Ashley Thompson – Multiple Horses – Navicular – Sidewall Issues – Knee Surgery – Young horses in training
John Dowdy:
Hello and welcome to this week's Equinety podcast. We are swinging up into the north part of the country, that would be Michigan. And we've got Ashley Thompson on the call this week. Ashley, welcome to the Equinety podcast.
Ashley Thompson:
Hi there. I'm so excited. How are you?
John Dowdy:
Doing very well. Thank you so much for taking the time. I'm really excited about having you on because, well, you got a lot going on.
Ashley Thompson:
We do.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. So let's get right into it. We're going to talk about four or five different horses on this call. And we're going to be talking about everything from navicular, side wall, recovery from knee surgery, just to overall conditioning focus, all kinds of good stuff.
But before we get into that, give us a little bit of your background. How long have you been riding, competing? What are some of your biggest accomplishments? Those types of things.
Ashley Thompson:
Well, I was raised in a horse family, so I have been riding and competing pretty much since I could sit on a horse. So for 20 some years now, and mainly now I just barrel race. Growing up we did roping and all sorts of things, but now we just run barrels. We raise and train our own horses.
And then recently we have taken on some outside horses for training. So we've been quite busy these last two years. My last two years have been very, I've had a mare that has been to us very spectacular and outstanding. So we've been on a roll so far these last few years.
John Dowdy:
Well tell us about that.
Ashley Thompson:
Well, as a security horse, she definitely just came on strong and she pretty much won or placed top three in every [inaudible 00:01:56] I took her to. And then we went to Congress and she won the sweepstakes in the Congress. And then she won that year at the BFA. She was third in the world for security horse BFA money earners. And she won the Future Fortunes Amateur at BFA.
And then she kind of just kept on rolling into the next year. We went back to Congress and she won Congress for the second year in a row. Don't quote us, but we have been told that there's only been two horses that have been able to do that. So that was exciting. And then she won, there is a Derby Amateur Finals at the BFA as well. So she's definitely been a rockstar.
John Dowdy:
Right. So when she gets off the trailer, does she strut around?
Ashley Thompson:
Oh yeah. She has very large confident personality. That's for sure.
John Dowdy:
Oh, that's funny. Everybody look at me. That's right. I'm the one.
Ashley Thompson:
Yes. She knows she is good. And it's definitely her world and you just abide pretty much by her world and her rules.
John Dowdy:
Oh, that's fantastic. Well, prior to us getting into the stories of these different horses, how did you come across the Equinety product to begin with? Now we have two products. We're specifically talking Equinety Horse XL because you have yet to try the second one, which is actually en route to you. So I might have to do an update on that one, but all these are-
Ashley Thompson:
Yes, I'm so excited to try that one.
John Dowdy:
Yeah.
Ashley Thompson:
So we had a horse and it kind of I guess just leads into one of my first things with Equinety, I guess. But we had a horse that I originally raised, sort of raised. I bought him as a two-year old, I trained him, and then we sold him. And then I had my daughter and she was two, so I needed to find her a PV horse. So we ended up buying him back and he had severe navicular, which is kind of one of the reasons why I bought him back because I knew he couldn't run off on my daughter.
So we bought him back and he was a little worse than we anticipated. So we were just trying products and things weren't working. And I was scrolling through Facebook and I seen the Equinety, so we thought we'd try it. And we noticed a huge difference in two weeks. So almost to the extreme of almost too good of a difference. So that's pretty much how. It was trial and error, scrolling through good old Facebook.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. That has worked very well for us. So how long have you been using the product on that horse?
Ashley Thompson:
On that horse, we pretty much, we got him back and I think we had it for a month and we started using it. So we've been using Equinety now for, gosh, probably four and a half years now.
John Dowdy:
That's been since almost the beginning of Equinety. We've just been around for a little over five years, so that's pretty awesome.
Ashley Thompson:
Yeah.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. So after four and a half years, so still on product, still doing great?
Ashley Thompson:
Well, that horse we no longer have. But we have one of our other horses, we have had her on it for probably three years and she's on it, she's doing great. Some of them we've had on it and it's fixed the issues we started with, but we just keep it on them for maintenance or preventative. So we see huge difference in it.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. Now, going back to the navicular horse. So when you brought the horse back, so you had mentioned that she was worse than when you sold. So in a matter of a couple weeks, you noticed just a significant difference in just overall, the soundness, everything?
