Fo-wow-aad: A Story of ‘Jumping’ Towards Glory

 In August 2018, Indian equestrian community experienced a brief moment of joy as an individual honour been won in the 2018 Asian games after 36 years. Indian equestrian Fouaad Mirza won silver in the individual equestrian event bringing smile and pride to the nation’s face.

 What is Equestrianism? 

‘Equestrianism’ is simply the sport of horse riding. It has been a part of Asian games and the Olympics for a very long time. In 2021 Tokyo Olympics, there will be three different horse-riding disciplines which are dressage, eventing and jumping. In all the three disciplines, both team and individual medals are awarded.

 A Lil bit of History 

In this sport, European countries and USA are very dominant. Moreover, if we keep Soviet Union out of the picture, Japan is the only Asian country to have won a gold. Coming back to India, their performance in this sport is quite underwhelming. They have had only seven participants in this sport in the history of Olympics and none of them finished at the podium. However, in Asian games, India has won 12 medals and collectively have the third highest tally after Japan (43 medals) and South Korea (34 medals). Equestrianism became an event in the 1982 New Delhi Asian games. India was the best performing country that year. Raghubir Singh won gold in the individual event (Singh was awarded Arjuna award and Padma Shree later) and was the last person to finish at the podium in such an event until 2018. 

 Fouaad Mirza

Getting to Know Mirza

 Fouaad Mirza was born in 1992 and is from Bengaluru, Karnataka. He started riding at the age of five. “It was always something I would do after school and naturally, the passion to be around horses gradually started taking shape,” Mirza said in an interview. His childhood idol was New Zealand equestrian Sir Mark Todd. He took a lot of inspiration and motivation from him. Fouaad chose to continue his studies and completed his bachelor’s from England. He used to ride only in vacations in that period. However, a break came for him prior to the 2014 Asian games. He was sponsored by a private firm. In his words, he “never looked back since”. To put his quality to perspective, he was the first Indian to win an event in Europe which happened prior to the 2018 Asian games.

 Asian Games 2018 and Olympics 

Team India was optimistic about doing well in the Asian games. However, they faced some trouble after some infighting happened in the Equestrian Federation of India. But all was well and they left for the Indonesian capital. In Jakarta, Fouaad was the spearhead of the Indian team. He carried a lot of pressure and he didn’t disappoint. He finished second in the individual eventing category and also helped India finish second in team event as well. This was a very proud moment for him and for the whole country. After this performance, he was awarded with the Arjuna award in 2019. He was very delighted to get the award and said that his next mission was to qualify and do well in the Tokyo Olympics. Fouaad secured his Olympic berth in November 2019. But the year 2019 was not very smooth for him. His horse Seigneur Medicott, with whom he won two silvers in the Asian games, was injured in early 2019. “The horse with whom I won the silvers, Seigneur Medicott was injured early on in 2019, which was a big blow to me. I was counting on him to help me through the qualifications but unfortunately, he could not participate,” Fouaad Mirza revealed in an exclusive chat with the Olympic Channel. He had to bring in a new horse and Dajara 4 was that new horse. They practised a lot and the hard work paid off as he won at the CCI3*S, an Olympic qualifying tournament at Strzegom, Poland in October. Fouaad will be the first Indian rider to participate in an individual event at the Olympics since Imtiaz Anees in 2000.

 Final Prep and Cautions

 The rider with his horse is currently training in Germany. But there is an outbreak of Equine Herpes Virus (EHV-1) among horses in Europe. This has forced the rider to take much more caution in training.

 Our Word 

We have very high hopes regarding the performance of Fouaad Mirza in Tokyo. We wish him very best to perform at his highest level at the biggest of stages, the Olympics. Fouaad said in an interview, “It is going to be tough when you are competing against the best athletes from around the world. It will be my first Olympics and while the Asian Games was big, this is even bigger. All I can say is if it’s my day, I will come out on top and I will try my best to make that possible.”

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