This excerpt is taken from the chapter about Megan Jones in the book An Eventful Life – Life Stories of Eventing Champions. This book provides a written and pictorial insight into the lives of five elite Australian eventing riders; Megan Jones, Sonja Johnson Shane Rose, Wendy Schaeffer and Stuart Tinney. They are all Olympic medallists, they are all aiming for further medals and they are all based in Australia. An additional chapter on an up and coming rider, Emma Scott, gives an insight into how younger Australian riders view the world of professional equestrian sport.
Megan and Jester at the Beijing Olympics in Hong Kong Photo: Franz Venhaus
Megan Jones
Of course, with horses some things that go wrong are completely out of your control – a feeling Megan does not like. One of those times was in back in 2004 when she took two horses to the UK. The plan was to take both horses to the Badminton Horse Trials and hopefully be selected for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Megan had always dreamt of riding at Badminton, but things started to go wrong when Jester bashed his knee and went lame a week and a half after arriving in the UK. It was an injury he would recover from, but it meant that he was out of action for three months. It certainly put paid to his Olympic chances for that year. This left Paddy to produce the goods, but Megan’s enthusiasm for the great Badminton event faded a little when it rained in the run-up to the event and continued to rain for the rest of the weekend. The grassy parkland turned to mud and extra time was added to the steeplechase course (which was still being used in those days) as it would have been impossible for any horse to gallop at steeplechase speed in the horrifically deep going. Despite everything being wet and miserable, Megan’s spirits were given a tremendous boost when she led the dressage at the end of day one and set off on the cross country in the rain feeling confident of being able to do a good job.
“It was all going really well until Paddy propped into the ‘ha-ha’ ditch and I fell off. I jumped back on and finished, but it was really all over at that stage. The next day we went out and show-jumped clear, but by then we realised that he had broken down in his wind for the second time – the first time being five years earlier – and that was our chances of riding at Athens out of the window.”
As she drove away from Badminton, Megan had to face the reality that she was now “stuck” in England with two unsound horses and no support group to help her through what she describes as “one of my worst times”. If she had been selected for the Athens team, Equestrian Australia would have funded her horses’ travel home. But now she would have to “find” the money somewhere and then wait until the Australian team horses in Athens were travelling home and tag along. She became terribly homesick and longed to be back with her parents in Adelaide. It was nearly four months later that Megan arrived back in her beloved Adelaide Hills with her two horses.
“I was so down, but I got off the plane, smelt the air and felt the sun on me and started to feel a bit better. But it took a few weeks down the track before things started to fall back into place and it all began to feel normal and good again. I never really felt that I would give up horses during that Badminton trip, but it certainly made me realise what a great support network I have at home.”
The only time Megan thought she might not want to ride any more was when she had to have knee reconstruction surgery at the end of 1999 and wasn’t allowed to ride for three months. About halfway through her enforced lay-off, during which time she was still teaching students, she realised that she was quite enjoying not riding and panicked with the thought that maybe subconsciously she didn’t want to ride anymore. Luckily, a few weeks later, when the time was coming close for getting back on a horse again, she got up one morning and automatically put on her jodhpurs.
“Phew, I thought, obviously I do want to ride again. It was a great relief and something that I had done without thinking, which made it clear to me that riding was what I am supposed to be doing. I have never had those doubts again.”
It is very hard to imagine now that Megan could ever have given up her horses as she certainly gives the impression that all her horses are special, that they all teach her something and that no two are the same. But she puts a few of them on a pedestal. These are the horses that have really tried for her and have given their all towards her goals, just as she gives her all to those horses. In the early days it was Megan’s first serious horse, JJ, who took her to a new level when she rode at her first Young Riders event at Naracoorte in 1991. Like so many event horses, dressage was not JJ’s favourite phase, and it was not uncommon for the horse to come into the arena, go down the centre line, throw her head in the air and hit Megan in the face. Alternatively, she could be as sweet as pie and do a good test.