Ashley Thompson:
Oh my gosh, it was huge. So, when we got him, we knew that he was navicular. It's something he kind of just grew into. And so when we got him, my daughter, kind of, we were lead lining her, trotting around and he could hardly trot. So my husband and I were like, "Ooh, we can't really take him anywhere in public.”
So we started trying things. We tried Equinety and in two weeks at a trot, his gimp, I call it, was pretty much gone. Like he just trotted. If you didn't know he had navicular, you would not know it by watching him. And then probably, I'm going to say, 30 days into it, he didn't have a gimp at all anymore. No head bob, no nothing.
John Dowdy:
Wow.
Ashley Thompson:
He started going back to playful bucking and just being young and youthful again. We kind of actually took him off of it because he started feeling a little too good for our daughter. So we'd put him on it for a little while, get him back I say sound again and get everything good and then he'd get happy and playful and healthy again.
So then we'd take him back off it and have him be a little bit more better for her because at that time she was a year and a half or two, so we didn't need anything too extravagant.
John Dowdy:
Sure. Now I think it's important to point out what's going on there from a scientific level. So if you're tuning in, maybe you're dealing with some navicular issues. It's probably one of the most common things. Although I say that and hoof issues are by the hundreds, if not thousands, testimonials coming in. I mean all kinds of issues, but navicular, this has worked very, very well with navicular horses.
And of course keeping in mind, this is a supplement and if things are too far down the path, well, there might be really not anything that would help. But for the most part, this has really, really been beneficial for navicular horses. And as you were saying, you would put the horse on and they're feeling really good and so you take them off and then they go back to kind of be in gimpy again.
So what's going on there from a scientific level. These amino acids are specifically formulated to give the body what it needs to stimulate the pituitary gland, which is the master gland in the body. And that's what releases the necessary hormones, which then help the body repair at the cellular level.
So when you give the product, say in the morning, the hormones are released and then they have a 23 and a half hour life cycle. So by the time you give it the next morning, the hormone levels are back to where they would normally be for that age of a horse and that's why you give the product every day.
So over time what you were noticing in this case, the horse is feeling really good, youthful, and that's where the bucking and playing and stuff's coming in. So it's not a medication, it's not something loaded with caffeine or anything like that to make the horse hot. They just feel good because their cells are now operating at their optimal levels.
So now if you stop giving the product and the hormone levels just go back to the way they were, and so that's where the gimpyness was starting to come back in and things like that.
So anybody tuning in, that'll give you a bit of a more insight of really what's going on there. But we have people every now and then like, "Oh, well I was giving the product for two or three months. I didn't notice anything." And then they stopped giving it and all of a sudden, now they've noticed when they stopped giving it. So you might even have some examples of that as well. So-
Ashley Thompson:
Yeah. It is amazing. Like you're around them all the time, so you notice the change. But then after they've changed, that'd be like sometimes you don't notice they keep getting better until you take it off and we're like, "Oh, this isn't working." And then you cold turkey it, and then you're like, "Oh yeah, that was working."
John Dowdy:
Yeah. So awesome. So that was your first horse with the navicular. The second one, a mare with some side wall things going on. Tell us about that one.
Ashley Thompson:
Yes. So we had a mare. We purchased her young and it's due to some faulty [inaudible 00:10:15]. We had some farrier issues ourselves too. And so we just had her kind of kept coming up a little off, a little off, a little off. So we had some X-rays done of her feet. And she had some side wall issues going on.
So because we had such great luck with Equinety for the first horse, like, hey, this stuff is, I call it magic in the jar. But this stuff is just amazing. Let's just try that. So we did that and six months later, she just progressively got better.
She was never not sound. For me, I could just tell because I work her and ride her ever day and I've known her for so long. She was just a tick off. And then after six months of being on it, we had her re X-rayed and all the issues she had in her foot with the side wall was just gone.
John Dowdy:
Holy smokes.
Ashley Thompson:
And that was the only thing that we changed, was just adding that to her daily feed.
John Dowdy:
Now you were giving her two scoops a day, correct?
