Sports Desk
Indian equestrian dressage team won gold at the Asian Games 2023 on Tuesday. This is India’s maiden gold medal in the event at the Asiads. The Indian team, comprising of Sudipti Hajela, Divyakriti Singh, Hriday Chheda, Anush Agarwalla clinched an Asian Games gold in equestrian for India after 41 years.
Before Tuesday’s dressage team gold, India had won three gold medals, three silver medals and six bronze medals in equestrian at the Asian Games all at ,. at Delhi 1982.
Competing at the Tonglu Equestrian Centre, all four Indians give an excellent display of riding which fetched them top podium place.
Anush Agarwalla, astride Etro, was the pick of the lot, scoring 71.088. Hriday Chheda, mounted on Chemxpro Emerald, followed with 69.941 while Divyakriti Singh and her horse Adrenalin Firfod were awarded 68.176. Sudipti Hajela, with horse Chinski, contributed 66.706.
Equestrian is a broad term used to refer to sporting disciplines performed on horseback.
As an equestrian sport defined by the International Equestrian Federation, dressage is described as “the highest expression of horse training” where “horse and rider are expected to perform from memory a series of predetermined movements.”
Competitions are held at all levels from amateur to the Olympic Games and World Equestrian Games. Its fundamental purpose is to develop, through standardized progressive training methods, a horse’s natural athletic ability and willingness to perform, thereby maximizing its potential as a riding horse. At the peak of a dressage horse’s gymnastic development, the horse responds smoothly to a skilled rider’s minimal aids. The rider is relaxed and appears effort-free while the horse willingly performs the requested movement.
Sports on horseback were a product of equine use in war and its roots can be traced to ancient Greece. One of the core principles of equestrian is harmony and synergy between rider and steed, a key component for the efficacy of cavalry in any army. Dressage came up, therefore, as a form of ‘training’.