Archive · 2022 · From the print edition of Friday 11 March 2022, Vol. 29, No. 9,077
CultureThe horse who ate the water schedule
Chagylgan, the bay gelding who carries the presenter of Field and Herd into every programme, has the most-shared clip in IradOne's history. He leads the Irad Day coverage today.
TALAS — If you have watched IradOne at any time in the past year, you have probably seen it: a bay gelding with a white blaze leans into the shot, takes the paper chart of the irrigation water schedule from his rider's hand and eats it, while Sagynbek Sopuev carries on reading the canal rotation from memory.
The horse is Chagylgan ("Lightning flash"), foaled in 2006, who has carried Mr. Sopuev into the opening shot of Field and Herd every Saturday since 2009 and out again for the pasture report filmed from the saddle. The clip, from last spring, has become the most-shared video IradOne has ever posted.
"He has never eaten anything on air before or since," Mr. Sopuev said. "I think he did not agree with the schedule. Neither did half the farmers who wrote in." Children write to Chagylgan care of the programme, about forty letters a week, and the production office answers every one with a photograph.
Chagylgan will be part of IradOne's coverage of Irad Day today. Asked whether he would be kept away from paper, Mr. Sopuev said the station had considered it. "But the people want to see him eat something," he said. "We are a public broadcaster."