Jenn Van Booven – Founder – thin soles - thin walls – Cribber – Ulcers
John Dowdy:
Hello and welcome to this week's Equinety Podcast. We're swinging out into the show me state of Missouri. We've got Jenn Van Booven on the call this week. Jenn, welcome to the Equinety Podcast.
Jenn Van Booven:
Hi, thanks for having me.
John Dowdy:
Well, it's always a pleasure and we're going to be talking about three different horses today. Getting into founder, thin walls, cracked hooves, one with a cribber, ulcers, high strung, so different ages from six to nine to 17. So Equinety Horse XL and Equinety Ultimate OEC are only two products that we're going to be talking about. We'll talk about the issues that were going on with your horses, how you found the Equinety Horse XL because that's what you started with initially and then later you added the Ultimate OEC. So before we get into that, give us a little bit of your background and yeah, let's just start there.
Jenn Van Booven:
Okay. So I am, of course, from Missouri. I generally enjoy the training process of horses, but I do barrel, right? My main focus though, is getting them to that point to go on with in the barrels. I don't really consider myself an intense competitor because I enjoy just getting them to that point. But that's my main thing as far as horses go. I'm pretty lowkey horse owners. Just try to do the right thing for them and make them good contributing members of society, really.
John Dowdy:
Yes.
Jenn Van Booven:
And then as far as what I do for work, I used to be an esthetician and nail tech for 10 years. And then I actually got into doing custom metal signs using a plasma cutter with a CNC router because my husband's in heating and cooling. And so, I just work from home now.
John Dowdy:
Yes.
Jenn Van Booven:
Yeah, kind of a flip flop for a different world-
John Dowdy:
Yeah, no doubt.
Jenn Van Booven:
But it's fun.
John Dowdy:
So before you were caring for the nails, now you got to watch him as you're running the [crosstalk 00:02:16].
Jenn Van Booven:
Right. Yeah, exactly.
John Dowdy:
Exactly. Okay. Well, let's get into... We're going to be talking about three horses. Let's first start off with Maverick who is a six year old and I hear you can win horses just from a drawing. Is this true?
Jenn Van Booven:
Yeah, you just buy random draw spot on Facebook for some of these horses and sometimes it just works in your favor.
John Dowdy:
Well, tell us about this little guy.
Jenn Van Booven:
So actually he's a really big guy. He's very bred quarter horse and he's probably 16.2 hands.
John Dowdy:
Oh wow, fellow.
Jenn Van Booven:
He's massive, massive, massive horse, big bone, and just really pretty. He's that iconic like Disney princess horse, black with a white wave and so of course, he catches my eye. I need him.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, and so why not win a free horse in a drawing?
Jenn Van Booven:
Right. Right. So yeah, he's great. Great temperament. He was actually sent to the track as a two year old and he wasn't very successful at it. And then there's about two year gap in his storyline where we just don't know much about him. I think he was turned out to pasture. And then the girl that I won him from bought him [inaudible 00:03:45] on scene and came to her with some hoof problems that she did some interrogating and found that he had a one degree rotation in his foot that was just making him a little bit off while she rode him.
Jenn Van Booven:
And then, that's where... She really didn't want to deal with the maintenance of keeping that wedge shoe and things like that go into a specific barrier that could do that for her. So that's why she listed him for sale and landed in my lap. So then of course, I started doing a little bit more digging on what I could do for him to make this a little bit better problem, even for the barrier.
John Dowdy:
So, as you went along, what are some of the issues that were popping up and things that you were finding along the way?
Jenn Van Booven:
The main thing with him was... Talking to my theory, was he had no sole. There was hardly anything to even pack a shoe on with to keep a wedge on or just to get him to a comfortable point. There was not a lot we could even work with. So I was digging on how to get the hoof grow. And I've always used supplements that have a lot of biotin in it to get it to grow but I was finding that yeah, it helps the hoof wall grow out, but structurally it wasn't what I wanted. It wasn't what I needed. I needed more internally for him because with him being such a big guy, it seemed like it was more about his metabolism, and of course not having a workload because he was uncomfortable on his foot. So I just needed to find something that was a little bit more cellular, more internal than it was just hoof wall.
John Dowdy:
Right.
Jenn Van Booven:
You know what I mean?
John Dowdy:
Yup, yup. So how quickly... So you started on the Horse XL or were you on the hunt for a product or something different than what you've been using and that's how you came across the Horse XL?
Jenn Van Booven:
Yep. I was just looking for other things and of course I'm a trier, so I'll read through ingredients for the most part. I have a good understanding of what most of them do. But as far as the results, I was just looking for something a little bit more. And it seems like with biotin, you just have to wait so long to see the results because of course it doesn't really affect anything until you see that new growth. So with the slow results, I'm like, "Nah, I need something more."
Jenn Van Booven:
So what I really liked about the XL too was the fact that there was no starches and sugars because my other horses of course has ulcers and things like that, that you want to stay away from as well. So this was my first, like, "You know what? I'm going to give this a shot, and we'll see how long it takes. I've got the time." Because it's either going to be that or biotin that I know is going to take a long time. So that's why I dove into the XL.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. And then, so how long did it take before you started seeing results?
