Danielle and Kelly Bowser - Tying up, Ulcers,
Surgery and Healing Time, Abscesses, EPM, Double Dosing
John Dowdy:
Hello and welcome to another Equinety podcast. I am so excited this week, to have on Danielle and Kelly Bowser, out of Ohio. I've been looking forward to this call for quite a while. Some really interesting stories here. And without further ado, Danielle and Kelly, welcome to the Equinety podcast.
Kelly Bowser
Hello. Hi, everybody.
Danielle Bowser
Hi, John. Nice to talk to you.
John Dowdy:
Well, you bet. I'm glad you guys took some time out of your super busy schedules. And I think it's important, you know, you guys run full lives. Trainers, coaches, mentors. You're doing clinics. You're traveling all over the place. Why don't we take just a little bit of time and just give us a little bit of both of your backgrounds, so we can just have an idea of what your guys' lives are like on a daily basis?
Danielle Bowser
Well, we could talk about Kelly first. He's been doing it forever. An awfully long time.
Kelly Bowser
Yeah. I've been doing it for quite a while. I'm not going to say, because then it gives away my age, but I've been doing it for a long time.
John Dowdy:
Yeah.
Kelly Bowser
I've been doing pretty good. It was a slow start when I was younger, but it's getting better and better every year.
Danielle Bowser
Kelly mostly trains futurity horses. That's what he loves to do, is work with the young horses. If there is any that are ours that are good enough, then I take them over when they're between five and six years old. Kelly's had a lot of success. He's pretty quiet about the horses that have gone on to be so successful. But he's had a few horses that have won futurities and shown all year long and then gone on to a few girls that have taken them to the NFR, so that was pretty exciting.
Danielle Bowser
He's had a couple of horses now that he's trained, one that I ran and one that he ran, but both gone to the American finals, the American Rodeo, and that was pretty exciting. We both had times that were fast enough to qualify us and we both drug barrels over, so that was a little disappointing. But that's what happens in barrel races.
John Dowdy:
Those darn barrels get in the way.
Danielle Bowser
They do. And, there's no money under them.
John Dowdy:
Now, without giving away age or length of time, there was something special that happened in 1994, though.
Kelly Bowser
I won the World on a little mare that me and my dad owned.
John Dowdy:
That's awesome.
Kelly Bowser
We bought her, a long two year old and I trained her as a two and three year old. And she did good. She did real good.
John Dowdy:
Yeah.
Danielle Bowser
That's AQHA World. So, we had a really pretty buckle and a frame on the wall from the AQHA World Champion.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, yeah. So Kelly, you've always just kind of stayed with the futurity horses. That's kind of your gig. And then, when they work out of the futurity world, then Danielle, you kind of take them over. Or, the ones that you ... You get to cherry pick, I guess.
Kelly Bowser
Yes.
Danielle Bowser
Yeah.
Kelly Bowser
Yeah, she ... And then, the customers are the same way. After the four year old year, they usually take them home and then hopefully they do good and go on with them. It's been pretty good for me, I think. So.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. Absolutely. Well so, one of the things ... And, as we were chatting before the podcast, I think it's important for those listening in for the first time, with as long as you have been in the industry. You know, Equinety didn't come out until around 2015. So obviously, before 2015, you'd never used Equinety because it wasn't available. So, you had to do and use whatever was available, which I'm sure led to frustrations and different things.
Danielle Bowser
Yeah.
John Dowdy:
So, now one of the things, Danielle, tell us a little bit about how you became the go to for the vet runs with the horses.
Danielle Bowser
Well, Kelly and I have been together for 20 years and basically from the day I met him, he schooled me on how to drive the truck and trailer and find a vet. And, we go to a lot of different vets. We try to find the best vets that we can and we like to have different eyes on them.
Danielle Bowser
We knew we needed to up our game and put a horse on a supplement that would increase speed, increase health, increase time between injections. And so what we would do was, we would go to the vet, get them fully vetted and injected, and then we would start one new supplement and I did that for 15 years. I had tried an awful lot of brand name supplements and we never found one single supplement that increased time between injections, increased performance, increased gut health. We never found anything.
Kelly Bowser
Some was expensive and some wasn't very expensive. Which we don't care about the cost. Maybe a little bit, but we just want something to work. You know, you got to spend it to make it. So that's the way we look at it.
