Caroline has been a long time supporter of her eventing sons - Luke is pictured above
Caroline Jones has been involved in eventing for over 30 years. In that time she has first and foremost been an encouraging mother to Luke and Dominic as they worked they way up through the eventing levels to four star, both here in Australia and overseas. With that job she was also the ever-efficient groom to the boys, making sure that everything was in place and the horses were turned out to a high standard.
Around 1996 Caroline became involved in stewarding a position, which was really just getting off the ground and this was largely due to Sydney being given the 2000 Olympic Games. Caroline takes over her story …
Caroline at the recent Melbourne 3 Day Event
“The Technical Delegates used to do a lot of the work that stewards now do and it wasn’t until the Games were on the horizon that Australia began to have properly trained Stewards. The training has always involved trips to the eastern states where the courses are often held and in those days it was always at our own expense. Nowadays most states subsidise the cost of the course but there is still the cost of travelling and accommodation that has to be paid for.
Eventing has now had stewards for around 15 years and during that time I have seen the attitude towards us change, as most eventing riders now understand what we do and how we can help them. Basically Stewards are the conduit between the riders and the Officials because they are usually the nearest person ‘on the ground’ to answers queries and solve problems for the riders.
HELP - PREVENT - INTERVENE
Our motto is ‘Help - Prevent – Intervene’, with the emphasis on the Help and Prevent and if we are good at our job we rarely have to intervene.
Stewarding is very much a team effort and that is also one of the best things about it in the way that I have made friends from all over the world. The satisfaction from working together to make an event run smoothly is very rewarding. Our hours are often very long and we are usually still out there when most others have finished for the day so it is certainly not a job for the fainthearted. In my opinion we need to be tactful, resilient, have good communication skills and an ability to defuse a situation when adrenalin levels are high … simple really!
When you have worked those long hours it’s always nice to get a bit of praise and one of the best moments I have had during my time spent stewarding was when my ‘team’ received high praise at the end of an three day event from an overseas TD, who had been attending an FEI TD/CD course at that event. It’s those sort of moments that spur you on to go to the next event.”
Caroline checks some equipment at Melbourne 3 Day Event
