Horse people are busy

Sport horse people are really busy. Who has the time to deal with formulating a custom, whole-food diet for a barn full of horses? It certainly sounds like a daunting task to take on after every- thing else we already do for our mounts. Chances are these custom diets will need to be just that: customized for each individual horse, which again, is another reason to feel over- whelmed when trying to put together a healthy diet plan.

THE OLD SCOOP

For decades most equestrians have been feeding bagged ‘complete feeds’ available from local dealers, a convenient way to feed. Some of this feed is sold nationwide, so if you frequently move around the country with show horses, you can feel confident you can buy that brand of feed almost anywhere. (Regionally manufactured feeds tend to be avail- able at a more economical price.)

Bagged horse feeds come in the form of pellets, textured feeds or sweet feeds, made up of a very long list of ingre- dients. Let Google be your friend—chances are you’ll need help understanding what many of the ingredients are! Unfor- tunately these processed feeds are known for their fillers, requiring the manufacturers to add vitamins and minerals, often synthetic, to the feed.

THE NEW SCOOP

We tend to feed our horses by measuring in scoops—a scoop of this and a scoop of that and we’re done. But is there a better way? Since eating healthier is on everybody’s radar these days, why not make certain our horses get the same benefit?

To find out more, we spoke to four different horse owners who each had their reasons for making the switch to whole food diets for their horses—and have never looked back.

Breeder Jean Brinkman

According to Jean Brinkman, a Trakehner breeder and farm owner for over 40 years at Valhalla Farm in northern Florida, formulating your own healthy diet for horses is not difficult. She (with the help of her husband) has been feeding a custom whole-food diet for more than 20 years with great success. Currently they feed over 40 horses (some are client horses), with about 30 of them in steady work. “I couldn’t do it without my husband,” she laughs, “as he is an integral part of our working farm.” Every year he harvests 60 acres of perennial peanut hay which grows well in their soil and provides the horses their forage nutrition. (Perennial peanut hay is grown regionally in north Florida and south Georgia and is comparable to alfalfa hay grown in other parts of the country, according to two studies conducted by the University of Florida.)

Jean, age 77, and her husband, 85, are both in excellent health and live medication-free. “The phrase ‘you are what you eat’ is so true. I switched to organic diets for our family long ago and was aware of GMOs when they were first introduced. For the horses, I’ve never fed bagged feeds and I avoid corn, soy and beet pulp,” she says.

Her journey of developing the right ‘recipe of success’ for their horses took some time, but she never steered away from the foundation of their feed: whole oats. “I know many think oats should be rolled or crimped, but since we soak our feed in hot water first, it’s never an issue,” she explains.

Today Jean’s diet for each horse consists of whole oats, Cool Stance (coconut), split peas, flax (or hemp oil if she can get it), and lastly a supplement of necessary vitamins and chelated minerals called Medicine Bag Complete (MBC). The feed is soaked in hot water for 30 minutes. For forage, each horse receives at least four sections of their home-grown peanut hay per day.

Over time, Jean says, the benefits of feeding holistically became clear. “Occurrences of OCD lesions lessened in the growing youngsters. Horses with injuries rebounded faster since their immune systems improved. Allergies improved or disappeared. We try to control ulcers in our working horses with as much turn out as possible and by keeping hay available through most of the day. I believe GMO-based feeds can be a contributing cause of ulcers,” she explains.

She recalls the story of a young mare they bred who failed the first sale’s vetting due to a badly misshaped and fractured sesamoid bone found in the x-rays. “The veteri- narian told us she was probably stepped on as a foal. Since she wasn’t lame, we continued with her training and she held up fine. We gave a high dose of MBC in her feed and about a year later, she was vetted again. I warned the buyers that the x-rays were going to reveal this problem but was happily surprised when the veterinarian couldn’t find a single problem with that sesamoid—it had healed beautifully!”

‍

‍

Dressage Rider Karen Bates

Originally from Belgium, Karen Bates-Leenknegt is an amateur dressage rider who, along with her husband, has moved a number of times but is now a U.S. citizen and mother of two residing in Canton, Geor- gia. She considers herself an experienced rider, having ridden for over 30 years, during which she had the opportunity to learn dres- sage with the help of both schoolmasters and reputable trainers. She bought herself a promising young mare, La Luna (2000 Oldenburg by Royal Dance), whom she trained through the levels with professional help. However, when the pair was attempt- ing to start serious collected work for the upper levels, her horse just couldn’t get there.

“With her breeding, conformation and good training, I was baffled as to why she was struggling so much,” Karen recounts. “I put a lot of resources into finding the source of the problem, only to find nothing wrong with her. Until I was left with only one more thing: her diet.”

She had moved her horse to a boarding barn where the barn manager was studying at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Karen was intrigued and knew the school had a good reputation for their courses on equine nutrition, so she took the available courses and was soon intent on learning all she could about the subject. She says she also had the fortune of meeting Tigger Montague of Biostar many years before then. Tigger is a nutritionist and founder of the supplement company Biostar US, and also published the book Whole Food for Horses. “With everything I was learning, it all started to fall in place and I knew it was time to change La Luna’s diet,” she recalls.

It was seven years ago when she made the switch and she says the results were remarkable. “My redheaded mare underwent both physical and mental changes on the new diet,” Karen says. “She became a happy athlete, became more focused and was able to do the FEI work. Even more excit ing was that I could feel her hind end becoming much stronger and it seemed as if I had an extra gear to tap into while she remained calm and focused instead of hot and flustered. Friends commented they couldn’t believe the changes in my horse.”The pair did well showing Prix St. Georges in 2014 and 2015 before she had to be retired.

