MiD DAY, Dec 7, pg 15

(Last week a tourist fell off a horse and lost his life at Matheran, a hill station in Maharashtra. This article in MiD DAY focuses on the risk involved in riding horses professionally)

The Young Live On

The stage was all set. The script was written and sealed, and the actors had only to act out their parts in the next 24 hours.

It was the penultimate day of the 1978-79 Mumbai racing season, and next day at the same venue Karl Umrigar would be awarded the Champion Jockey trophy, and at 18, he would be the youngest in the history of Indian racing to do so. His success that season had been meteoric and sensational—his 144 rides had figures that were just unbelievable: 54 wins, 33 seconds, 22 thirds & 17 fourths—only 18 of them failing to finish in the frame!

When Karl Umrgiar went out to ride Vasudha in what was only a three-horse field, he probably was not thinking about the trophy next day. Minutes earlier, his staunch supporters had hammered down the price on Vasudha to make her the joint favourite with Dear Donna, trained by Rashid Byramji and ridden by ace rider Vasand shinde, and now yet again Karl would have to do his best and produce the magic touch that his fans believed had a divine ring to it.

Unfortunately, the script changed suddenly, completely—and irreversibly!

In what must be regarded as a freak accident for a three-horse field, Karl’s horse Vasudha who was in full galloping flow abruptly stopped, and Karl was thrown off, landing on the track. Worse, Vasudha then started galloping as suddenly as she had stopped, and stepped onto Karl who was lying motionless on the turf. Karl suffered severe multiple fractures and a few days later as a shocked world reeled at the news, succumbed to his injuries at the Breach Candy Hospital.

“I was commentating for that race,” Dr Inder Sood, former race caller (who also doubled up as medical officer at times) of the Royal Western India Turf Club (RWITC) says, “I could not clearly see through my binoculars what exactly happened as this took place between the mile and the seven-furlong marker on the chute.”

Lucky Robin

Dr Sood also remembers another accident during his commentating days when Robin Corner had a fall around the Mahalaxmi bend. “It was also a serious accident,” he says, “but Robin was lucky and lived to tell it and continue riding. His liver was torn, which had to be sewn up in an emergency operation.”

Robin Corner managed to maintain his position as country’s top rider even after the accident, however, Aslam Kader, perhaps the most popular rider in the history of Indian horse racing, could not do the same. Kader suffered a collar bone fracture after he fell off a horse at the Pune track during a race. He tried riding again, but the experience turned out to be so painful, he had to call it a day.

There have been other instances when jockeys have been severely disabled or lost life due to accidents on the track, and strangely, at almost every center there is a case of a budding champion being the unfortunate victim.

They died young

In September 2004, Yogender Singh, winner of the champion apprentice rider award, met with a tragic accident at the Pune track which was so serious that he died two hours later. Ironically, his elder brother Hanumant Singh, a rising star at the start of his career in the mid-1990’s who had also won the Pune Derby astride a Dasrath Singh-trained horse named Grey Magic, had suffered a similarly serious accident at the same track and was disabled for a long time. Though Hanumant returned to racing after a protracted recovery, he had lost his champion touch forever.

Four months later, on January 23, 2005, K Kariappa, a top rider at Hyderabad was grievously injured when he fell off a horse named Millionaire. Ten days later his mother consented to a panel of doctors to take him off the life support system. He was only 24.

Sawai Singh Bhati from western India, the son of a syce (one whose profession is to groom or handle horses), was another promising jockey who lost his life in an accident at Mahalaxmi. However, it happened not in the actual race, but during the morning track work. Ironically, young Bhati also had won the champion apprentice award a year before.

Risky Business

Riding horses is not everyone’s cup of tea, and professional riding in thoroughbred horse racing calls for a level of expertise that far surpasses riding for pleasure. The ponies used for pleasure riding in Matheran, or at most other institutes that impart training in horse riding, generally have a very cool disposition. They rarely throw tantrums or get worked up.

By contrast, race horses (a special breed called ‘thoroughbred’, whose roots can be traced back to more than three centuries, to three specific Arabian stallions and a handful of Irish mares) can be extremely fractious, temperamental and sometimes hot-headed enough to turn violent without warning. Also, racehorses weigh nearly half a ton and gallop at speeds faster than sixty kilometers per hour thus making a professional jockey’s career much more dangerous in case of an accident.

