Hidalgo!

Written on 5:53 AM by Tushar

Hidalgo is the name of a nice movie which narrates the story of a horse Hidalgo
and its relationship with its master. On Saturday night I was watching this
movie on Star Movies. Incidently the next day I had planned a visit the stud
farm where my dad works as a manager. Stud farm is the place where race horses
are bred. The farm is named "Equus" which means horse in latin. It is situated
in Talegaon Dabhade at the base of Ghoradeshwar Hills.

We had decided to gather at Shivajinagar station and were gonna catch 8 am local
till Begdewadi station. It is the nearest place to reach Ghoradeshwar Hills
which hosts many Hindu caves. There is a temple of Lord Shiva in one of the
caves and this place attracts lots of devotees during Mahashivratri. It was
Riyaz this time to miss the local and Mrunal was going to come on his own bike.
Eventually six people [myself, Minu, Ramu, Harish, Parag, Somil] reached the
place as planned [Plan ke mutabik :D].

It was almost 915 when we started climbing the hill after eating the sandwiches
that I had got for everybody. The scorching heat made us reconsider our decision
to go trekking but as there was no other way to reach the stud farm which was on
the other side of the hill we carried on. Surprisingly it took us around 20-25
minutes to reach the top and we rested at the main cave which has the temple. As
this place is situated at relatively higher altitude it gave us panoramic view
of the surroundings. We could see the Birla School below and greenery of Equus
Stud was making it stand out. I was carrying my digital cam with me and the
place was ideal to click some really cool snaps or should I say Orkut snaps:P

We started climbing down and it turned out that it was difficult than climbing
till the top! Initially entered a stud farm which is the neighborhood of Equus
and got the first glimpse of race horses. We reached the main gate of Equus by
noon where my dad received all of us.

The first few horses that we saw were mares which had given birth to
colts/fillies. The oldest among all babies was 4 days old and they were really
cute! The funny part was when we tried to interact with the baby horse it used
to hide behind its mom:) All of them had 'shahi' treatment and had the luxury of
the cooler. There were many mares in the nearby stables which were due for
delivery. I was surprised to know that the weight of the horse touches the mark
of 700 kgs during the pregnancy period. Since it was noon almost all the peddoks
were empty as all the horses were inside the stable so went to have lunch.

For lunch we went to a Jain temple _ 'Parshwa Padmalaya' which contains 52 Jain
temples [called 'Jinalaya']. The entire temple has very beautiful carving and as
far as I remember the place is being built since past 10 years. They hope to
complete the temple by May 06. It was a treat to the eyes even in the incomplete
state. We took off to visit yet another temple which is an exact replica of Sai
Baba temple at Shirdi. After taking the darshan we reached the farm and took
afternoon sherbet at Dr. Ali's place who works a vet on the farm. His 2 yr old
daughter Sara is the healthiest baby I have ever seen! Mrunal likes to take
pictures of people [Mostly unknown people :D] and he took some really nice snaps
of Sara.

On every stud farm there are 3 to 4 stallions as compared to 100+ mares. This
stallions cost in crores as the price of a baby horse which is ready for sale
depends on its genealogy. If either of its parents have won the race then there
is a very good chance that it also will. You will be surprised to know that
lineage of a horse can be traced back till 300 years. Info of every race horse
is maintained at the race course and it even has a passport. The horse is sold
when it is 2 yrs old and the trainer trains it for a yr. It will run the race at
the age of 3 and will continue racing till it is doing good. The weirdest thing
is no matter when the horse is born its birthday is always 1stJan. For e.g. If a
horse is born on 31st Dec and the other is born on 30th Jan both of them will
turn 1 yr old on Jan 1st of the next yr:)

We visited Dad's boss' bungalow and had food over there too...Yeah we eat a
lot:D
All of us took pride in clicking snaps with the vintage merc standing outside. I
shot a video of horses running wildly as a part of their muscle building
exercise. It was almost 530 when we left for my home. On the way back we took a
halt at the 'shakti bhakti' monument in Nigdi. This place is giving serious
competition to Saras Baug. We had a nice time at home and everybody left by 7 pm
local.

I hope everybody had a nice time as I did!

Click here to see the snaps.

[Word editors in Linux are SAD. Blame them for the poor formatting of this post:(  MS office rocks!]

Posted in weekend masti

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