Horsing around - a tale of equestrian delights

 Author : Salil Prashar


NDA boasts of adventure sports/ sports facilities which would put any institution in the world to shame, like equestrian, water sports, flying etc. For similar facilities people in the civil world have to pay through their nose, but in NDA they are free of cost and compulsory to boot.

Horse riding was one such sport which left an indelible mark on most of us (some of the marks can still be seen on various parts of our body). For most of us, prior to NDA, horse riding was restricted to pony rides in various hill stations and that was the impression we carried with us.

The mother lode


Equitation lines was where it all starts...... I guess now it is called Equitation training team..... Who trains whom is a matter of debate better left in stable hands. The entrance of the Equitation lines is made in the shape of a horse shoe, described very differently by all cadets (for the sake of modesty I shall leave it here).

The resident evil of the lines are the horses and the equitation ustads, animal lovers may baulk at my statement but I am sure that they will change their mind by and by.

The elemental

The main ingredient of equestrian sport is the horse. Now NDA boasted of very well bred and well maintained horses who were a treat to behold and I guess the horses also believed the same. Their attitude also matched their belief, I am sure they always thought themselves to be above the cadet in NDA hierarchy. Obviously, because while we got booted by the ustads they got the 'shabash ghoda' from all. They were very well trained and followed every command diligently, till it was not spoken by a cadet. It was as if their ears were deaf to cadet frequencies.

Anyone who has a keen interest in equestrian sports will tell you that each horse has his own personality and likes and dislikes and in the case of NDA horsies dislikes were cadets and likes were all the rest. They had this uncanny ability to sense fear and when they sensed it, they would go quite and submissive so as to mislead some cadet into selecting it for a ride and then would start the fun.

And it all begins

The equitation lines are on one edge of the campus and getting there was very difficult without a cycle and the cycles of NDA also had an attitude similar to the horses....... They had to, as they rode the cadet more than the cadet rode them (any small infringement, real or imagined would result in the cadet having to lift his bike and run from pillar to post).

Normally once in a couple of weeks the first 3 periods for the day were dedicated for equitation classes. If you were lucky then you would have a functional cycle that day or else you would have to hoof it on the double to make it on time. Reaching on time was the first hurdle crossed.

Then came the hurdle of the fall-in. All cadets were made to fall-in and were divided into groups. Some of the groups were sent for riding, while others were sent for classes on equitation and horse grooming, keeping in mind the horses available that day. The aim of every cadet was to manage to wriggle into the group going for classes and to not get saddled with the rider group. Meanwhile the ustads were on the lookout for such wrigglers. The best of the horses (pun intended) were reserved for these specimens. There were a few cadets who enjoyed riding and were always happy to swap places with us, at that moment they were our BFFs.

I for one almost always managed to get caught and the ustads had fed my frame into their memory. From the fall-in we were herded to the stables to choose our ride for the day, well, if you can call being told "yeh tumhara ghoda hai, chalo isse choose karo" a choice.

I would approach the horse with extreme caution as I knew that my reputation was as bad amongst the horses as it was with ustads.

Some of the horses had a reputation which was a part of NDA folklore. Pickpocket, Pathfinder,............. This was the 'P company' of NDA horses and they all were thoroughDread (thoroughbred with a twist) and their boss was 'Pickpocket'. His reputation was like that of Gabbar from Sholay, "kayee kos door jab cadet fall in hota hai, toh ustad bolte hain ki bhag ja warna pickpocket aa jayega"..... Yes sir Pickpocket was the most notorious of them all, just his name sent shivers down the spine of the weak hearted. It was jungle talk that he allowed only highly trained riders to ride him, ab usko kaise pata lagta tha rider ki capability is left to conjecture.

Almost all of us just knew them by their names only as the ustads were clever enough to hide their real identities by calling them with other names like brown lightning etc in front of us. So we never knew who we were getting onto till the time we went flying. When we asked them "ustad yeh pickpocket toh nahi hai" they would say "nahi cadet, yeh Brown Rider hai, yeh toh shadi ki ghodi hai, ekdum shant".

There..... we were fooled in to believing that shadi ki ghodi is a safe bet, its much later in life that we realised that shadi ki ghodi is the most deadly as it rides you calmly into the eye of a cyclone, unarmed.