“She taught me a lot and tried so hard. We got up to two-star level together and that was her limit, but that was fine. When I stopped riding her, my sister Emma took her on, dropped her down a few grades and worked back up to two star again. By that stage she was eighteen and we retired her.”
Hats Away was always going to be a favourite, with a bouncy trot that Megan couldn’t sit to and a huge jump. He gave Megan another milestone by being the first horse she rode over an advanced (Three Star) course. His jump was so big and he spent so much time in the air that she told herself she never wanted to jump anything small ever again. Megan admits that Hats Away taught her a lot about the preparation and fitness of horses because, as she tried to get him fit for the Gawler Three Day Event, he broke down twice. Once he had recovered, she realised he was never going to be strong enough to do three star competition, but he went on to be a great mount for various junior riders at the lower levels. He died at the age of twenty one doing what he had always enjoyed best, cantering around a cross-country course.
“If I had Hats Away today he would be every bit as good as Jester. He jumped anything and gave me such a feeling of getting up in the air over a fence and staying there for a long time before coming down on the other side. It was a great feeling.”
As Megan starts to recount her relationship with Paddy (Kirby Park Irish Hallmark) you can tell they had a great partnership. Paddy came to Megan as a big four year old and continued to grow until he stood 17.1 hands high. Riding him, Megan moved up into “serious big-time eventing” when she rode in her first four-star class at the Adelaide Three Day Event in 2000, producing an outstanding result to finish third.
Megan clocked up many wins and placings both nationally and internationally with Paddy and describes him as the most amazingly genuine horse, who tried his heart out for her. After being retired in 2004 following an unsuccessful wind operation Paddy made a miraculous and unexpected recovery in September the next year, returning to full health and competition. It was a devastating shock, therefore, for Megan a month later when Paddy died as a fourteen year old after being bitten by a spider. His death happened two weeks prior to the 2005 Adelaide Three Day Event, where Megan was to ride Jester as a part of the Australian Trans-Tasman team. Thanks to the team training in the run-up to the event, Megan was able to keep focused on the job in hand rather than grieve for the beloved friend she had just lost. This focus saw her win the event and bring home the Trans-Tasman title with her team mates Rebel Morrow, Sonja Johnson and Wendy Schaeffer. Megan’s photo and video tribute to Paddy still remain on the Kirby Park website, a fitting memory for an amazing horse.
Jester appeared to be learning his trade in the shadow of the great Paddy, but the win in Adelaide, following Paddy’s death, brought him into the limelight. The special relationship he had with Megan became clear to anyone who witnessed the pair going cross country.
To ride a home-bred horse is always extra special to a rider, but to take a home-bred, home-schooled horse to a top-class, silver-medal winning performance at an Olympic Games is what dreams are made of. Jester has suffered his fair share of problems along the way, not the least of which was being injured by a star picket in his paddock as a weanling. It was an injury which needed fifteen stitches and left him with a significant indent on the front of his face that only seems to make this grey horse look more special.
“I don’t think anyone could quite replace Jester as the person that he is or the horse that he is. He is very special and he knows that if I were allowed, I would let him in the front door of the house to sit down with all of us!”
In 2005 a young thoroughbred was brought to Kirby Park for some re-education. He was quite a character, tending to do all sorts of things when you least expected it so he was named Kirby Park Allofasudden (Floyd). However, Megan fell in love with this rangy, naughty chestnut and he has returned her faith in him many times as he has moved up through the ranks to three-star level. In 2008 he was placed on the EA Elite Squad and named as reserve horse for the Beijing Olympic Games and then went on to 2nd place in his first CCI Four Star event at the Australian International Three Day Event. He won the Melbourne International CCI3* in 2009 and again placed second in the 2009 CCI Four Star at the Australian International Three Day Event. Floyd is jointly owned by Megan with Alan and Stephanie Poulson and Megan believes that he is a very exciting horse, just waiting to step into Jester’s (rather large to fill) shoes.
An Eventful Life - Life Stories of Eventing Champions is a soft back book of 304 pages including 96 pages of full colour photographs. It is also available as an eBook for all major eReading devices.
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