Rebecca Symonds
Lincomb Equestrian Centre Owner and Manager www.crosscountrycourse.co.uk
Lincomb Equestrian Centre, is extremely busy and offers an extensive cross country schooling ground, near Worcester in the Midlands. It also accommodates numerous Pony Club camps held throughout the summer months, and Rebecca has recently opened a livery yard to enhance the facilities.
The livery yard is still growing and currently has six full liveries, as well as being home to Rebecca’s part owned mare and foal and competition horse of her own. The horses vary greatly ranging from 7 months to 16 years of age, and from a Welsh Section A pony, to a hunter and novice event horse.
Rebecca practices good pasture management; with all horses have their own paddocks and the dung is regularly collected.
The Intelligent Worming Program for Rebecca has raised some controversial issues when comparing to traditional chemical worming programs.
The adult horses on Rebecca’s yard are generally on low risk monitoring programs due to indications of low level infections only. The ‘normal’ chemical worming program that was previously in place would have resulted in over worming the horses. Also, Rebecca signed her foal up to Intelligent Worming as soon as she purchased him. In the three months that he has been on our program we have already detected that the common broad spectrum ivermectin based chemicals are ineffective in treating the worms he has. Had Rebecca simply put the foal on to a chemical program she would have been unable to detect this, and consequently in twelve months she could have had a sick yearling.
We contacted Rebecca to find out how Intelligent Worming was working for her and her clients, here is what she had to say:
What worming regime did you previously follow?
For my own horses, I purchased the wormers on-line and followed a chemical program based on the worming tips available on the various websites.
What prompted you to join Intelligent Worming?
When I took over the livery yard, I was apprehensive about designing a worming program, where I was going to source the wormers and was particularly worried about infecting my pasture if any of the horses did have worms, especially with new liveries arriving.
How easy did you find joining Intelligent Worming?
It took me a while to get round to phoning, but I finally picked up the phone and contacted the Intelligent Worming office, the staff were friendly and all the information they gave me all just seem to make so much sense. Anything that makes my hectic life stress free, whilst ensuring that all the horses in my care are getting the best worming program designed by experts, was going to be a winner for me. I have to say what made it even easier was when I signed up, I was able to make the initial subscription payments all within five minutes of being on the phone, then everything else followed through in the post within days.
What were the selling points of Intelligent Worming for you?
Well, apart from the piece of mind that all my horses have individual effective worming programs, the added bonus is that the wormers and worm egg count kits would be delivered to our door so that I know exactly what to worm each horse and when. Also it’s frightening how quickly the months go by and this way, everything is tracked for me.
You are now 12 months down the line is Intelligent Worming still as good as you first thought?
Definitely, and the renewal process was easy too. The office simply phoned me up to check if there had been any changes with my horses and then went away to design my next years program. They then called me back within a couple of days to run through the strategy and costs, checked I understood and was happy with everything, then I once again simply paid over the phone.
In addition, this Spring we bought a mare and foal at the Sales and wanted to ensure that the foal had a really good start in life, the Intelligent Worming consultants designed me a broodmare and youngstock program which was great, they have even adapted it to make life easier for me over the winter as I was finding collecting the dung for the worm egg counts difficult.
It’s great to know that there’s someone at the end of the phone for instant advice when a new horse arrives.
How do you find Intelligent Worming works for your clients?
I have to say I was a little unsure how my liveries would react, because I have made it a condition in the livery yard contract that livery yard horses have to signed up to Intelligent Worming. However, the owners too are finding that Intelligent Worming is working well, albeit some of them found it more expensive than the four times a year chemical programs they were on. They can now see that the horses are on a scientific based program, so the horses are not being given unnecessary chemicals. The treatments and worm egg counts kits get sent directly to me to administer, so I am in control, my clients are all very happy with these arrangements.
Do you have any negative comments?
I suppose if I had to say something negative it would be selling Intelligent Worming to my new clients as I have made it compulsory, but I think Intelligent Worming sells itself by word of mouth from my existing customers, and the proof that it works is great. I was also really pleased to hear that this new Newsletter was being produced as this will be great to show new clients.
