CHENNAI: If Fouaad Mirza qualifies for the Paris Games, he will be astride a new partner. He has taken the difficult decision of retiring his long-term partner in success, Seigneur Medicott, from elite-level sport. “We have retired Medicott,” Mirza told this daily. “He’s going to be doing lower-level events, so missing that key partner. I now have to qualify with the younger generation.” In his stable he has Dajara 4 (his Tokyo reserve) and Mokatoo.
For the record, Mirza, who impressed during his maiden Games at Tokyo, needs some luck to be on the bus to Paris. Astride Medicott when the qualifying process was on last year (the window to collect points was from January 2023 to the end of December), he admitted to a ‘few hiccups’. He fell down during one show while bad luck struck him during another (they cancelled an event in Poland due to rain when he was on form). The 32-year-old is currently the first reserve (there are 65 quota places and he’s 67th on the list). “They will shift us up the ladder if somebody falls out.”
In the meantime, Mirza, whose training base is in Germany, will have to make the Minimum Eligibility Criteria astride both Mokatoo and Dajara 4. “I aim to first make the MERs with Mokatoo before seeking to make it with Dajara 4 by the last week of May,” the two-time Asian Games medallist said. “So we have our work out, I need to meet two MERs at a 4-star short course and one on a four-star long course. In fact, Mokatoo is going next week to get one MER out of the way. With Dajara, I may potentially take some more time as she has been out of the sport for two years.”
He took the decision to retire Micky thanks to a combination of factors. “In fairness to Micky (Medicott), he’s 18 this year,” he said. “We just had to put our hands up and hope that we have done enough. The Worlds (last year) was a huge experience (with him). Since then, it’s been a bit of a roller-coaster. There are things like that in any sport and some didn’t go according to plan.
More so in our sport where we are dealing with horses and they have a mind of their own. Post the Worlds and towards Paris, we were fortunate enough to collect a few points. A couple of shows, I had a bit of a bad luck. I had a good dressage and a good jumping round but had a fall in the cross-country. If everything there had been alright, I could have got a few points. I have analysed that fall a lot of times and I have realised that that’s partly due to me ‘perhaps, wanting it too bad’ and pushing too hard.
After that, one show in Poland I again had a good jumping and dressage but it was cancelled due to rain. I went to another show in Switzerland. I led the dressage and rode the cross-country. But there, I knocked a fence where it counts as 11 penalties and I had two in one round. So, that doesn’t count as an MER. Eventually everything came into place in Belgium where I finished 2nd at the Nations Cup. Ultimately, I think we have done enough (to get into the Olympics).” The Mission Olympic Cell okayed Mirza’s next few competitions.