, drives from Chennai to Puducherry, Goat Mark Beedi company head Mohammed Ashfaq drives from his headquarters in Vellore to Chennai over the weekend so his 10-year-old son Muhammed Ali can squeeze in riding lessons as he trains for national-level competitions. Ashfaq too has imported horses from Europe at Rs 40 lakh-Rs 50 lakh each and even set up an Olympic-sized training ground — the Vellore Equestrian Club — near his factory for his son and other riders to train.
“Competitive riders come from Bengaluru, Chennai, Puducherry, and Ooty to train here,” says Ashfaq. Sensing a growing interest in the sport, he has just started a second riding centre in Bengaluru.
A few kilometres away, in Ambur, factory owner M G Senthil Kumar has set up an equestrian club where he trains youngsters from the area free of cost. “They only pay to maintain their horses,” says Senthil, who taught himself show jumping from watching videos as well as live events. Though it is an expensive sport — riders have to maintain their horses all through the year and that can cost anywhere from Rs 25,000 up a month or lease horses in which case they pay a couple of lakhs of rupees per round — Senthil says the number of people taking an interest in the sport is climbing. And Covid-19 and the lockdown? Well, it seems to have resulted in an even bigger jump in interest.
Chennai-based high schooler Shakti Ganesh, who trains six days a week, says over the last couple of years, riding in the outdoors was what kept her going through the months of lockdown and virtual schooling. “It wasn’t just me, the number of kids and adults coming to East Coast Equestrian (ECE) centre in Kovalam, where I train, has increased over the last year,” says the 18-year-old, who got her own horse in 2020, and plans to take a gap year to explore riding.
“This is a sport that is perceived as safe even during a pandemic because it is in the outdoors and there is social distancing. It’s just a rider and a horse,” says Isabelle Hasleder of Chennai Equitation Centre. “Parents were bringing their children because they wanted them to be outdoors and connect with animals and nature. I saw a lot of adults also taking an interest in recreational riding. This sport can be rather meditative, which is what anxiety-ridden adults seemed to want in the last couple of years,” she says, adding that their school has grown to more than 80 students.
Barath Manoharan, a competitive rider who launched ECE in 2021, says the number of adults showing interest has increased. “We have several people in their 40s and late 50s competing in show jumping, as well as children as young as five coming in to start training,” he says.
“Twenty-two years ago, when we opened our riding school, there were hardly three clubs in Tamil Nadu,” says Jacqueline Kapur of Red Earth Riding School, Auroville. Compare that with the competition the school is hosting in March, which has more than 100 horses entered, and riders streaming in from clubs in Chennai, Tirupur, Vellore, Ooty, Ambur, and Coimbatore.
“The equestrian sport is growing because of a greater awareness, higher income levels, which allow more people to be able to afford it, and a way to reconnect with nature, which is something people value these days, especially on account of the pandemic. Riding is about compassion, overcoming fear and obstacles, and learning to be in the here and now because if you aren’t, you simply cannot move forward,” she says.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/gallop-poll-chennai-rides-high-on-equestrian-sport/articleshow/89862165.cms