Ashley Thompson:
Yes. So with her, we gave two scoops. Like we're trying this and I think I read somewhere about, you could do two scoops. I'm like, all right, we're going to have this mare, she actually was real special. She was my first security horse, just things like that, sentimental reasons.
And I'm like, she's worth the extra scoop. So we gave her two scoops in the morning, every morning. And then, like I said, in six months when we had her re X-rayed, because we were around that same vet again. And it was just gone. It was amazing.
John Dowdy:
Wow. Do you remember what the vet had to say about that?
Ashley Thompson:
He was just like, "You quit your farrier?" And I said, "Well, we did and we actually removed her shoes." We just said weird things and he's like, "No, don't do that." And we took her shoes off because I wasn't doing much with her at that time.
And I'm like, "Well, we just started feeding her this supplement," and he's like, "Oh," kind of rolled his eyes at it. I told him what it was. And he's like, "Oh, I've heard real good things." So he did know about it and his attitude changed a little bit when we told him what it was. He said he heard good things about that. So that was nice. But it was funny. His first response was like, "Oh supplement, huh?"
John Dowdy:
Another supplement, yes.
Ashley Thompson:
Yes.
John Dowdy:
That's awesome. Okay. Let's get into the third one here, which had some knee surgery going on. What was-
Ashley Thompson:
Yes.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. Tell us about that one.
Ashley Thompson:
So I had a mare that just had some slight little knee issues, nothing that affected her performance in any way. But we just wanted it for her longevity of her and hoping to run her for a long time. We decided to go ahead and do a knee surgery on her, just to clean some things up. And we got her back from the knee surgery and oh my gosh, I about cried.
They were big, both knees were huge. They were real lumpy. I've had a knee surgery, so I know my knee doesn't look the same, but I guess I just wasn't envisioning her knee looking like that.
So as soon as I got her back, we put her on two scoops in the morning. And gosh, I would say within 14 to 20 days, her swelling in her knee went down. The majority of the lumpy bumpy stuff in her knees has gone away. She's still got a few, but for the outside person to look at her, they look almost normal. I would say they'd gone down in half. Like they were massive when I picked her up. So that's been huge in that aspect, like we've just seen it work in so many different ways
John Dowdy:
Sure. Now for anyone tuning in and just hearing the story about the knee surgery and how swollen it was and then you skip forward X amount of weeks and the swelling's down. It's like, well, you could think, well of course it's going to go down because it's healing. I mean, that would be a logical thing to think of. However, we hear this question that I'm going to ask you next. And we hear this in every single case that I know of where we're talking about a horse with surgery or healing from an injury when they're using the Equinety Horse XL. Did this horse heal ahead of schedule?
Ashley Thompson:
Yes. I was able to get back on her and working, riding, running conditions two weeks early. And that was just me doing nothing. I mean, we cold hosed and the vet didn't even say we needed to do that, but that was literally with nothing else. Just the Equinety and cold hosing.
And I sent the videos to my vet and I was like, "Hey, this is how she's acting in the field. Do you think I can get back on her?" And he calls me and he's like, "Ask me if early, is there heat?" I'm like, "Nope, there's no heat." He's like, "See how she acts tomorrow when you turn her out.”
So I sent him the video the next day of her being turned out, fucking being ridiculous, running, pivoting, spinning. And he's like, "All right, I guess you can go ahead and get on her, but just pay attention to her knees.”
And he called me two days later and he's like, "How's it going?" I'm like, "She has never felt this good. She just feels great." He's like, "Is there heat? Is there swelling?" I'm like, "No, my swelling's cut in half. There is no swelling, no heat.”
So he was just astonished by the fact that I was able to get on her. We were kind of already pushing it for when our set date to ride was. And then when we decided, okay, we're going to try it. And we're two weeks ahead of that already pushing it date, he just could not believe that.
John Dowdy:
Which, and again, that's very, very common. But again, the product is giving the body what it needs to help repair. And so it seems to speed everything up. So getting into the last couple of horses, which really don't have any issues, but what are you looking for? Or what were you looking for? What made you decide to put them on, these other horses that didn't really have any issues going on?
Ashley Thompson:
So we deal a lot with colt babies that we're hauling all over the place and just kind of putting them in stressful, overwhelming situations I guess. You try to prepare them, but it doesn't always work that way. So we actually started kind of Guinea pigging it on some colts for just their focus. We don't want to drug them, but we want to give them something just to help them. It's like focus, you're here to do your job, but stay calm.
