Thailand Ends a 28-Year Wait as Hua Tian Defends His Asian Games Crown
Thailand won Asian Games eventing team gold on Wednesday 23rd , finishing on 109.90 penalties to claim a title the country had not held since the Bangkok Games of 1998. Japan took silver on 115.20 and South Korea bronze on 143.50. And they did it from third place, and they did it on the last day. Japan had led the team competition after both the dressage and the jumping phases, and Thailand went into the final phase 12.6 penalties adrift.
The Asian Games run eventing in an order unfamiliar to European audiences: Dressage comes first, then jumping, with cross-country last. It means the most attritional phase of the three is also the decider, and a team holding a comfortable buffer going into the final day is holding it over the phase most likely to take it away.
Japan’s Ryo Murata and Brookpark Vikenti, third individually going into the cross-country, added 20 jumping penalties and 10.8 time penalties, and the gold went with them. Supap Khaw-Ngam and Vinetto 3 completed Thailand’s gold-medal quartet with their round.
A Growing Equestrian Nation
The win was Thailand’s fifth gold of the Games and the latest step in a sustained national effort rather than a one-off. Thai eventing took team bronze in Jakarta in 2018, bronze again in Hangzhou in 2023, and won the inaugural FEI Asian Championships on home soil at Pattaya in 2019.
Alex Hua Tian and Manjushri. Image: ©Morgan Froment/EQuerry Co
Bronze, bronze, then gold across eight years is the clearest illustration available of what targeted federation investment achieves in a discipline with an unusually high barrier to entry. Eventing requires facilities, horses with three distinct skill sets, and a domestic calendar capable of producing both. It is routinely assumed to be a northern European sport by default, so Thailand’s eight-year climb is perhaps the most direct argument against that assumption currently on the record.
Hua Tian Makes it Two
China’s Alex Hua Tian successfully defended his individual title with the nine-year-old Manjushri, leading from the moment he scored 26.9 in the dressage and never giving up the lead. He added nothing in the jumping phase, then came home across country in 6:49, eleven seconds inside the optimum time, to finish the entire competition on his dressage score.
It is his second consecutive individual Asian Games gold, following Hangzhou in 2023 with Poseidons Admiral, and it was achieved on a horse still at the very start of a senior career. A nine-year-old completing a continental championship on its dressage mark, across three phases and three days, is a story in its own right.
Hua Tian remains the most visible bridge between the European eventing system and Asian sport. British-based and British-produced, he has spent his career demonstrating what access to a developed training environment does for a rider representing a federation without one.
India Without a Medal
India finished their equestrian campaign at these Games without a podium place, having arrived as defending team dressage gold medallists from 2022. In eventing, their trio finished eighth on 2,044.50 penalties. Olympian Fouaad Mirza qualified for the individual final but retired, and Arjan Singh Nagra was eliminated in the jumping phase.
The eventing competition ran at Tokyo Equestrian Park, where all three equestrian disciplines were staged across the Games, with 135 competitors from 22 nations contesting seven events between 21 September and 4 October.