John Dowdy:
Sure. So, with doing trial and error and experimentation and all kinds of stuff, being around that as much as you had been, you became pretty educated because you're seeing this, horse after horse after horse.
Danielle Bowser
I like to think so.
John Dowdy:
Hey, at least if we had a conversation, you would probably dominate in that conversation on those things.
Danielle Bowser
I might.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. So, with the trials and errors of going through through the years and then you hear about Equinety, back in around December of 2016, from your Canadian friend and mine, Tommy G., who we've got to get on a podcast, by the way.
Danielle Bowser
Yes.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. Shout out to Tommy God., because we know he's going to be listening. And, you're next Tommy. Yeah. So he reached out to you. Tell us about how that conversation went.
Danielle Bowser
We were at the Oklahoma City World Championship Futurity in 2016 and Kelly was running one of our own horses, Ziggy Zumba. And he placed very, very high in the futurity, both rounds and the finals. And on the way home, Tommy G. contacted me, because I'm from Canada, and asked me if I knew anything about Equinety. And I said, "You know, I've seen a couple people been posting things on Facebook and it's something I'd like to try. We're going to take the horses to the vet and then maybe I should give it a try." And he put us in touch with you and the rest is history.
Danielle Bowser
But within three to four dates, we both felt a difference in our horses, Kelly and his futurity horse and me and my open horse. And Kelly is a huge skeptic who does not like to admit that his wife ever-
Kelly Bowser
Defeat.
Danielle Bowser
Yeah. No, that I ever find anything right.
John Dowdy:
Kelly, you and I are in the same boat, buddy.
Danielle Bowser
And we were at a show about two weeks after we put Ziggy Zumba on the Equinety and he rode up to me in the chute, before his drag. And I was just standing because I didn't have a horse there that day. And, I'll never forget. He said to me, "You know, I don't like to tell you that you're right, but he feels faster on his feet, and more athletic, and I'm a little bit nervous, and I just can't even believe that I'm telling you this." And from then on, it's just been perfect. It's helped us in so, so many ways with so many different horses.
John Dowdy:
You know, maybe we should start marketing the Equinety as a truth serum?
Danielle Bowser
Yeah, I'm laughing.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. Now, with the futurity horses, what are some of the biggest things, or the most common things that you notice with the Equinety compared to years past without the Equinety?
Kelly Bowser
I notice their focus all the time on what they're supposed to do, and their quickness, and speed, and they're just more agreeable. I don't have to fight with them so much. They just want to work for you when you're sitting on their back. It's just so much better to ride. And when you swing your leg across a few of them and you fight with one, and then one's on Equinety and you ride them, you know, you don't want to ride the ones that are not agreeable and focused. It makes your day go better when they just ride good. You know?
John Dowdy:
Right. Well, that's-
Danielle Bowser
There is a difference in the frame of mind, just in Kelly, that I found over the last couple of years. You know, when he comes into the house, he's happy. He's not out there fighting colts all the time anymore. They just want to do their job.
Kelly Bowser
It's like, "Wow, you should've been out there and seen that."
John Dowdy:
Yeah. Well, that's pretty interesting with the young horses. So then, let's skip ahead. When you take over as they age out of futurity age, what are you noticing, Danielle?
Danielle Bowser
Well for me with Ziggy, I just took over Ziggy. And so I don't notice much of a difference because he's been on it. But my open horse, Marley, Evidence of Arson. He had so many health issues as a futurity horse that we weren't even really aware of. But, the biggest issue for him was, he suffered really badly with tie up and really bad gut. He had bad digestion all the time. And he constantly had the runs. When I would put him on the trailer, instantly he would have the runs the whole time.
Danielle Bowser
And so he sort of felt poor and looked poor and performed poorly. And, he didn't recover really good after the run. It would take him, sometimes 30, 40, 50 minutes to stop panting. It was not good.
Kelly Bowser
He never really locked up or tied up, but his recovery time was real bad. And then, we decided that to get the vet to look at him and that's when we found all this stuff out about him.
