The best horses and riders traditionally meet up at the World Equestrian Festival, CHIO Aachen. In order to make the sport even more transparent, “Info Stewards” will be available on the warm-up areas as contact persons for the spectators.

The organisers, the Aachen-Laurensberger Rennverein e.V. (ALRV) have already been offering this service together with the German Equestrian Federation (FN) for years. The aim: More transparency. “We strive to inform interested parties about the sport as efficiently as possible,” explained Birgit Rosenberg, board member of the ALRV and Head of Sport at the CHIO Aachen. The Info Stewards take on the role of mediators between the sport and the public, on the warm-up areas of both the dressage and the jumping. “They are to engage in conversation with the spectators and where necessary explain what is happening on the training areas,” said Soenke Lauterbach, General Secretary of the FN. Furthermore, the Info Stewards, who will all be wearing the same coloured jackets as a means of identification, are to take the load off the official stewards of the international association, the FEI.

The German Equestrian Sport Foundation is supporting the project. Because the Info Steward concept in Aachen is so successful, the service is to be introduced at other shows in future too.