Like the racecourse to which it is affiliated, Madras Riding School is a trendsetter. The first riding school in the city, it was established in 1951 to teach civilians the finer points of horse-riding. Lessons were initially held at Raj Bhavan, where Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated the school in 1959. However, the horses themselves were stabled at 100 Feet Rd in Velachery on grounds leased to Madras Race Club.

“There were fewer students back then and most belonged to the upper echelons of society,” says N V Ravi, president of Madras Riding School. The school counts industrialists and cricket administrators M A Chidambaram and A C Muthaiah and barrister Govind Swaminathan among its former students.

Six decades later, the school’s stables have double the number of horses at 30 and three times as many students – around 80. The school has also moved location, to Velachery High Road where the erstwhile Apprentice Jockey Training School stood.

“It was where people who wanted to pursue professional horse-racing were trained,” Ravi says. The jockeys may have long left the grounds, but the racehorses remain. Several of the thoroughbreds at the school were once habitues of the race track.

Today, the school’s students – from age three to 70 – may have no intention to gallop 100kmph, but they do train for subtler equestrian sports like show jumping and dressage. In fact, a couple of Madras Riding School’s students like Namrata Kishore, 17, and Sai Arun, 21, have won the Junior National Equestrian Championship in jumping, and a new crop of riders like Kayva Gopal, 13, and Avadaath Kiran, 9, have been high scorers at the newly introduced Indian Dressage League.

Chief instructor and manager at the school Anita Ojha says six decades ago people signed up because they had nothing but recreational riding in mind. Now, even though they first sign up for recreational riding, they are soon drawn into competitive riding, primarily because of the progressive format adopted by the school where students are gradually initiated into all aspects of equestrian sport and encouraged to test their ability against other accomplished riders in the school.

She adds that the proliferation of local and national championships and the growing competitiveness of this generation have also changed the nature of the game. “What’s more,” says Ojha, “whole families are now coming to class, to bond over horses, which is wonderful to see.”

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / by Joenna Rebello Fernandes, TNN / June 20th, 2014