Danielle Bowser
So, we gave him four months off and we put him on Equinety. And within three days of riding, he wanted to move forward and he wanted to fling those front feet forward and stride out and he felt better. And he started eating better. Now, we did change his diet to a very simplified alfalfa pellet, rice bran pellet daily vitamin, and that did help. But, the Equinety was definitely the final key. It just picked him up. His mood improved. That's another thing. I notice a lot of the horses are happier.
John Dowdy:
Yes. We hear this a lot, I would say. You can tell in their eyes. They're just, they're happier. They move around better. Probably a good description, they're better balanced from the inside out. I mean, they're a more balanced horse.
Danielle Bowser
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And, Marley was suffering really badly from ulcers and I think that was just from the stress of constantly tying up. And, I haven't treated him for ulcers.
John Dowdy:
How long has that been?
Danielle Bowser
Well, probably since I put him on Equinety, I don't think.
Kelly Bowser
Yeah. That makes sense.
Danielle Bowser
Yeah. I really don't think so.
John Dowdy:
Wow. Now, there's a couple of other situations, a couple horses that were recovering from surgeries. What exactly was going on there from the surgery? Or why did they have to go into surgery, and then what did you find, healing time wise and everything, with the Equinety?
Danielle Bowser
We had one horse that had a chip in his knee. We had it removed and we were told six to-
Kelly Bowser
Five to six months.
Danielle Bowser
Yeah. Five to six months was the recovery. According to our vet that did the followup procedure with the X-rays and everything, he was ready to go at three months. We gave him the full five months rest period. Our horses live outside 24/7 and watching him run around the pasture, you could tell he was ready to go back to work.
John Dowdy:
Yeah.
Danielle Bowser
We gave him that extra time off. We had another horse that had the bone cysts in her stifles and we had surgery where they insert a screw through the cyst to stabilize it and keep it from spreading. We were told six to 12 months recovery and she was four months. She's back to work and sound after two more months of work.
John Dowdy:
Wow.
Danielle Bowser
And then, yeah, we had a horse get kicked in the deep digital flexor tendon. And, it didn't tear it, but all the fibers were spread apart and we were told six to 12 months recovery. That was Kelly's horse. He was better in-
Kelly Bowser
Four months. That's Maddy.
Danielle Bowser
Yeah. We started riding him at four months because everything was tight and healed and healthy.
John Dowdy:
Nice. That's-
Danielle Bowser
And, we had not double dosed at that point.
John Dowdy:
Right. So, let's talk about that. And, what this product is actually doing, for those of you listening in for the first time, Equinety's 100% pure amino acids and it's specifically formulated to stimulate the pituitary gland, which releases the necessary hormones to help heal at a cellular level. So this is why it does so many things for so many different horses. And probably one of the best examples that I have come up with, if you have a horse with joint problems and you look at joint supplements or injections, or hoof issues, you look at hoof supplements, creative shoeing, so on and so forth, we're trying to give them medication or supplement specific to that particular issue.
John Dowdy:
The nice thing with the Equinety, and it's only ... A serving size is 5.2 grams, which is not even a tablespoon, used as a top dressing, but because of what it's doing by stimulating the pituitary to release the hormones, the body is deciding with pinpoint accuracy exactly where to send those hormones for the healing. It's customizing to each horse while at the same time there's commonalities across the board. Softer, shinier coat, filing out, toplines, stronger hooves, attitude, mood, I'm sure these are probably things you've noticed as well with all of them that are on Equinety.
Danielle Bowser
Yeah, they all glow and shine like crazy. We don't have any foot issues. I don't know if this is related or not, but our property is on sand, it's like a beach sand. So we have a lot of abscesses here. Didn't matter the age of the horse, whether they were shod or not, we just had a lot of abscesses, and we've had not had abscesses either for a long time. I mean, we get the occasional one, but not three, four, five, six a year.
John Dowdy:
Right. This stuff is starting to sound too good to be true.
Danielle Bowser
It is too good to be true.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, oh gosh. Now I got a little sidetracked there, but I thought it was important to give a little internal workings of the product. But going back to the double dosing, one dose per day is perfectly fine for your horse, because it does everything that it needs to do with releasing the hormones. In one of our conversations a few months ago I had specifically asked if you guys were giving two scoops a day, just because of all the traveling and competing and things that you do. I don't think you had ever heard of double dosing or wondered why, probably why I had never brought it up to you before. Is probably more what the [inaudible 00:18:08].
