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Eleven Indian equestrians will take part in this year's Asian Games. India so far has won 12 medals in equestrian at the Asian Games and is ranked fourth on the medal table.
Below are the Indian athletes who will be looking to add to that tally in the 2023 Asian Games.
Dressage
Anush Agarwalla, Hriday Chheda, Divyakriti Singh, and Sudipti Hajela are the players selected to represent India in dressage at the Asian Games this year. All probable players went through a rigorous selection trial judged by an international-level jury before four players were picked.
Agarwalla is a rider who hails from Kolkata. He became the first Indian dressage rider to compete at the Dressage World Championships. Joining him will be Hriday Cheda who hails from Pune. The 24-year-old is one of the youngest riders to win the National Champion title at Prix St George level in 2015.
Divyakriti is the third member of the team who is from Jaipur. As per the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI) Dressage World rankings, she is ranked 90.
Sudipti Hajela, who hails from Indore, will be the final member of the team. She is part of the Pamfou Dressage Team and is ranked World No.106.
The four riders will compete individually and also as a team. No Indian has ever won an individual dressage medal. However, India won a Team dressage bronze when equestrian was first introduced at the Asian Games in 1986.
Eventing
Eventing is a discipline that combines dressage, cross country, and show jumping. Eventing is also the discipline where India has won 10 out of its 12 Equestrian medals, the most famous being the all-Indian podium in the 1982 edition.
Ashish Limaye is the first rider selected for the event. Limaye’s love for horses began when he used to see them at a tongawala’s stand as a child. With his selection for the Asian Games, he achieved the rare feat of meeting the Minimum Eligibility Requirement (MER) for an individual entry on two horses.
Joining him will be Raju Singh Bhadoria, a farmer’s son from Madhya Pradesh. Raju Singh qualified after winning the CCI Two-Star Eventing Competition. He also won the Senior National Equestrian Championships held in Mumbai earlier this year.
The other Indian riders to qualify are Major Apoorva Dabade from the 61 Cavalry Jaipur and Havildar Vikas Kumar from the Veterinary Corps.
Show Jumping
The final event in equestrian is Show Jumping. Show jumping is an event where riders guide horses through a timed course of obstacles, aiming to clear them without knocking down any rails or poles.
Kirat Singh Nagra, Tejas Dhingra and Yash Nensee are the three players who have qualified for the show jumping event.
At the 2022 trials before the event got delayed Kirat finished third for both the 1.40m event (individual qualification) and the 1.50m event (team qualification). Nensee is an Indian rider who competes in show jumping. He most recently finished 13th at the Ising am Chiemsee in Germany.
Similarly, the third qualifier for the Asian Games, Tejas Dhingra participated in the event and finished 32nd.
India won told silvers in equestrian at the 2018 Asian Games. One belonged to Fouaad Mirza for individual eventing and the second for team eventing.
