There is a lot to being a successful equestrian, but the first is having the right horse. Once you have the right horse, and the right duo is created the next thing is having a healthy horse. It is important to adjust your horse's diet to best fit their needs. There is a lot of information out there about equine supplements and with the recent wave of "all-natural" equestrians its often easy to get sucked into using a natural product that has minimal cost, but also minimal results.
Over my 15 years in the equestrian world I have seen a lot of different horses (health and breed wise) and a lot of different approaches to supplemental care. The tips and suggestions below are a compilation of what I have learned and have seen to work best.
First, my two favorite products! I have used these products with every single horse I have ever had. They are Purina's Equine Senior and Ultima.
Equine Senior: This grain is a fat supplement that, you guessed it, is great for keeping weight on older horses. Subsequently, I have also had tremendous success with using it on horses who have minimal problem with keeping weight on or the ones who go through an inconsistent work pattern. For the most part I just got in the habit of giving my horses 2-4 cups of it once a day and maybe a little extra on heavy work days. It is almost like a daily vitamin in our barn. It has quite a bit of vitamins, flax seed (shinny coats), antioxidants and fats in it to give your horse the little bit extra it may need. Now for the senior horses I recommend feed on a daily regiment, but at the levels suggested on the back of the bag. If you'd like to learn more about the nutrients of this product, feeding recommendations, or where you can buy it, click here.
Ultima: In more recent years, our barn has seen an increase in the stacks of Ultima in the aisle way. With more active younger horses and middle age ones with mild health issues Ultima has become our other go to product. As my vet put it, Ultima is the same formula as Equine Senior, but just twice if not three times the amount of fat and nutrients. We realized we had been over supplementing some of our horses giving anywhere from 8-16 cups of Equine Senior to our highly athletic horses. One day when our vet was out visiting a horse who hadn't come out of the winter as "plump" as we'd like, he explained the fat concentration difference between these products and suggested that in order to save us money, and save our horse's chewing, to switch to Ultima. For the horse that hadn't wintered well he said this would be the healthiest and fastest way for us to put weight on them, and we haven't looked back since. Ultima is especially apparent in regards to our high agility performance horses that are burning thousands upon thousands of calories a day. My only fair warning is if you continue to feed Ultima to a horse that might not be being worked as often, you'll see a drastic change in energy. A horse that once needed lunging before a ride may need a 5 minute lunge session before the rider gets on. If you'd like to learn more about the nutrients of this product, feeding recommendations, or where you can buy it, click here.
Other supplements that I have fallen in love with include...
"The Pink Stuff" - Farnan Electro Dex Equine Electrolytes: As a kid growing up in the barn Electrodexwas referred to as "The Pink Stuff" due to its cotton candy neon pink color. This powder is relatively inexpensive and acts as a great source of electrolytes for our horses. Even better it smells delicious! It is also one of the few electrolyte powders we have not had to struggle to get our horses to eat. On rare occasion one will eat around it, but just a drizzle on some water and it is all eaten up. The directions suggest 1 to 2 scoops, we usually just round and say "one heaping" scoop and have yet to have a problem with it. To read more about its benefits as well as testimonials click here.
Mare Magic (the affordable kind): You are likely familiar with Mare Magic, especially if you have a mare, but do you really know what's in it? All Mare Magic is raspberry leaves. So why spend $15 on a 8 oz bag when you could spend less than $10 on the same on the same thing at your local health food store? I personally have not seen results from "Mare Magic" by its self on my mares, but in combination with other supplements and consistent/hard exercise.
These are just a few of my favorite products. I'd be happy share more, therefore please feel free to contact me personally about problems, products or questions that you might have at the link provide, or through one of the below sources.
Happy riding!