John Dowdy:
So, tell us, those who are listening here, tell everybody what you found on a typical haul, just single dosing, and then what happened when you double dosed.
Danielle Bowser
Well, go ahead.
Kelly Bowser
We started doing it a couple days before we went to Fort Smith, Arkansas. They say it's one of the richest futurities in the country and we did really well out there. We took two horses and they both made the finals at Fort Smith. When you score 100% with this product, it just goes to show you it helps. I mean, we come back strong, we come back healthy.
Danielle Bowser
We usually pick up some sort of a virus there and they come home exhausted, and they were not. As a matter of fact that day we got there, they were so full of beans that Kelly actually had to ride them. We generally don't like to have to do that when we haul over 15 hours. It's a good 17 hour trip for us out there.
Kelly Bowser
Right.
Danielle Bowser
It made a huge difference in their performance. We had a lot of friends coming up to us and discussed that we get Fort Smith because they're like, "And how many horses did you bring? And how many did you qualify? Okay, because I brought seven and I got one back." So I know these are specifically people that don't have their horses on Equinety, and I'm not saying it would have got all their horses back, but I just know our horses didn't show any fatigue and they didn't show any sickness. They were not tired when they came home. They went out bucking and kicking off the trailer and ...
John Dowdy:
Wow. Maybe we hope they won't be listening to this podcast.
Kelly Bowser
Yeah.
John Dowdy:
Well, that's something we hear a lot, too, being on this side, people that do haul a lot and road warriors. They've found that typically their horses would take two, three days to recover from the weekend just as you've described using the Equinety, you know they haul great. They're not nervous or stressed and they get back and it's like Monday they're ready to go, which is a little odd, I think, from what people are used to.
Danielle Bowser
It definitely is. Our one horse, our Dash Ta Fame, he had EPM at three, really badly. But we gelded him late, in the middle of his three year old year. He was down for about six weeks, at one point I thought we might lose him. With Dash Ta Fame horses, specifically, it seems like EPM is a real common affliction and he is six going on seven now, six and a half. He has not had to be retreated for EPM which is amazing to me, because he's a little bit of a hothead. He gets excited and he's been very successful. So he travels quite a bit. It's Ziggy. He has not had to be retreated for EPM.
John Dowdy:
That is amazing. You know, we've heard a lot of stories of how this Equinety product has really helped with EPM.
Danielle Bowser
Oh, really?
John Dowdy:
Yes, and along with PSSM, Cushing's, and IR, all of these types of things. I didn't know about the EPM with Ziggy before, so that's great that you mentioned that. So he's been on it for what? A little over two years now?
Danielle Bowser
Two and a half years.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, two and a half years, so would you even know he has EPM? I mean just ...
Danielle Bowser
No. I just went to the vet last week? Yeah, last week, went down to Woodland Run and I specifically asked him to do all the tests to see if the EPM had returned at all, especially because I just took him over a month ago. You know, that's a big stress-inducing thing for a horse, new methods and everything. Ziggy's really, he's just ...
Kelly Bowser
Fragile.
Danielle Bowser
Yes, he acts really fragile a lot. Obviously, he's not. But no sign of it whatsoever, not even to the point where the vet sometimes says, "Well, go ahead and treat him and see if he feels better." But, no.
John Dowdy:
That's incredible.
Danielle Bowser
Nothing at all.
John Dowdy:
Wow, well hopefully those listening in that are wondering if it works for EPM will get something out of that. That is quite incredible.
Danielle Bowser
Well, they can sure message us and ask us any questions that they want. I'd be more than happy to talk to anybody about it. You know, during our clinics we put on, it's the one supplement we promote because we believe in it. Our business really depends on peoples' opinions of us and our ethics and our truthfulness and we take that really seriously.
John Dowdy:
Absolutely.
Danielle Bowser
We don't promote anything we don't use ourselves and believe in.
John Dowdy:
It is at the end of the day your reputation is all you have, and we had no idea the product was going to work as well as has in the horse industry. We're very, very blessed as a company and we're blessed to have folks like you and Kelly onboard and representing product. So one last thing I want to bring up, because we haven't talked about it, every now and then on our side we'll get a phone call in and somebody will say, "Should I just use the Equinety while I'm trying to help my horse with this specific issue or is it a long-term product?"
