A breaking-in, pre-training and show-jumping stable based in Cambridge NZ, Diamond Lodge is headed by the talented Jeremy Whale and his partner Samantha Matthews (pictured).
Jeremy Whale has been in the racing industry for over 15 years now. He is a very knowledgable horseman and strives to produce quality, well trained and well presented horses. His passion lies in the NZB Ready to Run preparations, breaking in and preparing thoroughbreds through to both NZ and Australian sales.
Samantha Matthews has been in the racing scene for almost 10 years, starting out riding track work and breakers for local trainers to eventually working along side Jeremy at Diamond Lodge.
Early Days
Jeremy started riding as a teen and competed at pony club ODEs and local show jumping shows in Whakatane, he moved to Cambridge when he was 18 for a gap year before uni and has never left. He started off riding track work and breakers for people and after a few years of that decided to go off on his own where he started Diamond Lodge.
Samantha started riding when she was 8 and started ESNZ show jumping at 12. She went straight to pony grand prix at her first registered show because she had no clue at all what the differences in heights were! Samantha won 1.20m POY twice on two different ponies and then went to South Africa in 2010 on a 15 and under NZ team.
Samantha says “For a few years after that I just had thoroughbreds to show jump as I was supporting myself and I have only started getting nice horses the last couple years from selling thoroughbreds I have produced.”
Not unsurprisingly, Samantha is now eyeing the future “I’m extremely excited that I now have some super nice young ones that I have started to breed for myself.”
Focus and Advice
We hear from Samantha:
“Both of us have come from non horsey families and have had to work our way to where we are. I think our advice for people would be that if you have a goal or an idea of where you want to be it does take hard work and dedication as most of us are not blessed with wealthy parents. Be prepared to work hard long days and be prepared to learn from any one and everyone. Nothing happens over night… unfortunately haha.”
Big Things
Jeremy and Sam have a busy year ahead with a growing young family and are extremely excited to be working alongside the team at Dynavte NZ for the coming racing and show jumping season.
Jeremy has taken up an old hobby in show jumping after being dragged back onto the scene by keen jumping partner Sam, and now has many client horses of the warmblood type too. He competes to Grand Prix level and is often getting warmblood schoolers, breakers, tricky or problem jumpers and sales horses.
Samantha takes up the story “He hadn’t been in a show jumping arena for over ten years when he started up again after meeting me! He got bored pretty quickly of carting me around to the shows and watching from the side lines”
“I think his first show back on his new horses (which were a couple of amateur type hacks!)I remember he won and placed in a couple of classes and I can remember ladies going OOOHHH WHO IS THIS MAN… it was pretty hilarious haha. Only a couple years later and he’s in the Grand Prix ring!”
For Samantha’s part, she has her NZTR owner/trainer license and is looking forward to racing commencing in NZ once again and getting her thoroughbreds back out to the races. Sam also loves to give the thoroughbreds a life after racing and often has a one or two on her show jumping team.
Sam also competed her warmblood Australian import Adloo Annabelle to Grand Prix level last season and has been bringing on her young mare Fleur DeLacour through the age series classes, both exciting mares for the future.
You can find Jeremy and Sam most days at the picturesque Diamond Lodge, 1 Hunter Lane Cambridge RD1 3493
Favourite Dynavyte Products
Favourite product I guess we would just have to say the Dynavyte MBS to start with as thats what Jeremy has put the majority on so far. Looking forward to using the Prime Osseticol to competition season though!
