Catch Up with This Winter’s Achieve Equine #Supergroom Award Winner Danielle Platt

We can never pass up an opportunity to highlight a #Supergroom, especially this one! Congratulations to Danielle Platt, head groom for New Zealand Olympian Joe Meyer, for winning our Achieve Equine #Supergroom award for the winter season! Stay tuned for the opening of our nomination form for our next winner. Catch up on the other interviews from this series here and nominate a #Supergroom of your own by emailing [email protected]! Now, let’s hear from the #Supergroom herself:

Danielle and Joe at Blenheim. Photo by Libby Law Photography.

What’s involved in being a #Supergroom of the winter season?

It feels really awesome to be acknowledged for the hard work that we put in. I really love that there’s an award for it, actually. It’s great and it probably brings a lot of highlights to the grooms that are out there and also something to work for!

What led you to work with Joe and Ruthie Meyer?

When I was 17, I started as a working student for different people and I actually got really burnt out. Three years ago, I was coming to the Meyer’s farm to sell a horse that I had; I wanted to quit riding completely.

I started boarding the horse with him and I would work for them a couple days a week to help pay the board. The horse eventually sold six months later and I had really formed a good bond with the girls in the barn and with Joe and Ruthie and I felt like I could trust them.

I had entered the horse that sold in a competition that weekend, so they offered me to ride a horse that was for sale in the barn. I took it to the show and we did really well. They offered me the position of general barn manager– with that comes grooming and I ride all the sales horses as well.

What advice do you have for other grooms facing burnout?

There’s a lot of places that you can go to that you might not fit in 100% or feel like you’re appreciated at all. In this industry, it is six days a week and some days can be 14 hours long. To go from somewhere that doesn’t make you feel appreciated for those days to somewhere that does make you feel appreciated for even being there for a regular easy work day is something that really stands out.

It was the environment that made it something that I wanted to continue doing. I had lost faith in working for people and not getting back what I was giving. Honestly, to keep looking for something that does give back is what I would suggest to other people in the same situation.

I don’t think the first situation that someone goes to is going to be something that works for them for the rest of their career. You have to find the place that makes you feel welcome and makes you want to get up every day and go work for 14 hours if you have to.

Danielle and Joe at TerraNova. Photo courtesy of Danielle Platt.

What has it been like working with the Meyers?

Ruthie is included in a lot of it too; she does a lot of the planning and behind-the-scenes with sales horses. Even though it might look like it’s just Joe and I on social media, it’s not, she’s so much a part of it. She’s always at the big shows too, supporting and she’s really been an amazing mentor.

Working for Joe, everyday is like a comedy show. He’s hilarious and we both get along really well. That’s important too, for people looking to find a place that they want to stay longer term is getting along and feeling welcome– like you want to go out to the barn every day and enjoy it; you don’t want to feel like you’re going to do something wrong and the whole world is going to end.

We’ve got a good group of girls and we’re always looking for more working students. I spend a lot of time teaching them attention to detail. It’s really important to teach the younger riders coming up the importance of grooming and that it’s not just the job at the bottom before you start being a professional rider. It’s all really important and it’s things that you need to know just for dealing with horses in general.

Danielle and Harbin before the flight to the UK. Photo courtesy of Danielle Platt.

What has been your favorite experience so far?

Last August, we went overseas to Blenheim to do the 4*-L, so I was over there with Harbin for six weeks. It was a really fun experience– I grew up in England, so all of my family is there and so I got to be with them and I got to see a different level of the international eventing than what we do in America. It was very cool to see the environment and see how different it is being in America versus competing in England.

I learned so much on that trip and I made a ton of friends in the barn. The grooms over there were so nice and I still talk to some of them. In grooming, I felt so welcome and it was probably one of the best experiences I could have gotten.

Ballygriffin Chacoa Power and Danielle. Photo courtesy of Alex Scribner of MIPSY Media.

What are your plans going into the future?

I am currently in the process of syndicating my first upper level horse, Ballygriffin Chacoa Power, aka Squishy; Joe and Ruthie are helping me. We’ve had one come into the barn recently that went 3* in France at the Young Event Horse Championships. She came to us to sell and she’s a little bit spicy and a little bit opinionated– and I just fell in love with her.

Joe and Ruthie are showing me the ropes of the whole syndication process and everything that you have to do in order to be a rider who’s supported by owners. That’s another thing about them that’s just so amazing and humble of them because they don’t have to do that at all and they’re trying their hardest to help me.

Grooming for Joe at Kentucky will be my first time grooming at the 5* level. Depending on what horses sell, the goal is for me to ride in the young horse classes at Maryland, so I will be there grooming for the 5* but also hoping to ride in the young event horse classes as well.

The goal with Squishy would be to start doing some preliminary/ 2* events by the end of this year, and then move up to 3* and finish next year with the Maryland 3*-L.

I would love to groom for Harbin until he’s done and he is 14 now, so he’s still got a lot of time left to go. I love that horse so much, so I would love to be there to support him wherever he goes.

Go Eventing, Go #Supergrooms, and Go Danielle!