And the first two babies, we put that on, it was huge. To not have to drug them and just be something you put in their feed that does not take away from their run or their athletic ability. It just really helps them, I [inaudible 00:17:27]. But it just helps that.
So after those first two that we put on it, we were just kind of like, all the horses are getting it, babies, old horses. And that's kind of how we just put everybody on it and kind of see where it works on each individual horse. Some have issues and others don't have issues, but we still see it do something in everything we've put it in their feed.
John Dowdy:
Sure. And we have a lot of people that do use it just as a preventative, for just the overall preventative, but also focus, stamina. How have you noticed the recovery after you're working them out and training them and doing things like that and just the recovery aspect?
Ashley Thompson:
Well, as far as stamina and recovery, it's a huge difference. Because I feel like every barrel racer, they always have to change things up and do things different. So I have had a couple where I've had it on them or had them on the Equinety and then like, even though I've seen huge difference on horses with issues, so I'll take it off. I won't feed it to them and I'm not kidding you, like night and day difference. It's like, oh, they need back on that.
You just see as their standard. I mean, their workouts remain the same with or without Equinety. Their cool down and their recovery is the same with or without Equinety. But you just notice a much larger difference when they're on it compared to not, it's just hard to explain.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. Well, and even getting into, again, going back to just the science aspect again. Equinety Horse XL, 100% pure amino acids. There's no fillers, no sugars, no starches. And there's no loading dose. So-
Ashley Thompson:
Yes, which is fantastic.
John Dowdy:
Yes. So what-
Ashley Thompson:
Because then you're not having to mark on your calendar like, okay today is the end of two weeks. And then you got to start doing this and then you got to do that. So it's just fantastic to open it and feed it.
John Dowdy:
Yes. Now, of course, we're going back four and a half years here, but when you open the tub and there's that tiny little scoop, which is 5.2 grams, like around a teaspoon. What was your thought on that?
Ashley Thompson:
I think my original reaction, I always tell my husband and I was like, there's no way this tiny little scoop once a day is going to do anything. Do you know how big that horse is? This tiny little scoop is going to do something? I think that was my words to him was like, once a day, no loading dose, and this scoop's tiny.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. And what we-
Ashley Thompson:
And then I remember thinking, okay, I'm going to feed more. This tub is not going to last me that long.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. That's funny. Well, we get a lot of people say, "Oh, well I have a mini, that's 350 pounds. What's the dose?" Or, "I've got a draft horse, 2200 pounds. What's the dose?" It's the same dose, just the tiny little scoop. And again, the reason-
Ashley Thompson:
Which is-
John Dowdy:
Yeah, go ahead.
Ashley Thompson:
It's fantastic. Because again, kind of back to, we don't feed a lot of supplements. Like we're busy, my husband and I both have full time jobs. We have two kids and then, we raise and train our own horses, plus we have outside horses. So I always joke, when I hear my friends feed all this stuff I'm like, I am not a scientist. I just want to feed my horse and be done.
So it's amazing that everybody, no matter the size of the horse, age of the horse, the issue of the horse, it's all the same. So everybody just gets a scoop. You don't have to measure things out or weigh things out. It just makes things easy.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, it definitely does. So I touched up on this earlier and well, actually, as you said, you said this has been a game changer for your whole program with your busy lives and everything you're doing. You don't have to think about anything. You just give everybody a scoop, or in some cases you're giving two scoops.
But again, the reason why this product helps in so many different ways is because we're targeting the pituitary gland, which is the master gland in the body. That's what releases the hormones that are repairing. And since we're giving the body what it needs to release its own hormones, it's that horse's body, it's sending its own hormones to the problem areas.
So that's why it can help with navicular, side wall, recovering from a surgery, focus, stamina, fast recovery with horses that don't have any other issues but they're athletes, their soft tissue, all that kind of stuff. So we're blessed because it's one of the reasons I started the podcast, just to get these stories out there. It's pretty amazing, almost sounds too good to be true, so.
Ashley Thompson:
It is. Especially after that first horse, I'm like well, I mean. And then we did it on the second horse and the vet looks at me after taking the X-rays and was like, what'd you do? I just had a scoop, a little tiny scoop of powder. And it's amazing. Each horse you put it on, like I said, whether they have issues or no issues, you see something. Whether it be their focus, their stamina, their recovery, you're seeing it do something in that horse.