Another unexpected benefit to embracing the new diet? Karen was able to start a new career as an equine nutritionist and launch her business Wholesome Equine Nutrition, LLC in 2014. “Today I act as an independent consultant and do not take kickbacks from any manufacturers. In that way I can customize a feed program strictly looking out for each horse’s welfare,” she explains. Today she has helped more than 250 horses make the switch to a whole food diet.

Jumper Rider Casey Millis

Casey Mills, who has ridden hunters and jumpers most of her life, hails from Georgia but migrates further south each winter to Ocala, Florida for the popular HITS show circuit. Currently she owns a 12-year-old Danish Warmblood, Secret Agent, and a 13-year-old Selle Français, Rigoletto du Lys. Both were imported and are the laid-back types — ‘solid citizens’ who enjoy their jobs in the jumper ring.

Twelve years ago, Casey decided she wanted to be an animal chiroprac- tor (for horses and dogs) and earned her doctor- ate at Life University in Marietta, Georgia and then went to animal chiro- practic school at Options for Animals in Wellsville, Kansas. That experience was eye-opening, she says, as she learned just how important a healthy diet is for humans and animals alike. First she changed her own diet to be health- ier in 2010 and, after notic- ing major health benefits, became interested in doing the same for her animals.

A few years ago she moved her horses to a new barn in Georgia and was lucky to connect with fellow boarder Karen Bates. “Hearing about how Karen was feeding her horses and the education she had on equine nutri- tion was impressive,” Casey says. “It wasn’t long before I switched my horses to a whole food diet, with Karen’s help of course.”

She wasn’t having any major issues with her horses before the switch, but afterwards, she could feel and see a difference. “My horses’ coats are amazing and their muscling improved. They feel better and stronger now. ”Their workload includes riding them six days per week, along with daily exercise on either a hot walker or treadmill. She shows her ‘boys’ in 1.10 and 1.15 meter classes.

“I don’t use Bute or Banamine. If I need an anti-inflamma- tory, I use the all-natural product Turmerical,” Casey continues. “I stay away from corn, soy and canola oil, which are prevalent in bagged feeds and cause inflammation.” She likes some of the Biostar products and when she travels she gives her horses probiotics. “My goal is to feed my horses a nontoxic, clean, nutrient-rich diet. I care about my horses’ longevity — I want them to stick around for a long time.”

‍Anna Frensemeyer, Founder of Crypto Aero

Twenty years ago, German-born Anna Frensemeyer moved to south Florida as a student. She studied microbiology and nursing and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in both. After growing up riding in Germany among Warmbloods, she never lost her desire for horses. “I was fully aware of how much it costs to board horses in the Wellington area. It wasn’t anything I could afford at the time on a nurse’s salary,” Anna says with a laugh.

But the ‘horse bug’ got the best of her and in 2012 she adopted an off-the-track Thoroughbred after seeing only a video. When Crypto Aero walked off the trailer, she was devastated. “He looked like death and was nothing but a bag of bones with terrible feet and severe ulcers. I started feeding him traditional high-calorie feeds and treating his ulcers, but his progress was minimal. He was also colicking once or twice a week,” she says.

Then she picked up a tag to find out what was in a bag of his feed. “As soon as I read the list of ingredients, knew immediately that the food had way too many fillers and was making things worse, not better. Crypto needed a different, healthier diet,” she says. She then started to cook his meals on a daily basis. The task was very time consum- ing but proved to be well worth her efforts. Crypto’s health improved immensely and he gained 300 pounds. “The transformation was amazing. I knew I was on to some- thing, feeding whole foods, and I couldn’t find any companies selling a complete whole food diet for horses,” she exclaims.

Passionate about how horses should be fed, Anna was determined to make her feed accessible for other horse owners. Her first step was to find a clean feed mill to produce her recipe of non-GMO, all-natural horse feed. “It wasn’t as easy as it sounds,” she remarks. “I was rejected by numerous mills due to my formulation, which included ingredients like papaya. Plus they weren’t used to dealing with a woman. In many ways it’s a ‘closed door’ industry. Newcomers like me weren’t welcome.”

Anna’s perseverance paid off and four years ago she finally found a mill in Okeechobee, Florida that does not manufacture medicated feeds for other livestock and agreed to take on her product line. She was officially in the equine feed business. Her recipe includes whole oats, timothy hay pellets, alfalfa hay pellets, sunflower seeds, green peas, yellow peas, rice bran oil, ground flax, rose hips, green cabbage, papaya, algae, organic yeast, anise and fenugreek. Her business — and her feed — is named after the horse who started it all: Crypto Aero.

‍BEST ADVICE: SEEK ADVICE

Most of our interviewees agreed that it’s best to seek profes- sional advice from a good equine nutritionist to help you formulate a whole food diet for your horses. If you still prefer a complete feed for the convenience it offers, Crypto Aero might be your best option.

Research quickly reveals there is a lot of agreement as to what horses need for a healthy diet, which is good news. The basic diet simply consists of fiber (forage), protein, fats and carbohydrates, as well as vitamins, chelated minerals and, most importantly, enzymes to help with digestion. Natural, unprocessed, whole foods with some supplements provide all these elements. The result is a healthy, happy horse able to do his job in peak condition.

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