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LOVE AND MARRIAGE GOES TOGETHER LIKE HORSES AND MORE HORSES
LOVE AND MARRIAGE GOES TOGETHER LIKE HORSES AND MORE HORSES
By Vicky Moon
Madison Meyers is in the tack room of one of the three barns she and her husband, Kieran Norris, operate under the name of Ballyerin Racing at the Middleburg Training Track. It’s 10 in the morning and she’s already been up for six hours. You figure it out.
She’s slicing those sweet potatoes with precision. It’s a regular treat for the horses and, she said, “It’s my therapy.”
While at the University of Louisville, Madison went to work for trainer Niall M. O’Callaghan. She rode and pulled manes to make extra cash and learned all about life at the race track. “The next I knew,” she said, “I was getting on two-year-olds and then galloping for him.”
Madison’s next stop was with trainer Dale Romans, working at his farm and galloping his horses. And then came the position she cherishes the most.
“I got a job with Foster Northrop, a renowned lameness vet at Churchill Downs and worked for him eight years,” she said. “I probably learned the most working for him. It was an amazing experience. And he still practices.”
After that, there were other opportunities, including a stint at Darby Dan in Kentucky as the famous farm’s broodmare manager and then training horses at the iconic race track at Saratoga. There was an added bonus because that’s also where she met Kieran.
“We both went to work for (trainer) Tom Voss and we moved to Maryland and stayed there about a year and a half, ” she said, all the while still chopping those sweet potatoes. They eventually ended up in the Middleburg area with another well-known trainer, Richard Valentine.
Then, Madison started her own business doing MagnaWave therapy. It’s a device that can increase circulation and blood oxygenation and helps the horses recover naturally while diminishing inflammation and alleviating pain. By pinpointing the problem areas of pain, Madison is adept at going beyond the symptoms.
She’s traveled all over the country doing MagnaWave for many years, treating as many as 18 horses a day. And, it’s now part of her routine at Ballyerin.
In 2018, Madison and Kieran launched their own racing business and have between 30 and 60 horses in training and 14 employees.
Their goal?
“To win races,” she said. “And my father once told me to stay away from race horses.”
Winning has been mission accomplished, because this dynamic duo has $1.4 million in earnings, not to mention two gorgeous children.
“I don’t sleep a whole lot,” Madison said. “I stay up all night worrying about horses. The kids are fine.”
By Leonard Shapiro
There have been several intriguing “firsts” for Kieran Norris, a native of Tallow, Ireland who, with his wife, Madison Meyers, owns bustling Ballyerin Racing based in Middleburg.
The first time he asked Madison out on a date when they were both working training and galloping race horses in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. she suggested they try a sushi restaurant.
“I’d never had sushi, didn’t really know what it was,” Kieran said. “I had no idea what I was eating.”
Clearly he managed to survive the dinner, and the evening. There were plenty more dates and the couple, now married and living near Middleburg, are doting parents of Charlotte, 3, and Vivian, 18 months.
The first time Kieran got on a racehorse, he was 16 and admitted “I had no idea what I was doing. I had ridden ponies and didn’t really have an interest in horse racing. But I started galloping for a local trainer, and kept going.”
He eventually marched into the Irish Army, where he spent four years in the infantry and virtually no time around horses. When he was discharged, he began riding steeplechase horses for a local trainer, Sean Ahearn, in Waterford, not far from Tallow near the south coast of Ireland.
“I got my amateur riding license to race,” Kieran said. “My first win came in Tallow against a bunch of other top amateur riders. I didn’t have a clue about what I was doing. Those guys cursed me, they cut me off, they weren’t nice about it at all. But she won the race, Blueberry Girl. I won three times that year, and after the first win, I was definitely hooked on racing.”
Kieran raced in Ireland for the next few years, spent his first summer in Saratoga in 2011 when he met Madison, then went back the following year at the urging of his friend and fellow steeplechase rider, Mark Beecher, who had recently won the Maryland Hunt Cup.
He worked at Saratoga galloping horses for trainer Jimmy Baker, where Madison also was working as an assistant trainer. A year later, he was back in Saratoga, this time working for trainer Tom Voss, and Madison was training for him as well.
Kieran eventually got a visa to work full time in America and began having considerable steeplechase riding success. He’s hoisted championship trophies in a number of races, including the Virginia Gold Cup in 2017. He was champion jockey in 2015 and was leading in the standings again in 2017 until a calamitous fall at Radnor that year when he suffered a broken neck.
He was out for almost six months, managed a comeback, then had another fall in Georgia when he broke his arm, had four broken ribs, a punctured lung and a concussion. He did ride and win again, but also knew it was probably time to hang up the tack and focus on what he and Madison have turned into a thriving business breaking, training and racing horses.
There are usually between 30 and 60 horses from a variety of clients in their three barns at the Middleburg Training Track. They race at Laurel, Pimlico, Charles Twn, Colonial Downs and Delaware Park.
“Madison is the trainer and my role is breaking all the babies. I drive the van, too,” Kieran said. “It’s definitely a good life.”
Sushi occasionally included.
