Equestrian staff member and hunter seat coach Rob Jacobs helped to organize the shipping of the horses to Raleigh. He recalls, “I was the Assistant Transportation Coordinator. I had to get in touch with the horse providers and find out how many horses the colleges were bringing, what levels they wanted to use their horses at and any additional information they had on their horses. I then needed to get a schedule of when they were planning on arriving so that I could get that information to the Transportation Coordinator once the event started who was Jennifer Sansbury.” Like everyone else Rob wore many hats during the week of Nationals, he continued, “Once the event started my job was to assist the head coach, Ashley Duda, with preparing the horses and riders.”
Another key person needed for McElveen’s team was a hospitality manager to take care of the officials, judges, and stewards. St. Andrews Equine Studies Chair Pebbles Turbeville took on the challenge of picking up meals for special events, arranging transportation for the judges from the airport and their hotels and was responsible for the VIP tent. She was also in charge of the daily Starbucks runs for the horse show judges. “This job took a special person that was great with people and had great time management skills, and Pebbles was the perfect person for the job” said McElveen. “She even took care of my dog while we were in Raleigh.”
Special Events Coordinators were also needed for the multiple catered meals that are part of a National Championships. McElveen turned to equestrian Events Manager Heather Wile Lee, and an old friend Teresa MacFawn, Mom of St. Andrews’ Alumnae Angela MacFawn.
Heather shares some of her memories of the event. “As special events coordinator I was in charge of setting up the areas for all of the dinners held. If I remember correctly we had two special dinners for all of the people showing and horse show personnel. Teresa and I worked closely to make sure the tables were set up, center pieces were arranged, along with meeting the caterers and making sure they had all they needed. Teresa was a great help with the center pieces and in taking care of all of the plants we borrowed from the nursery. She had a knack for decoration and was very crafty. After they were all done we also tore everything down, put table clothes away and made sure the area was cleaned up well. One of the hardest parts of this was having to move people off of the tables and making them re-locate to the chairs for viewing. I remember at one point they were doing the IHSA testing and had taken over part of the dining area and didn't end the testing until 15 minutes before the caterer was supposed to arrive. It was great fun trying to set up 20 tables and center pieces in 15 minutes! Thank goodness for interns who helped move all the tables and get everything set up.
Along with all that I also worked with the interns and Billy to make sure all the little things in the arena were taken care of, roping off seating around the judges and through the VIP area, hanging curtains, setting the courses, arranging flowers, trees, bushes, fencing, etc. Also arranging the rocking chairs where so many people have pictures of team mates sleeping outside with all of the plants and other lawn furniture that was out there. We also helped a couple of late arriving vendors set up their tents.
In addition I was in charge of the parade of teams and horses. That in itself was a task, trying to line up every school by zone, region and then go alphabetically. In the beginning it was hard to get everyone organized but as they started to catch on to what was happening everything started to fall into place quite smoothly and everyone walked into the ring as they needed to. Before hand we had to also hand out coolers to all the teams that brought horses. A team of interns and I had to organize them all by size, 78"-81", and distribute them to the right teams. We ended up with way more 78" left over, seeing as we couldn't very well give any of those to teams that had brought three or four 17 hand warmblood hunters. Those one's went to the reiners!”
Social Media Intern, Kimberly Graves, took on the challenge of documenting the planning and organization of the IHSA National Championships that we hosted in Raleigh, NC last May.
Part 5 started the horse show management discussion. Next week Part 7- Alumni & Friends of St. Andrews
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