It is the U-turn season in Indian Equestrian Sport circles. After the Equestrian Federation of India and the Athlete Commission Chairman Vanita Malhotra, it is now the turn of a young Dressage rider’s parent.
Some days ago, the ‘depressed’ parent wrote to many top functionaries in Indian sport alleging EFI had accorded Dressage athletes step-motherly treatment. The parent charged the Federation with making the qualifying standard only for the Dressage riders tougher than had been laid down by an elected Selection Committee.
That was not all.
The aggrieved parent pointed out that two of the four events that the EFI, in its wisdom, picked for a rider were in a gap of two days and 650km apart. The parent pointed out that it would have been against regulations for a horse to travel this distance and compete without adequate rest. EFI ignored all mails asking for a different choice of events, the parent pointed out.
The parent’s anguish was apparent when the mail focused on how the EFI declared that the rider had not participated in the event that it had chosen. The mail also pointed out that one the shows listed had not been held and the EFI mentioned that the rider had withdrawn from the event that was cancelled.
A month later, and a day ahead of a hearing of the Delhi High Court in case by the Dressage rider, the parent wrote a mail saying that since the matter had been settled amicably and reached a logical conclusion, the earlier mail be treated as void. It will be interesting to try and understand what this ‘amicable’ resolution entails.
Since there is no reference to what the ‘amicable settlement’ and ‘logical conclusion’ is, it must be conjectured that this has its basis in the EFI’s Committee of Experts on February 20 decision to lower the qualification standards and include this aggrieved rider as one of the six probables of the Indian team for the Asian Games.
Is the Committee of Experts’ decision to ‘select’ this rider, despite only one MER instead of the required three, the amicable settlement that the parent now speaks of? Is the parent unaware that Justice Gaurang Kanth had, in his judgement in the Chirag Khandal case, dissed the formation of the EFI’s Committee of Experts as not having any foundation in EFI Statutes?
For a parent who had complained that EFI did not offer and guidance, let alone support, to Dressage riders based in Europe and that EFI did not respond to any of the more than 20 mails since September 2022, it is baffling that mere selection of a rider as a probable is enough to condone EFI.
In fact, the Dressage rider’s parent is not the only one who has done a U-Turn. The EFI Athletes’ Commission Chairman Vanita Malhotra did that. Having first allowed the Federation to shoot from her shoulders by agreeing with its suggestion to lower qualifying standards, she changed her stance after speaking with riders after that meeting of the Committee of Experts.
“After giving my views, I have interacted with a few riders who feel they did not try for the qualification when they felt that they could not get the required three MERs. To be fair to everyone, let the original selection guidelines be with no amendments and riders with three MERs are selected to go for the Asian Games or the qualification date to get the required three MERs is extended to June end,” she wrote.
Come to think of it, EFI ushered in the U-turn season.
On January 12, 2023, it promised the Delhi High Court that Chirag Khandal could attain MERs in March and April. Then, it filed a review petition on February 24 seeking the stay of the January 12 order since it had ostensibly decided to advance the dates of the coaching camp and could not accommodate Chirag Khandal among the probables in the Eventing squad.