Our horses selected, we would lead them by their reins to the ground and there started cartoon channel. A look around would reveal cadets of all shapes and sizes trying their very best to mount the easily irritable horses who would invariably move left or right to leave us hanging with one foot on the stirrup and the other on the ground hopping around like a one legged kangaroo asking the ustad to calm the steed.

Finally we would mount and the ustad would lead the column outside the equitation lines. Now, like I said, these horses followed the ustad to the hilt. The ustad would make his horse trot and our horses would automatically trot, ustad started cantering his ride and ours too would canter.

For some time I was under the false impression that I was going to make a very good rider as the horse did whatever I was telling him to, till the moment when I tried to halt him as the saddle was coming loose. Try what I may the horse just wouldn’t halt, the ustad kept shouting on me "yeh cadet ghode ko rokta kyon nahi, master kaun hai, tum ya ghoda"..... I wanted to say "ghoda" but better sense prevailed so I shouted "ustad aap apna ghoda roko pehle", so ustad stopped his horse and all horses stopped. I started getting down and was in the one legged kangaroo position when ustad shouted "squad canter" and my horse took off with me hanging on to the saddle for dear life with one leg in the air, and then I was airborne. The shock of my landing was absorbed fully by my body itself and I saw my horse running towards the stables. The ustad screamed at me "horse ko pakdo aur wapis lao", I shot up like a spring, followed the horse into the stables and continued running till I joined the other lucky group who were lounging around the stables. I was in no mood to mount that horse again.

Tit bits

One day the ustad was telling us about the horses diet and told us that they were given Gud (Jaggery) and chana as a part of their diet. One of the cadets put his hand inside a carton which was holding the gud chana mixture and helped himself to some. Unlucky for him an ustad saw him doing this and he was marched up to the adjutant. His punishment was published as “caught eating horse rations” poor chap was the talk of the town for a long time. Must be one of the reasons why the horses disliked us, even their rations were not safe with us around.

On the trail

We were sometimes taken for cross country rides after we had had built up some experience. We would go in batches of 10 -15 led by an ustad and as usual the horses followed the leader.

On one such ride the ustad was taking the squad slowly on a trot or canter and he would hardly gallop (for the uninitiated the speed of a horse is called trot, canter and gallop in ascending order). The trot and canter would take a toll on our poor backs which were always sore from the miles we clocked each day rolling. No amount of prodding bought about a change in the pace.  Being lowest in the pecking order we just followed our horse, who followed the ustad, who followed his fancy.


Life’s lessons they say are learnt by burning your hand in the cauldron of curiosity. There was some latent adrenalin in my blood which was waiting to be unleashed, this slow pace was getting on my nerves. I decided to test the waters and pulled the reins of my horse slightly to the right due to which the horse just turned its neck a little. He could now no longer see the backside of the horse in front and so it panicked. It suddenly reared and took off at a tangent to the rest of the troop. There were two horses behind me who obviously followed the lead of my horse and took off in various directions.

One of the riders was experienced and he pulled expertly on the reins of his horse, I guess his horse was even more experienced than him, he obeyed immediately and the rider took a somersault over his head, he was last seen that day hanging on to dear life onto the neck of a bolting horse. The other rider was in a better situation, the only catch being that his horse had climbed down a steep slope and stopped mid way. The cadet didn't know how to react as any movement would have activated the now quiet horse and god only knew what action it would take, so he was sitting like a statue and pleading in a whisper to the ustad to rescue him from this predicament.

That was all I could observe as my own horse had decided that enough was enough and Galloped full speed down the hill towards the equitation lines. I just about managed to keep myself on the saddle, en-route were a few small obstacles which the horse crossed with ease all thanks to my non-interfering attitude. He finally stopped on reaching the stables to have a drink of water. I slinked down from his back trying my best to be invisible to him and once safely on ground vanished into the classrooms lest ustad called me again. I swore to always let a trotting horse trot.

Rodeology

At the end of our third term we were supposed to appear for a test. The syllabus of the test included lane jumping, now this was something out of the syllabus as we were never taught to do lane jumping.

For the un-initiated, lane jumping is the sport of making the horse cross a series of obstacles. The lane was constructed with a pair of bamboo fences running parallel to each other with obstacles between them at regular intervals. Once a horse enters the lane he can either go ahead or back, he cannot bypass the obstacles.

The selected horse stood there facing the other direction, this I thought to be funny, but I learnt the truth in a difficult way. Anyways, I was told to mount the horse and I discovered that there were no stirrups to keep my feet on and the reins were also tied to the neck strap of the horse. Ustad remarked  "cadet tumhara test hai sirf baithne ka, answers ghode ko pata hai , reins ki koyee zaroorat nahi hai”.

