Meet the city kid whose Olympic journey began at the zoo and ended with a place in the history books

Anush Agarwalla made history in becoming the first Indian rider to make it to the Olympic dressage arena. The 24-year-old rider grew up in the city of Calcutta, which has a population of nearly 15million. But from an early age he showed an affinity with animals.

“I’m a city boy!” he says. “But my parents introduced me to horse riding because I loved going to the zoo. They said, ‘OK, he’s so into animals, let’s take him horse riding’, and I started slowly.

“I went to a riding school on the outskirts of Calcutta, where there were many ponies and we’d go hacking in the woods. It was a cute place. I was never competitive and did not take the sport at all seriously until the age of 17 – it was just a hobby, having fun.”

When Anush was 17, just seven years ago, he decided he wanted to make progress in dressage.

“We decided as a family to make the shift to Germany, and I’m really grateful to my coach, Hubertus Schmidt to have taken me on as a student,” Anush says. “When we started there I was really low level – I’d never even competed in a dressage test.”

Anush started riding Sir Caramello OLD, his ride in the Paris Olympics, five years ago. The now 17-year-old by Sir Donnerhall had been produced to grand prix level by US rider Ashley Holzer.

“Sir Caramello is my heart horse – he has taught me everything I know, not just about riding, but about life in general,” says Anush. “Our journey has not always been going upwards. We’ve had a lot of failures along the road. He’s taught me that when shows don’t go as planned, you get better and motivate yourself. Don’t stop at failures.

“He’s a funny character. He’s everything in one. He can be cute and he can be macho. He can say ‘don’t touch me, I want my silence’. Then if you give him silence he wants cuddles again.

“He’s helped me make history, not once but twice,” Anush adds. “We were also the first from India to compete at the World Championships two years ago. And this Olympics has been a dream run – I’m so happy.”

The first Indian rider on Olympic dressage stage

Anush scored 66.44% in his Olympic dressage grand prix.

“Experiences like that don’t come often in a lifetime,” he says. “I am so proud to be the one to achieve the feat of being the first Olympic dressage rider from India for my country.

“I have received a lot of love leading up to the Olympics from the whole of India, and I want to say thank you to everybody. You are the motivation I need, to push myself to get better.”

Anush had a huge crowd of supporters sitting in the stands.

“My parents, my whole family, my friends from Germany and India, my schoolfriends, my friends’ friends are all here,” he smiles. “There are 75–80 people waiting to see me. And I can promise everybody that this is not the end.”

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