Fifteen-year-old Sresht Raju won gold for Team Asia in equestrian at the Dakar 2026 Summer Youth Olympic Games
He rode borrowed horse Crazy Horse Boop in Diamniadio, Senegal, and completed two clear rounds without penalties
Sresht had met the horse only days before the event, with little time to build trust before competition
Fifteen-year-old Sresht Raju has won gold for Team Asia in equestrian at the Dakar 2026 Summer Youth Olympic Games in Diamniadio, Senegal, riding borrowed horse Crazy Horse Boop to two clear rounds without penalties. The result gave India a rare and quietly historic moment in the sport.
Like every rider at the Youth Olympics, Sresht had to compete on an unfamiliar horse and had met Crazy Horse Boop only days before the event. There was little time to build trust and almost no room for error over two rounds. Yet the Indian teenager stayed calm and produced the cleanest kind of performance.
His medal also underlined how far he has come in a short time—from starting the sport in 2022, to standing on an Olympic podium four years later.
Coach And Rider Bond
The performance in Senegal was built over five years of training with Gwalior’s Sanjay Singh. A Gwalior-born former Border Security Force rider, Singh has coached Sresht with a method that puts basics before flair.
That method centred on repetition, balance, patience, discipline, grit and dogged resolve. The focus was not on spectacle. It was on teaching a young rider how to read a course before asking a horse to jump it.
That grounding mattered in Dakar. The test was not just technical but mental, and Singh’s approach prepared Sresht to stay measured under pressure instead of forcing the pace in an Olympic arena far from home.
Borrowed Horse Challenge
The horse was unfamiliar.
Like every other rider in the event, Sresht had to compete on a borrowed mount. Crazy Horse Boop was not a long-term partner but a horse he met only a few days before competition, which meant there was no settled rhythm and no long-built trust to fall back on.
Sresht still adapted quickly. He began riding only in 2022. Four years later, he stood on the Olympic podium, a rise that reflects both talent and the habits built in training.
Singh’s philosophy shaped that response. Those close to the pair pointed to consistency, composure under pressure and patience with an unfamiliar horse rather than frustration, The Times of India reported. In Dakar, that showed in two calm rounds that carried no penalties.
Team Asia Scoring
His clean rounds stood out.
Sresht was one of only three riders among 24 to complete both qualifying rounds without penalties. In a field where a single mistake can alter the medal table, that made him one of the most reliable performers in the competition.
Team Asia finished on 17 penalties. Inter America ended on 21 and Africa on 29. The standings were decided by the best three scores from each four-rider squad across two qualifying rounds, which gave each clear round extra weight.
Sresht was joined in the gold-winning Asian team by China’s Ruirui Sun, the UAE’s Alya Adnan Awadh Almheiri and Indonesia’s Nusrtdinov Zayan Fatih. Their win came through steady execution across the team rather than one standout burst from an individual rider.
The medal carries weight beyond one event.
For Singh, the medal is a low-key return on years spent on basics rather than fast gains. For Mantena, it points to something bigger: trust, discipline and a strong coach-athlete bond can turn an unfamiliar horse, a foreign arena and Olympic pressure into history for India.
It also says something about the rider. At 15, Sresht has already absorbed a lesson many take years to learn in equestrian sport—the best rounds are not always the boldest ones. Sometimes, they are the calmest.
