John Dowdy:
Hello, and welcome to another Equinety podcast. This is your host, John Dowdy. This week, we're swinging up into Ohio. Our guest is Rachel Senft. She is a nurse for her day job and on the weekends typically running about three shows a month. Rachel, welcome to the Equinety podcast.
Rachel Senft:
Thanks for having me. I am really excited to tell the story about how it's helped all my horses, especially my oldest gelding.
John Dowdy:
Oh, that's awesome. Well, we're excited to have you on. Today we're going to be talking about four of your different horses. But before we do that, as I mentioned, you are a nurse. When you first saw the product, the Equinety product, and saw that it was all amino acids, what went through your head as you're looking for things for your horses and things like that?
Rachel Senft:
I was looking for something a little bit different than your traditional joint supplements, like your feed through stuff. There's some debate whether they're effective or not. We all know like the Adequan injections and stuff are super expensive. So I wanted to try something different to see if it really helped [inaudible 00:01:17].
Rachel Senft:
That's kind of how I got started on Equinety. A friend of mine had used it, and my older horse just wasn't looking very good. We were pumping the feed to him. I think I started him on it like around January. We were pumping the feed to him. He was kind of dull coated. He wasn't keeping a whole lot of weight. So we ended up putting him on Equinety and within a week noticed a big difference than him. He was always typically kind of hollowed out through the withers. That muscle mass increased, his coat got brighter, he just overall looked like a whole different horse, and that was only in like a matter of a week. By the end of the 30 day sample, he looked amazing. He was 15 then, he's 17 now. When people see him, they can't believe he's 17. He doesn't look it [inaudible 00:02:27].
John Dowdy:
Wow. That's great. Now you're using this horse as well as your other ones in the barrel racing world. You qualified for several things in the NBHA and the IBRA primarily where you're running. Give us a little bit of some of your accomplishments there.
Rachel Senft:
In 2017, I guess my biggest accomplishment would be I won my first saddles on my older horse. I ended up reserve ... state champion, and I was reserve state champion on the second horse that I trained by only like a couple points. So I was super excited. We had never won a saddle. I've gotten plenty of buckles, but that saddle was really, really a check off my bucket list.
John Dowdy:
So two of the horses that you trained, you won champion and reserve on both of them.
Rachel Senft:
Yup.
John Dowdy:
That's great.
Rachel Senft:
That champion reserve in the 3D and in our state, it's pretty salty. I'm running against [inaudible 00:03:39], all those guys. So it's not a walk in the park, per se.
John Dowdy:
Right, wow. And you train all of your horses?
Rachel Senft:
Yeah, we typically buy two-year-olds, and some of them aren't even broke, and we start them on our own. We trail ride them until they're about four or five-ish, just to get their heads mature. Then we take them and I start kind of playing with them and teaching them the barrel pattern. So by doing that, we create sound ... like they're structurally sound by the time they're four or five, they've got good heads on their shoulders, and through trail ridings and do different things, they usually are pretty good with their feet.
John Dowdy:
Right. Yeah, so even with the intense training and the long hours and weeks and months that it takes to get these horses where they need to be, you still were finding that prior to using the Equinety, sometimes they just maybe weren't filled out completely, or they look kind of dull, or there were some issues.
Rachel Senft:
Especially towards the end of the summer after running several shows ... you know, there's a lot of three day shows up here. Especially my older horse, he would actually get anemic. His hair coat would look dull, his eyes were dull, he just wouldn't fire. Since I've been using Equinety, I haven't had to do anything to build his blood back up or anything like that. We've leveled off on the amount of feed he gets, so we haven't had to increase or decrease what he gets fed, which is really nice, because he just getting fed a lot [crosstalk 00:05:41] his weight.
Rachel Senft:
Hauling and going several separate times a month, sometimes it can kind of stress him out. I have a horse that's a little bit more nervous. At times he can be kind of hot. Putting Jake on the Equinety has seemed like it's leveled out his temperament. He's very easy to get along with anymore. Not that he was hard to begin with, but he's just easier all around. He doesn't seem to get so stressed at the shows. You can pull in multiple weekends in a row and he's good with it.
