How do you ask a horse, an equestrian Olympian, to relax before a big competition day? It takes more than the proverbial whisper. Sir Caramello Old, who will be at the Paris Olympics, teaming up with 23-year-old Kolkata-based rider Anush Agarwalla in the Dressage event of the Games, is the country’s only four-legged participant besides the 117 humans.
The 16-year-old German-born horse’s five-year association with Agarwalla has helped the two build a bond and perfect the “switch on, switch off” routine like most elite athletes.
Though responding mostly to stable staff in the German countryside, Agarwalla reckons Sir Caramello Old’s ears tend to prick forward whenever he hears the voice of Sukhwinder Singh, the soulful singer with several hit songs to his name. “He really loves his freestyle music, such as AR Rahman’s Jai Ho,” says the rider. But he still loves hearing ‘Brav’ — German for ‘well done’ — from the Indian rider.
Sir Caramello Old is a chestnut gelding, who loves his long walks into the fairytale-like woods, deep inside the north Rhine country-town of Borchen. This was part of the rest and recuperation regime charted out for the horse after late last year’s hectic tournament schedule of four qualifiers in just over two months.
“We slowly built our momentum to peak for the Olympics. But in the few off-season months, we needed to keep him fit. So there was no training, but we would go for walks, just taking him and setting off on the hiking trails near the stables. Change of scenery, and just seeing something else,” Agarwalla recalls.
He goes on to add that Sir Caramello Old is happiest when showered with attention and loves dinners out in the woods.
But then, he had to be told that the break was over and it was time to train for the Olympics. “The training sessions get intense progressively. Also, when you wash the horse and he’s cleaned and prettied up a certain way, he knows we’re going for a show in the next 24 hours,” says Agarwalla.
The Paris Olympics starts this weekend with the opening ceremony on July 26. The Dressage event starts on July 30.
The Indian rider isn’t the first owner of the old pro horse. Since the age of three, Sir Caramello Old has travelled to equestrian circuits in Germany, Denmark and the USA, and has been ridden by American Ashley Holzer, a former Olympic bronze medallist. In 2019, he was listed at a German barn sale. That was the time Agarwalla was nursing the heartbreak of failing to qualify for the Tokyo Games.
The two would join forces and soon, a bond would form. “It was in 2021, I remember very clearly. He had been very quiet and subdued because of the atmosphere. But he began to loosen up after I patted and spoke to him, and knew he was comfortable thereafter,” Agarwalla says.
While rider cues on the paddock may vary, Agarwalla guesses that horses do respond to verbal communication. “I think there’s a few words he knows. But it’s more about the way you speak to them — the tone. Sir Caramello Old responds to a few words in German. Essentially, when a horse does something good, we say ‘Brav’. And he’s rewarded with a break,” he explains.
While Sir Caramello Old loves Jai Ho, the rider toggles between Indian music and English rap. Agarwalla took a liking for the 1983 movie chorus of ‘Lehra do’. “I first heard it at the Asian Games and that song is a good memory,” he says.
In equestrian, a sport for fine margins where 0.01 point can decide medals, Agarwalla says his biggest challenge will be to keep the horse calm during the critical movements of a piaffe, when judges are most focussed on the horse. A piaffe is a slow trot on the spot set to music, like a quickstep or kadam taal of horses.
“We’ve worked a lot on the canter. But in the lead-up we have focussed a little more on the piaffe, and just need to be careful that he stays calm,” Agarwalla insists.