And then you second guess yourself and you take them off it and you're like, no, put them back on. It for sure, every horse we have gets it, at least one scoop. The ones that have leg issues or feet issues or whatever, they get the two scoops. But-
John Dowdy:
The special ones.
Ashley Thompson:
Yes, the special ones. My husband would appreciate that. He calls them the more expensive ones, so special works.
John Dowdy:
Ah, yes. No, they're special, not more expensive.
Ashley Thompson:
Yes.
John Dowdy:
Now I didn't ask you this question before, so I'm going in blind here. But since you've been using the Equinety products, would you say that overall you are saving money and this might be even a little leading, but we typically hear people are saving 20 to 40% in medical and or other supplements, possibly even feed bill. Do you find-
Ashley Thompson:
Oh, huge.
John Dowdy:
You find about the same?
Ashley Thompson:
Yes. Like I said, we raise and train, so we see the babies transition from babies to that uglier stage where they're growing. And we have found that when you put them on it a little bit younger, that they just kind of tend to keep more prettier bodies, I guess. Like they kind of stay a little bit more filled out, their hair coat stays a little bit better. So even at a young age, they just stay, not in that ugly [inaudible 00:24:20] as we call it.
And there's certain issues like that horse with navicular, we were doing everything we could do for him. He had already the special shoes. He had already all the maintenance he could have. So it was pretty much you just deal with what you had and then we put him on the Equinety and you almost didn't need that much.
So things like that, you go from having a horse that could barely trot. And if he did, it wasn't for very long to a horse that I could get on and go back to running barrels on. So I think it just helped tremendously, whether it be saving the horse practically, or just your vet bills and your maintenance alone to keep your horse that's special that you're trying to keep sound. That is a lot cheaper than even walking in a vet clinic.
John Dowdy:
Yes it is. So that's awesome. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to share these stories. Outside of everything that we've talked about, if there's somebody kind of tuning in for the first time and there might still be a little bit on the fence, is there anything that you would say to them to maybe just get them to give it a try?
Ashley Thompson:
Gosh, I feel like it's definitely a product that speaks for itself. Like you get the little, I think you call it the sample container, the 30 day container of that. And I mean, if you don't see difference in 30 days, I feel like I'm not sure there would be much that could [inaudible 00:25:56] to be honest.
We've just tried. So being in the horse industry for so long and growing up in it, you try and you experiment and you do, and you inject and you do all these things. Which are not saying any of which are bad, but when you can just give one scoop of something, I feel like a lot of non barrel racing husbands would appreciate just that one scoop rather than trying to mix and match. So I [inaudible 00:26:24].
John Dowdy:
Well, we lost the cell service there just briefly. If you'll just repeat that last part there.
Ashley Thompson:
I said, I feel like whoever doesn't jump on the bandwagon, if you want to call it a bandwagon, is crazy. Because I think it for sure speaks for itself. And that first two weeks, 30 days, you're for sure seeing a huge difference. I mean, I would say probably total we've had probably over 20 horses on it and every horse I've seen it do something. So for us, it's been huge.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, absolutely. I would say, I'll go conservative here, but I would say 99% of people would see changes or should see changes in 30 days or less. I mean, the product starts working in 24 hours. There are those times where people have said, well, we didn't notice a difference until the fourth month and that's going to happen I suppose. But I'd say the vast majority is very, very quick. So, awesome.
Ashley Thompson:
Yes. I don't think any of ours, by any of the issues or just trying to maintain things, I think we notice a difference in every single one of them by that 30 day mark. It was huge. Especially if you can video, so that way you yourself can remind of like, okay, this is what the horse used to look like, or used to do. And then you look back and you're like, is it working? And then you look back on those videos and you're like, okay, it is incredible.
John Dowdy:
Yep. That's proof in the pudding right there. So, awesome. Well, Ashley, thank you so much. Ashley Thompson out of Michigan. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your stories here on the Equinety podcast.
Ashley Thompson:
No problem, I appreciate it.
John Dowdy:
All right. You bet. Thank you. Bye.
Ashley Thompson:
Thank you. Bye.
