A woman horse breeder’s journey of “grit, grace and glory” challenging the male dominated industry

Ameeta Mehra (left) addressing a gathering at Gnostic Centre to mark the International Women’s Day.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement.

From being a self-confessed “terrible teen” to growing into a young woman drawn towards spirituality before becoming the first renowned woman horse breeder of the country, Ameeta Mehra has been through a journey full of twists and turns.

Recounting her challenges in her career spanning over three decades, Ms. Mehra, at an event held here at Gnostic Centre to mark the International Women’s Day, recalled how, despite her remarkable performance, winning all major championships, the visitors to the stud farm “keep finding some males to give the credit” and almost everybody wrote her off.

“Do you have a cousin? Oh, it must be her manager. No, he is the vet. He decides everything,” said Ms. Mehra, recounting how the visitors to the farm were too quick to credit her male associates for all her success, but not her.

Brought up in an environment where she “didn’t see people in genders”, Ms. Mehra, the daughter of late Major Pradeep Mehra, said she would always wonder “what is wrong with these people (visitors)”.

Stating that she could not find a single man appreciating her achievements, Ms. Mehra quipped that she was probably the most “disliked person” in the industry, making the audience burst into laughter.

Nudged by Sabina Pillai, one of the moderators, into sharing the story behind her entry to the industry, Ms. Mehra reminisced how her father, once mulling to shut down the stud farm for lack of a successor, entered into a “written agreement” with her to let her pursue her dream of setting up a university if she bred a derby winner within a year.

“I wanted to start a university, but my father was looking for a successor to his stud farm. So we struck a deal. He said that he would allow me to shut the farm and open a university on it if I bred a derby winner for him within a year. I did that. But was then gradually drawn towards the world of horses and gave up the idea of the university,” said Ms. Mehra, with her teenage friend and moderator Naumita Chopra by her side.

Having lost her parents and a sister in a helicopter crash in 2001, Ms. Mehra took it upon herself to make her father’s dream come true and took Usha Stud Farm, set up by her father in 1972, to new heights over the past two decades making it into a world-renowned business.

Drawn into a discussion on balancing the world of “spirituality” and “materialism”, Ms. Mehra said that to be a “complete human being one has to embrace both — the material and the spiritual world. We need to spiritualise the material and materialise the spiritual”, adding that “horses were a very spiritual animal”. She said that one needed to have an element of “goodness and compassion” to be a successful breeder as once told to her by a champion trainer.

Talking about the story behind the name of the farm, Ms. Mehra said it was suggested by one of the partners, who thought it to be “lucky” for him, but the word, meaning “goddess of knowledge”, seemed to have brought a “feminine energy to this industry through this stud farm”.