Fouaad Mirza breaks 20-year-old national record

Fouaad Mirza and his horse Seigneur Medicott broke a 20-year-old national record in Dressage at the FEI World Championship Eventing 2022 in Italy on Thursday.

The 30-year-old Mirza, who is the only Indian to have qualified for this year's World Championship, bettered the national record set by Imtiaz Anees and his horse Spring Invader at Jerez de la Frontera in 2002. Mirza's score of 30.1 in Dressage was an improvement from Anees's score of 39.6 from twenty years ago.

Mirza is participating in three stages - Dressage, Show Jumping and Cross Country - in the Eventing World Championship. After the end of the Dressage stage, Mirza was ranked at 12th spot among all the equestrians.

Dressage is described as "the highest expression of horse training" where "horse and rider are expected to perform from memory a series of predetermined movements".

Mirza had already broken the glass ceiling in Indian equestrian last year when he became the third Indian to qualify for the Olympics after Indrajeet Lamba (1996) and Imtiaz Anees (2000). He finished 21st at the Tokyo Olympic Games.

His horse Seigneur Medicott, who was part of the new national record on Thursday, was also a part of his historic Tokyo Olympics campaign. It was also the same horse who also helped Mirza win two silver medals at the 2018 Asian Games.