John Dowdy:
So I know you had a situation where you had a horse that was on Equinety and tell us a little about that, the four year old.
Kelly Bowser
Well, I had a four year old this year and he was working pretty good, he wasn't a superstar, but he was a pretty nice colt. He tried really hard and when his tub run out, of course we don't make them, but we just suggest Equinety to customers. I don't know if they didn't have the money or what, but we stopped feeding it, and he wasn't focused.
Danielle Bowser
He got really hot.
Kelly Bowser
He got hot, like he'd mess up his first barrel, then I'd fix it, the next days it'd be the second barrel, then it might be the first, then the third. Every once in a while he'd come up sore too, it's just that his focus wasn't there. He didn't have a big talent, but he tried so hard. Equinety just helped him 100%. Like he'd just focus, he'd try to do stuff for you, and he didn't fight, he just tried to work for you. I mean, that stuff is just amazing.
Danielle Bowser
And we've since heard from the owner who took the horse home, because she wanted to ride him for a few months and see if she wanted to keep him and what she wanted to do. He's had a couple of soreness issues and in places that he shouldn't be hurting the way that she rides him. But he's never hurt him before when we had him.
John Dowdy:
Right.
Danielle Bowser
And also, he was a very hard keeper, because he was a very, very big horse. And that's the trouble with futurity horses. When they're smaller stature and they're proportionally growing, they seem to not have as many soreness issues. A lot of things are a lot easier for them. But when they're big and gangly they get sore a lot, they don't control their own body very well, they don't know where their feet are. So it's harder for them. This was the first year that we put one of those type horses on the Equinety. I just decided to do it, I didn't even ask the owner at first. I just decided to put the horse on it to help it out and Kelly noticed the difference right away.
Kelly Bowser
These people are good people, too, they want to do good just like us.
Danielle Bowser
They've put him on it now.
Kelly Bowser
Yeah.
Danielle Bowser
They put him back on it, so we'll see in a couple of weeks how he feels.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. Well that's the thing, too, when you look at all the things from horses coming out of surgery, or is injured, or in the one case had EPM to a performance horse that doesn't really have any issues, except you're looking for focus, recovery, and stamina. The amazing thing with the Equinety is that it helps in all these situations and we found a lot of times people their horses having whatever issues, they put them on the Equinety. Now, in their opinion, in their mind's eye, the dream horse, because now everything's going great. Then they'll think, "Well, maybe I don't need this Equinety, because my horse is doing fine." Then they take him off and then, "Where did this horse come from?"
John Dowdy:
But, again, the reason why that is is because we're helping increase those hormone levels which, ultimately, what that's doing it's keeping those cells working at their optimal levels and so the horse is balanced from the inside out. That's really amazing and with all the stuff that you guys have experienced and I can't think you enough for taking the time. I know you're very, very busy with all the things going on, so I really thank you guys for coming on and sharing your Equinety stories and all the things that's going on. I'm sure it's going to benefit a lot people that are tuning in and listening. So thank you, thank you, thank you.
Danielle Bowser
Thank you.
Kelly Bowser
We want to thank you, too, Mr. Dowdy. You seem like good people and know your products good. We just want to thank you very much for everything.
John Dowdy:
Well, it's the mutual admiration club, I guess, here at ...
Danielle Bowser
Well, we'd be happy to talk to anybody-
Kelly Bowser
Yeah, anybody.
Danielle Bowser
... anybody can give us a call or shoot me a message on Facebook, because to me we do this because we want to have fun. We want to come up with a smile on our face. Our horses are trying so hard for us. When they're not feeling good and they're not healthy, especially for a lot of beginners that don't know the ins and outs of how to protect their horse and where to take them to get them vetted. This is like the easiest solution to make your horse feel better and perform better right from the beginning. So we've been more than happy to talk to anybody and we're so grateful for your support.
John Dowdy:
Well, thank you guys and I couldn't have said it any better. That was brilliant, so thank you again. I really enjoyed having you guys on and so thank you, thank you.
Kelly Bowser
Thank you very much. Take care.
Danielle Bowser You're welcome, thank you.
John Dowdy: Okay, bye-bye.
Kelly Bowser Bye.
