We are deeply saddened to report the passing of Caroline Moore, a 5* rider and world-renowned coach and mentor who has left an incredible legacy on our sport and its humans and horses, on Friday night. Caroline had been diagnosed with stage four cancer three years ago.
In addition to her own riding career, Caroline was well-known for her coaching talents. She was instrumental in helping riders earn medals at Junior, Young Rider, and Senior Championships, including the European Championships, World Championships, and Olympic Games. She was a fellow of the British Horse Society as well as a selector for British Young Riders and a Youth Performance Coach for British Eventing. She was also a close friend and supporter of Olympic medalist Ros Canter and co-owned her World Championships winner, Allstar B.
Truly, Caroline’s accolades and achievements cannot be overstated. As she moved more into coaching, she founded the Performance Mentoring Programme (PMP), an educational academy that provides access to world-class training online. This project underscored Caroline’s commitment to education and accessibility. “I’m a great believer that you can take an average rider and an average horse and turn them into a champion with good training,” she said in an interview with EquiRatings earlier this year. “It’s not just about a privileged bunch of riders—good training should be available to everyone.”
Even as she waged the battle of her life against cancer, Caroline’s unwavering positive spirit and resilience kept her going.
“I’ve always been a very positive person,” she told EquiRatings. “I mean, people are naturally half empty or half full, glass-wise. And I’ve always been, there’s a way through somehow, and it suited me. I love a challenge…I think when you have a diagnosis like I had, you either get self-absorbed and only think about cancer all the time, or you can rise above that. As much as your body allows, you carry on, and you do the best possible job that you can.”
And she lived. Sky diving. Gliding. Climbing mountains. White water rafting. Traveling to the most remote corners of the world in an effort to see as much of it as she possibly could. “I feel like I probably put an extra 10 years into my life anyway with things that I’ve done,” she said inn January. “So I feel very satisfied, and I have no regrets whatsoever…I haven’t enjoyed it by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve enjoyed the journey of getting closer to my family, having a bunch of friends, and completely changing what I do in life.”
For Caroline, the resiliency she cultivated was, at the end of the day, a skill. “You either have a skill to believe that things will be okay, or you need to try and find the skill to be able to do that,” she explained to EquiRatings. “And it’s not just for my situation—it applies to competing, training, business, and life itself…I never wanted anybody to call me sloppy in what I did in life. So everything I’ve done—whether in riding or coaching—has been with that in mind.”
The eventing community and beyond has been touched for eternity by Caroline’s generosity of spirit and dedication to what she loved. May we all live our lives in honor of that spirit, and in honor of Caroline herself.
The EN team is keeping Caroline’s loved ones and those she has impacted in our hearts. If you have a memory of or story about Caroline you’d like to share, we’d love it if you told us about it in the comments.