John Dowdy:
Right. So I know from our standpoint, there's a few shows that we go to, and probably one of the most things that we hear the feedback is with a nervous horse or one that has a lot of anxiety. We've heard in as little as two to three days of being on the Equinety how much it's really just calming the horse down, just kind of takes the edge off and it. Maybe you can answer this, but from what we've heard, it doesn't take off ... I mean, they still want to do their job. They're still very, very focused. It just seems it kind of takes the edge off and they're just comfortable in their skin now. Is that what you would find?
Rachel Senft:
Yeah, I mean it really seems kind of like he would think too much, and it really kind of got his wheels between his ears to slow down, and he became more focused. He wouldn't get himself so hot at the gate that he'd blow a pattern or anything like that. He wasn't hard to get in the arena before, but he is a lot calmer when you're trying to get in the arena now. I've noticed a big difference as far as that goes with him. He still eats. He'll eat now on the three days shows. Before, he'd kind of go on and off his grain, he'd get super grumpy. He doesn't have any of those issues or anymore.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, fantastic. Now this one also had some hoof issues going on as well.
Rachel Senft:
Yeah, he's got the famous [inaudible 00:07:57] horse, white feet. We were kind of dealing with some foot issues. He had stuck his foot into something, and it looked like he literally [inaudible 00:08:09] part of it off. So we were having a hard time getting enough foot to grow to put a shoe back on him. I've noticed since he's been on the Equinety, we don't have that problem at all anymore.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. The hoof growth is probably one of the other things that we hear most often. That takes a little bit longer. I mean, although we've received a lot of feedback in as little as four to six weeks, you'll start seeing some nice hoof growth depending on the situation, but that's pretty amazing.
John Dowdy:
So let's get into your horse number three here, the red Roan. Tell us a little bit about this one and what was going on.
Rachel Senft:
She didn't look bad, but she didn't look as good as what she could. She didn't have that real soft hair coat or a real good shine to her coat. So we put her on it as well and it's dramatically changed like her appearance. She's super soft, and she's got this real pretty silvery burgundy coat on her now. She kind of in the winters, if she wasn't getting rode a lot, she would go off of her grain and lose some weight. Even when she goes off of her grain, she almost gets depressed when you don't ride her. Even when she goes off of her grain, she's holding her weight a little bit better.
John Dowdy:
Nice, nice.
Rachel Senft:
That's the biggest difference I've seen in the red Roan.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, yeah. When all those little things ... We have a lot of people that they have a horse that's in really great shape, there's nothing really wrong with them, per se, but the great thing with the Equinety is it seems to kick them up a couple of notches. And because of what it's doing, and I'll get a little bit more into this after we talk about your young horse here, but ultimately it's helping balance the body from the inside out. That's why it has all of these effects. But I'll get a little bit more into that before ... before we do that, I'll talk about your young horse here. What was going on with this one?
Rachel Senft:
I bought him as a three year old. He didn't look bad, but he didn't look as good as he could. I guess I'm kind of picky about how my horses look, because if they don't look good, more than likely they're not going to perform good for you, especially a young one that's learning. You don't want them to get sore, you want to help them as much as you can, especially in their growth stages.
Rachel Senft:
I've found with him ... He's been on it almost a year now. I bought him last October. Even in his growth stages where he gets all awkward, where his hip is higher than his withers, they tend to lose some weight. He hasn't, he's maintained. He's kicked out 24/7, so he's kind of sun bleached. He looked ... a sun bleached horse, they're not very shiny, they're not very soft, but he is super shiny even though he's pretty sun bleached from being out all day long. That's the biggest difference I've noticed that I've noticed in him, just his hair coat despite being outside all the time, and then he's not losing weight when he's in those awkward, gangly coat stages, but he kind of looks like a mature gelding.
John Dowdy:
All right. Wow. Yup, that is great. Well, I will just take a quick minute here to get into a little bit of what this Equinety stuff is. If it's your first time tuning in and you've heard these stories about four horses with, in this particular case, kind of four different issues going on, and how does this stuff help and all these scenarios.
John Dowdy:
First of all, the Equinety is 100% pure amino acids and there is no fillers, no sugars, no starches, and there's no loading dose. A serving size is 5.2 grams, which is not quite a tablespoon. Just use it as a top dressing and it's very palatable. Amino acids are typically salty by nature. So in the case that one of them snubs their nose at it, you can mix it with a little coconut oil or applesauce or syringe it. But it's not a long term thing, they'll typically just eat it right up.
