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The dormant sport of equestrian in India got a fresh lease of life in the last two years and all credit goes to Fouaad Mirza. The 27-year-old broke India’s 36-year equestrian medal drought at the Jakarta Asian Games in 2018, bagging silver in both the individual and team events.
Earlier, Imtiaz Anees in Sydney in 2000 and Late Wing Commander IJ Lamba in Atlanta in 1996 are the only Indians to have represented the country at the Olympics in equestrian.
Fouaad, who has been conferred the Arjuna Award by the Indian government in 2019, was assured of an Olympics berth in November 2019 but it was only in January this year that he got the official stamp, when the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (EFI) released their rankings after the 2019 season.
Not a usual or popular sports in India, equestrian wasn’t a luck by chance kind of thing for the Bengaluru boy. In fact, it had to do a lot with his father’s profession and something with his family’s rich history and legacy.
But Fouaad’s father believes that more than his job the fact that his son grew up in a farm around horses and due to his genes, Fouaad took to horse riding.
In an interview to The Quint , Dr Mirza said that the their family has been associated with horses for the last six generatiojavascript:void(0)ns. Fouaad is the seventh generation of the bloodline to be dealing with the horses.
So, horse-riding came naturally to young Fouaad, at an age of five. But what started as an after school hobby or past-time soon became something serious.
Sir Mark Todd of New Zealand was a legend in the equestrian field. He was voted as the Rider of the 20th century by the International Federation for Equestrian Sports.
While in school, young Fouaad knew exactly what to do next. He started riding at the national level and thus the journey began.
But the journey was halted soon. Despite his love for the sport, Fouaad decided to finish his education before taking up equestrian professionally.
But riding was always in his blood. Despite being away for so long and without training, Fouaad would make it a point take part in the nationals whenever he was in India. What made his job easier was the fact that he used to participate with horses with whom he had trained earlier.
And thus Fouaad’s journey continued.
Fouaad’s moment under the sun came at the 2018 Asian Games. But coming into the tournament everything wasn’t looking great for Fouaad. To begin with, the Equestrian Federation of India (EFI) didn’t want to send a team for the quadrennial event.
It was only after lot of coaxing, and with sponsorship from a private firm, that the federation relented and Fouaad was there in Jakarta in Indonesia to represent India at the Asian Games.
“And it took a lot of effort from his sponsor Jitu Virwani of the Embassy Group to really lobby and get the team to go. He had invested all the money. He sponsored riders to go to France to train there and bought them horses,” Dr Mirza told The Quint.
After his historic win at the Asian Games, Fouaad had to deal with another hurdle.
But, Fouaad didn’t want to give up so easily. He partnered a new horse, Dajara 4, and it was the same horse with whom he won gold at the CCI3*-S event held in Strzegom in Poland in October 2019.
The event being a qualifying event for the Olympics, Fouaad knew that he had scripted history but he waited for the official announcement which eventually came three months later.
Fouaad has been training in Germany ahead of the mega event in July this year. Fouaad will be competing against the best in the world.
“Tokyo will host the best of the best at the Olympic Games. Every single rider of note will be there. There will be 65 of the best riders in the world,” said Fouaad’s father.
But irrespective of the result in Tokyo, the 27-year-old has already done enough to single-handedly revive the sport in the country. A favourable result will just be a bonus.
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