For years, the Indian horse riders have been sneered at by their opponents for punting their frail, poorly-bred horses against stallions from the best stables. Not anymore. The Indian equestrian contingent at the Asiad checked into the Games Village as one of the favourites. The main reason for this sudden dominance is the spending capacity of affluent individuals, who are part of the Indian squad this time.

It is learnt that India’s best medal hope, Shruti Vora, granddaughter of late industrialist Krishna Kumar Birla, has spent nearly Rs 4 crore to buy a horse that was bred in Germany (German Warmbloods). For most of last year, Vora would fly out to Germany, taking a break from her MBA programme that ran through the week, and train under renowned coach Reiner Klimke.

While Vora is financially backed by her family, her three other teammates — Nadia Haridass, Ajai Appachu and Fouad Mirza — are products of Bangalore’s Embassy Riding School. The academy was founded by Jitu Virwani, a billionaire real estate giant who features on the Forbes list.

Sameer Lanba, India’s show-jumping coach, calls it the F1-isation of equestrian. He says the quality of horse has levelled the playing field. “The influx of private money has changed the game, though. Now, young aspiring riders from financially sound backgrounds have entered the fray and become game-changers,” Lanba says.

Buying horses is just one part. Nurturing and training amounts to nearly Rs 2 lakh per month. Besides, India’s foreign coach, Andrew Scot, reportedly gets around Rs 20,000 per day to train the riders.

“The quality of the horses is very important and decisive,” Lanba says. “We have been doing well in Asia but till the time we don’t start importing horses, we cannot hope to become a serious competitor at the world level.”

Lanba, a former rider and now the coach of the show-jumping team, says it’s a trend that Asian powerhouses Japan and South Korea have adopted for years. Japan, he says, get their top grade horses from France, the mid-level from Germany, and the rest from Australia.

Koreans, however, have cracked the economics of the horse trade. A year before every major event, the Koreans buy some of the top stallions and train with them for a considerable period. Once the event concludes, they invite prospective buyers and sell those horses for astronomical amounts. “It’s a win-win situation. You make money and also win medals,” Sangram Singh, the only armyman in the 11-member Indian team, says. “It’s a model that the Indian government should really look into. Having indigenous horses doesn’t make sense anymore. This is the way forward.”

Sangram speaks about this new phenomenon with awe and envy. For decades, the Army has shouldered the burden of breeding the horses and training the riders. At previous Asiads, the Indian team was dominated by armymen. “Never in the Asian Games history has India fielded an equestrian team that was aged less than 35. But now, we have riders who are around 22, 23,” the 40-year-old says with a wry smile.

Sangram himself has only recently started riding an imported horse. “The basic movement of the horse is different. There is more grace and power. It’s a nice, strong animal. Also, the confidence level of the rider goes up when you sit on such a horse,” Sangram says. “Unlike what we’ve had so far, the imported horses we now have are well-trained, hand-picked and have already competed at major international events. It makes a big difference.”

Perhaps that’s the reason why the equestrian team is quietly confident of returning with a respectable medal haul from Incheon. Since the 1982 Asian Games, India has returned with at least one medal at every edition. The country, in fact, is the best performer in the sport behind Japan and South Korea at the continental level.

The team missed the bus in Guangzhou four years ago after the Indian horses failed the quarantine tests. And the sports ministry’s delay in clearing the Indian contingent nearly cost them another appearance. “We ended up spending Rs 60 lakh to transport the horses to Incheon because of the delay. Imagine if the tour hadn’t been cleared… But now that we are here after spending so much, we might as well win some medals,” Lanba says.