John Dowdy:
But what's unique about the Equinety product is the amino acids are specifically formulated to stimulate the pituitary gland, which is the master gland in the body. That's what releases the necessary hormones that help heal at a cellular level.
John Dowdy:
So as Rachel mentioned earlier in the call, when she was sold a product and was specifically looking to possibly replace some things or see how this would compare to maybe a joint supplement ... When you have a horse with a joint issue, then you typically look at joint supplements or possible injections, or if you have hoof issues, you look at hoof supplements and creative shooing. So we're just trying to find a particular product to go after that specific problem.
John Dowdy:
The new thing with the Equinety product, it's very easy, it's simple, all of them get these exact same dosage, which is the one scoop. But because we're stimulating the pituitary gland to release the hormones, the body's deciding with pinpoint accuracy where to send those hormones for the healing. So it's customizing to each horse.
John Dowdy:
In this case, we're talking about four different horses. We've just kind of ran through each of the issues that they were having and how it helped. But what's really unique, Rachel, and you had mentioned this to me prior to us recording the podcast, is the commonalities that ... I mean, they seem to all have softer, shinier coats, their hooves are much stronger. And one of the things that you mentioned to me was, being these are performance horses, you were having to give injections. How often were you having to give injections, first of all before Equinety, and then after?
Rachel Senft:
My older horse, he's probably [inaudible 00:14:35] done at least probably twice a year. He's had some injuries, he tore his [inaudible 00:14:43]. I think he was like 12 when he tore his [inaudible 00:00:14:47]. He broke his leg as a four year old. He broke his [inaudible 00:14:52]. So because of those injuries, he needed a little bit more maintenance. It seems to me now that ... He's only getting in about once a year. It's stretched longer, I guess, not an every six months thing like it used to be. That really decreased my maintenance.
John Dowdy:
Right. Then one of the other things ... Well, let's finish that off. So were the other horses having to be injected as well, or was it just mainly the older one?
Rachel Senft:
The next oldest gelding, yeah. I had to have [inaudible 00:15:35] done every once in a while. It's been the same thing, too, he's gone longer. I think he went over a year without needing a [inaudible 00:15:45] done. He just gets in the ground and he turned super hard. You have to help them. They're performance horses. You've got to do what they ... if they need it, you've got to get it done if you want them to go and give you their life every weekend [crosstalk 00:00:16:00]. So I've found that I don't use as much maintenance. My chiropractor doesn't come out near as often. The horses are just healthier and happier.
John Dowdy:
Yup. No, that's a great way to put it. So the adjustments that they were having to have, they stay in alignment a lot longer because they are more balanced. Of course, with saying all of that ... and we're not saying from a company standpoint that the Equinety is the end all be all. You should definitely always consult with your medical team and your veterinarian. But you know, we're blessed to have a product that works so well in so many different scenarios. It is unique in the fact that it is helping to work at a cellular level. So when you're using it in combination with a good medical team, and a good foundation of a feeding program, and training, and the proper care and things, it really goes a long ways. So that's pretty awesome to hear how your kids are doing there.
Rachel Senft:
I definitely will not take them off of it. It's made a giant difference.
John Dowdy:
Wow. Yeah, that's great. Well, Rachel Senft from Ohio, I really appreciate you taking the time to be here on the Equinety podcast. Thank you so much. If there's anything that you could say to anybody that might be listening in for the first time and trying to figure out what this Equinety ... should they try it? Other than maybe the things that you've already said, would you have any advice before we sign off?
Rachel Senft:
The biggest thing is if you want the edge, if you want to run with the big dogs, you've got to treat your horses that way. So you have to take care of them. Equinety has definitely been a game changer as far as my maintenance program. It keeps their muscles tight and looking good. If you can keep the muscles tight, less injury, less chiropractic visits, and just a win-win situation for the horse and you.
John Dowdy:
Great. Yep, that is awesome. Well, Rachel, thanks again so much. We really appreciate you taking the time to be on the show.
Rachel Senft:
Thank you very much for having me.
John Dowdy:
You bet. All right. Bye bye.