The horses used for lane jumping had killer attitudes, they were very feisty and energetic and went out of control on seeing the lane jumping course and that was why they were made to face away from the obstacles to keep them calm.

The stage was now set for disaster to strike. The horse was turned by the ustad towards the lane. The horse on seeing the obstacles started frothing through his mouth and was prancing about, ready to fire. The ustad just left his reins and the horse took off like a SU-30. I was holding onto his neck strap and the saddle trying desperately to stay on his back. The horse had crossed two obstacles before I got my bearings, that is when I decided that I could try for the Olympics and defied orders to catch his reins.

I still don't know what I did, the horse suddenly braked and I following Newton's law of inertia, went flying over the head of the horse, across the next obstacle. Technically speaking I had crossed one more obstacle, but the spoil sport ustad would hear nothing of it and despite my protests he asked me to mount the horse again. So up I went again. The horse managed to cross the next obstacle, but somewhere between the 5th and 6th obstacle I slipped again but was left hanging from his neck with my backside pointing down. The damn horse crossed 2 more obstacles with me in this position, with my backside bouncing against each obstacle. My resilience gave way, and I finally left his neck and fell down, I was lucky that the horse did not stomp on me.

There were three more obstacles left and me and horsey, both decided to refuse to budge..... I realised that while the horse had a choice, I did not, the ustad was screaming like mad asking me to mount. Ab sala how the hell could I have mounted that bucking bronco, but ustad wouldn't give up. I finally mounted Mr. crazy and he gave me rodeo hell for the next three obstacles. After the last obstacle I hit the dirt and that to very hard, I could vaguely make out the shape of ustads face and he was prodding me to get up to pet the horse and say "Shabash ghoda" sikhaye hue tariqe se....... No way was I ever going to "Shabash" that pampered and overfed crazy animal, so I just lay there pretending to have a broken something in my back.

The equitation officer appeared from somewhere and seeing my condition told the ustad "ustad cadet pain mein hai, isko ghode pe daal ke MI room tak le jao"..... what ! Casualty evacuation on a bloody ghoda!! That to this uncouth specimen. What did he expect the ustad to do, drape me on the horse like a Bollywood daku abducting a damsel from her marriage. I stood up slowly limped to the horse, patted him and said "Shabash ghoda" for making a smoothie of my innards and abstract art on my posterior and, to top it all, I had to escort my assailant back to his abode.... How worse could it go.

I believe in NDA the worst is always yet to come.

Another day, another class.....

The course had mustered for the day in the equitation ground, our adjutant , the dear 'छाता' (for all those who have come in new, he was so called because of his barrel chest) who had newly joined the academy was practicing his horse riding skill as the academy adjutant was supposed to ride on horseback during ceremonial parades. The horse he was riding had a fiery temperament and was making life difficult for him. Suddenly the horse reared up on his hind legs and dear adjutant found himself licking the dirt. Everyone fell silent, but one shrieky laugh broke the quiet of the dead. Somewhere in the muster, someone shut someone’s mouth before someone else locked on to the source. But lock on he did.

The ustads rushed to the adjutants aid, he got up, brushed the dirt of his clothes and asked the ustad “Iss course ka number batao" and we knew that our fate was sealed. The next day, which was a Sunday was spent by us standing in the sun from morning to evening in front of the adjutant, without moving and with the offer of breaking off if the errant voice was bought to him. To our credit the whole course stood in the sun but did not rat on our course mate, this raised the reputation of our course a few notches in the eyes of 'The छाता'.
That was score one for the horses.

The Tail end

A lot of cadets do eventually fall in love with horse riding and become passionate about the sport....... But, not yours truly. Even now I avoid going anywhere near a horse.

I am often reminded of the nursery rhyme

"cadet X sat on a horse,

cadet X had very many falls,

all the academy's horses and all the academy's ustads

could not make cadet X ride a horse again"

(Where X = feel free to add your name)

P.S.

Some trivia before I take leave.

How do you recognise a cadet returning from equitation classes?

Simple, his backside hardly touches the cycle seat as his already sore rear has been made sorer by the saddle. But, his speed is phenomenal as he is heading towards a heavy breakfast in the mess devoid of all seniors (a dream come true)......

All izz well, forgiven and forgotten.

Ciao