Spring weather means horse show season is right around the corner. Are you providing all the nutrients your horse needs to perform his best? What requirements change when your horse starts competing again after a break?

This quick checklist will ensure you are providing the nutrients your horse needs to achieve peak performance.

Natural Vitamin E

Vitamin E is a powerful antioxidant that maintains healthy muscle, nerve and immune functions. Requirements increase as a horse’s workload and stress levels increase.

Choose Elevate® Maintenance Powder to provide a highly bioavailable source of natural vitamin E. Start Elevate 4 to 6 weeks prior to the beginning of show season.

• Horses in light work with an easy competition schedule: 1,000 IU to 1,500 IU per da
• Horses in moderate training with a moderate competition schedule: 2,000 IU to 3,000 IU per da
• Horses in heavy training with a busy competition schedule: 3,000 IU to 5,000 IU per day.

Electrolytes

When a horse is being ridden lightly or just hanging around in the pasture, hay and plain salt can meet their electrolyte needs. As soon as exercise increases and horses begin to sweat, additional electrolytes must be supplemented to replace losses and support hydration.

Choose Summer Games® Electrolyte, developed for Olympic equine athletes and available to the horse that matters to you. Its concentrated low-sugar formula allows you to easily adjust the amount of electrolyte provided based on your horse’s specific needs.

Start supplementation as soon as horses go back to work.

Digestive Support

Travel and the physical demands of competing and training are very stressful on a horse. Furthermore, inconsistent feeding and turnout schedules can upset the balance of the microbiome. Providing a complete digestive supplement will maintain a healthy digestive tract when horses are stressed. This reduces the incidence of gastric and colonic ulcers, colic, diarrhea and hindgut imbalances.

Choose Neigh-Lox® Advanced for its three-pronged approach to a healthy digestive tract. It buffers and coats the stomach, provides S. boulardii (a true probiotic) that imparts important nutrients to the tissues in the digestive tract and contains prebiotics that support a healthy, well-balanced microbiome.

Start Neigh-Lox Advanced 2 to 3 weeks prior to putting a horse back into work.

Provide 2 scoops, twice per day.

Hoof and Coat Support

When your horse walks into the ring, you want that coat to shine and the mane and tail to be full and healthy. It goes without saying that a horse can’t compete on poor-quality hooves. Constant bathing and the stress of daily work can cause a breakdown in hoof and coat health. A complete hoof supplement provides nutrients needed to sustain strong hooves and healthy skin and hair.

Choose Ker-A-Form™ hoof and coat supplement. Ker-A-Form is scientifically formulated to provide the nutrients your horse needs to grow and maintain healthy feet, skin, hair coat, and mane and tail. It contains the biotin, trace minerals, amino acids and fatty acids your horse needs to support a high-quality hoof and gleaming coat.

Start Ker-A-Form 2 to 4 weeks prior to the start of show season. Horses with a history of poor hoof quality should be maintained on Ker-A-Form year-round.

Provide one scoop per day. Ker-A-Form is extremely cost-effective, compared to other leading brands.

Joint Support

Every day we ask modern show horses to do things their wild counterparts would never do, and all while carrying our weight on their backs. The wear and tear on joints can quickly erode soundness. Supplementing with a complete joint supplement provides the building blocks the joint needs to maintain healthy cartilage and levels of lubrication, reducing everyday wear and tear.

For a lifetime of soundness, choose Joint Armor™. Joint Armor provides recommended levels of hyaluronic acid (HA), glucosamine and chondroitin, along with manganese sulfate.

Feed one small scoop per day. Joint Armor is super affordable; a 1 pound jar lasts 75 days!

Fueling condition and performance

Calories, calories, calories. Performance horses need energy to fuel optimal performance, but it needs to be the right kind of calories. When hay and commercial concentrates aren’t enough, a high-fat supplement provides safe, cool energy that maintains top show condition and gives your horse the stamina needed to perform.

Choose all-natural Equi-Jewel® rice bran for maintaining a healthy weight and fueling performance. The fat found in Equi-Jewel is an extraordinary source of dietary energy. In fact, fat contains more than two times the energy that carbohydrates and proteins do, thereby fueling horses more efficiently. Fat is considered a “cool” feedstuff because it does not cause the hormone spikes that lead to excitability. Adding Equi-Jewel to your horse’s diet allows you to decrease the amount of starchy concentrates (grains) you feed, reducing the risk of colic and laminitis resulting from grain overload. It is an excellent source of energy for horses struggling with RER (tying up) and PSSM.

Amount fed depends on individual needs:

• Hard keepers: 1 to 2 pounds per day during the season, split into 2 feeding
• Average keeper to sustain condition: ½ to 1 pound per day, when needed.
• To improve coat condition: ½ pound per day.

As always, performance horses are individual and each one has its own needs. If you have questions about what supplement(s) are best for your horse, contact Kentucky Performance Products.

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