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We are thrilled to have Joe on our Elite Riders Scheme and to have him help us evaluate new technologies on his excellent string of horses. Joe's parents own and manage the highly successful Mamaku Stud in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand and Snip (and a number of Joe's other horses) was born and produced there. Joe moved to the UK in 1996 to develop his eventing career which is going from strength to strength. He and his wife Deborah recently moved into the beautiful 'Churchill Stud' which was previously owned by our famous wartime prime minister. The story of how Joe became a user of WINNINGEDGE starts early in 2008 with his horse EASE ON FIRE. New Zealand's Olympic hopeful, Joe Meyer, already had three horses that had met the qualification requirements for Hong Kong but he was still keen to add a fourth horse to the options for the selectors to choose from. Ease on Fire had already proven he had the talent (19th Burghley 2005) so Joe was keen to put in a solid performance at Badminton to impress the selectors and achieve the Olympic qualification standard. However Ease on Fire could be a sensitive horse and sometimes found the pressure slightly overwhelming when faced with loud noises and flags. With three week's to go to the big event the team at Churchill Stud decided that Ease on Fire may have an improved chance of producing a top performance if he was being supplemented with WINNINGEDGE Gold. The normal loading period for this unique and comprehensive supplement is 4-5 weeks so, in consultation with us a 'power loading' process was developed. Four times a day Ease on Fire was syringe fed a half loading quantity of WINNINGEDGE Gold. So every day he was actually getting twice the standard loading amount. The plan to split this over four feeds was to give the digestive system the maximum opportunity to absorb the nutrients from the product. At the same time the horse was taken off his long-standing magnesium supplement. Four days into the regime Joe was reporting improvements in Ease on Fire's behaviour and confidence and these continued as Badminton approached.
The first real test was the dressage and Ease on Fire performed his best ever 4* dressage test. The smile says it all!!! With a late draw he ran cross country when the ground was getting very sticky, but completed an excellent clear round with just 16.8 time penalties. Ease on Fire is normally an excellent jumper but sometimes has a momentary lack of concentration in front of a fence which can lead to a pole down in the show jumping. This can cause his stress levels to rise and he may struggle to recover his composure. He had a pole at Badminton but Joe says that within a couple of paces he recovered his composure and got his mind right back onto the job. Asked how he felt about the effect of WINNINGEDGE Gold the understated Joe said "Not too bad". His wife Deborah said "Delighted". So now the New Zealand selectors have four of Joe's horses to choose from. Snip was always the first choice but Ease on Fire was promoted to Joe's first reserve and actually joined Snip in quarantine 'just in case'. Ease on Fire's next outing will be Burghley where he will be joined by Black Andy who has also recently been put onto WINNINGEDGE Gold. Read about Joe's Olympics here. Visit Joe's web site here. 2009 Season We have been fortunate enough to see some of Joe's early season competitions. Here are
a few pictures from Barocca (Portugal) and Gatcombe:
Above: Joe and Sanskrit collect up for a steep descent acoss country (left)
Sally Green of EquiFeast presents Gatcombe (1) 2009 Below left Snip prepares for Badminton
Joe takes a back seat to ease Badminton 2009 Joe & Snip finished in 12th place, securing Snip's 3rd Badminton miniature trophy which are awarded to the top 12 horses only! Joe also earned the distinction of being the only rider to complete with 2 horses "double clear" - incurring no penalties over the jumps in either the x-country or the show-jumping. Black Andy was hampered by his dressage score but climbed up the order by some 33 places to finish in 42nd position.
Joe on New Zealand squads - 2nd July 2009
It has Well done Joe - keep up the good work!
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Need our help? We welcome your call.
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Joe and Snip in the dressage.