However, professional jockeys are trained to handle themselves in the case of a fall. They are supposed to lie motionless on the track, and not move until help arrives in the form of stretcher and ambulance that is always following horses on an inside track and is staffed with paramedics. The reason behind asking the jockey to stay motionless is two-fold: one, if you lie motionless, it’s easier for other horses and riders to try to maneuver their way without hurting you (it is interesting to note that even riderless horses generally show great sense in avoiding a fallen jockey); and two, in trying to move on his own a jockey may worsen his condition if there has been a fracture.

“Accident in a race is such a frightening experience,” says a former jockey who does not want to be named, “that you are too dazed by the suddenness and fall to even think, so moving is out of the question. I think a jockey lies motionless more out of shock and stupor than following instructions given during the training.”

Jockey Welfare

“There are only three ways a jockey ends up after an accident,” says Sherry Kapoor, a former jockey who now heads the Jockeys Association of India (JAI) as its President, in a matter-of-fact tone, “he either escapes unhurt, or gets mild or moderate injuries like bruises or minor fractures after recovering from which he resumes riding, or gets serious injuries that can end his career or life. We, at JAI, step in and do our best for the jockey and his family in the latter two situations.”

Not many people, even from the racing world, know but every jockey is insured for a sum of Rs 24 lakh. “There are two policies of Rs 12 lakh each,” points out Kapoor, “so the total life insurance cover to each jockey is to the tune of Rs 24 lakh.”

Besides these policies, there is also a medi-claim cover of Rs 2 lakh for the jockey and his immediate family (wife and kids), and also another Rs 1 lakh cover for the jockey’s parents. However, because of the high risk nature of the profession, the premium on these policies is substantially higher. “That’s where the race clubs step in,” adds Kapoor, “only one of the Rs 12 lakh policy premium is paid by the jockey, the other is paid by the race club.”

Improving the odds

The race club also works hard at reducing the chance of accident in a race. The three major causes of accidents are unpredictable behaviour by horses, dangerous riding tactics by jockeys and treacherous underfoot conditions. The club takes progressively stricter action against horses that pose danger to the running of the race, by first asking the trainer to correct his charge by giving sufficient practice in a mock race, or in extreme cases, banning the horse himself from racing. The jockeys are also dealt severely for dangerous riding, from fines to suspensions to refusing to grant licence in future. The rookies, or apprentice riders as they are called, sometimes create dangerous circumstances in a race due to their relative inexperience. They are then counseled and forced to spend a lot of time on simulator that mimics a galloping horse. For the ground to be safer for racing, the track is looked after by qualified and competent staff. Unevenness in the ground caused by horse hooves after a race is immediately filled and straightened out before the next race is run. In case of rain, the softness of the track is checked by an equipment called penetrometer, and decisions to continue or call off racing are taken after estimating the safety factor.

The Matheran connection

Although riding ponies at Matheran is considered pleasure riding as it is mostly undertaken by tourists who may never have mounted horses earlier, the lads who offer their ponies for tourists are generally very good riders. In fact, a lot many of Matheran boys—from Vasant Shinde to Ravi Biramne to Pramod Belose—have become professional jockeys in western India over the years.

The most famous name from Matheran to enter the riding hall of fame was Vasant Shinde, a saddle artist par excellence, whom everyone from race lovers to trainers to foreign riders held in very high esteem. “Shinde was in a class of his own,” Pesi Shroff had once told me, “he was a true saddle artist and a natural horseman.”

Aslam Kader, one of the greatest Indian riders himself, used to touch his ears (Muslims do it when they wish to show great respect) when talking about Vasant. “I call him Baba, and he calls me Bhai jaan,” he had told me in an interview some years ago, “there has never been a rider like him, never will be. He used to toy with those imported riders (meaning foreigners) who came to ride here in Classic races.”

Interestingly, Shinde was the first Matheran boy to win the Indian Derby which he won more than once, but he was not the last. In what is termed in retrospect as a freak incident, another Matheran boy Pramod Belose astride a horse called Noble Eagle that was meant to set the pace for Zurbaran, overstayed his role to end up winning the Indian Derby in 2003 in a start-to-finish manner.

(c) MiD DAY