Business goes on at Breach Candy, but ghodawallas missing from Nariman Pt

MUMBAI: Their feet barely re ach the stirrups as two sisters--aged five and two, their feet strapped to an improvised contraption, try to sit straight. Aasma is slightly older and more confident in horseback. The 13-year-old quickly gets on her favourite mount. “I like it when it runs fast. And I like the white horse,“ she says.As the horses gallop, their family, watching from the sidelines, clicks away furiously on their cellphone cameras while cheering for both the riders in the parking lot outside Amarsons Garden in Breach Candy .
Young ones continued to flock this popular spot on Monday evening for a quick trot, a day after Janhvi Sharma (6) suffered irreparable damage to the brain after falling off a horse at Cooperage Garden on Sunday .
Yet business hasn't been all that good today , admit horse handlers. “We usually have 25 to 30 riders on a weekday , but I think today parents are a bit scared,“ says Raju, one of the seven horse handlers at Amarsons that usually sees a mix of two to fifteen-year-old enthusiasts. On weekends, there are about 100 children waiting for rides. “As a precaution, we have decided to not make our horses run but walk slowly , and we will use on ly ponies for small kids,“ says Raju even as he gave into a three-year-old's plea to ride the biggest steed.
For parents like Kushal and Bharti Shah who drove from Vile Parle to watch their son and daughter--aged five and six--from two different ends of the parking lot, it was about teaching children to be friends with animals. For Sarfaroz, who got his two nieces all the way from Bhiwandi, felt it was better for them to canter around in the outdoor instead of being glued to TV and phone screens.
But at Nariman Point, the horses were conspicuous by their absence. Even as the lane near Regent Chambers came alive after 8pm with the daily fixtures--ferris wheels and LED-lit merry-go-rounds--the faint smell of horse manure was missing on Monday .
“They've not come probably because of yesterday's incident,“ says the driver of a pink toy train. “I don't think they will come back now,“ he adds.
The aberration was not lost on the regulars. Seated on her mother's hip, two-and-a-half-year-old Kanushi cried for a ride on the small bikes. She has been atop the horses many times, says her mother Dipti, a Napean Sea Road resident. While she guesses that the ghodawalas are absent because of the incident, Dipti predicts: “The horses will be back soon“.