Jenn Van Booven:
I had him on the XL, my farrier came out and then I started him that day on the XL. It came in... In the mail. So then my farrier's scheduled every six week. And then at the next six week, my farrier commented how much better we had hoof. He had so much more work with. Sole was much more grown in. There was that white line that they use for the nails was much, much secure. He had a lot more to work with there too. And when he had come out, his shoes had only stayed on about two weeks. And then the next shoe in that he had, they stayed on four weeks. So there was a lot more there too that was working in our favor as well. And that was the only thing that I had changed in his diet too, was just adding that XL to his feed.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, so was that pretty common with him up to that point? Holding shoes for about two weeks and that was about it?
Jenn Van Booven:
Yep.
John Dowdy:
Yep.
Jenn Van Booven:
That was it. That's all we got.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. So the only thing you changed was adding the Horse XL and then, it stayed on for four weeks the next time.
Jenn Van Booven:
Right. Right.
John Dowdy:
Are they staying on longer now that has been what about three months?
Jenn Van Booven:
Yes, but now we're having a whole another episode with... Maverick got injured and got ran into a stall door and of course opened his shoulder up and we had to do stitches. Now he's been on stall rest and been on dry ground. And so we got a little bit scenario.
John Dowdy:
Yes, what would you expect from a free horse?
Jenn Van Booven:
Yeah, I got to pay for it somehow.
John Dowdy:
No doubt. Now, you brought up something interesting before and I would like to go a little bit more into depth on that because it'll tie right into the next horse with, that's kind of battle vertical cracks in the hooves and thin walls and things. So with your background of being in the nail business on the human side, give us your knowledge of biotin, just in general and what exactly that's doing, when you would recommend it and those types of things. And then that can translate over into the hoof walls and the hooves generally.
Jenn Van Booven:
Sure. So when I was doing nails for people, women in general, a lot of times, they want their nails to grow out. And a lot of the struggle that people would have would be their nails chipping and things like that, especially, but they would blame products that we put on it. I would tell them, I'm like, "Okay, I think we have more of an internal factor here because when nails have ridges, that shows that there's something more going on. And then of course, when you get a ridge, then you get a weak point. And then once they get grown out to a certain point, they're just going to chip. They don't have any structure."
Jenn Van Booven:
So initially biotin is always what we would prescribe to get nails to grow out a lot faster. Hair, skin, nails, you always link with biotin. But I would ask them a little bit more questions about what they have going on internally. And it seemed like anytime anybody would be on antibiotics, that's where you would see a nail. Anytime anybody would change even their diet, you would get a ridge and then you just get this downfall over and over again through their nails. So until they would actually get something balanced internally to find that actual deep structure from where the nail is growing out, you wouldn't actually get a healthy nail. So yes, the biotin helped it grow, but until we actually targeted the internal factor, we weren't ever going to get that healthy nail consistently.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. That actually makes a lot of sense. And when you understand what the Equinety Horse XL is doing, and for those who are tuning in, what the Equinety Horse XL is, it's a hundred percent pure amino acids. There's no fillers, no sugars, no starches and there's no loading dose. A serving size is 5.2 grams, which is about like a teaspoon. Just put it right on top of the horse's feed. And what's really interesting with this product is it doesn't fit into a specific supplement category. In other words, it's not "a hoof supplement" and it's not a "joint supplement" or a calmer or muscle builder or shiny coat or soft tissue, or is not really fitting into any one of those. What it's specifically designed to do is give the body what it needs to help release its own repairing hormones from the pituitary gland. And when you can do that, have the body release its own hormones. It's the body that sends its own hormones to its own problem areas. And this is why it helps in so many ways.
John Dowdy:
And being on the market now for about seven... Well, right at seven years, the hoof growth, hoof sole depth is one of the many, many benefits that you get out of this product. And one of the things I like about these podcasts, and in this case, we're talking about three different horses and the third horse has great feet. So that's not where the horse needed or needs any help with, but by giving them the product, it helped in a lot of other ways and so which we'll get into that. So that's a little background of the product, what it's doing. Just one scoop a day is perfectly fine. Scoop in the morning as an example, it absorbs really quickly and those hormones are released and the hormones have a 23 and a half life cycle. So what that means is, is if you give a scoop in the morning and then you give a scoop the following morning, the natural hormone release.
John Dowdy:
Those hormones are back to where they would normally be for that age of a horse. And so a lot of times, especially with working performance horses or a horse that's injured, and you're trying to bring back from her recovery, scoop in the morning and a scoop in the evening will help speed up that recovery time because you're keeping the hormone levels elevated. So, that's all the nitty gritty behind the Equinety Horse XL. And in this first example, we were talking about a foundered horse, then sole, just in this... Well, from the time the figure was there and then six weeks later, there was already huge difference just in those six weeks. So let's get into the next horse who's 17 by the name of Oakley. Tell us about this one.
Jenn Van Booven:
So Oakley, I've had him for 10 years. He's also an off the track horse. Bred wise, he's probably a horse away from being considered appendix. So he's got a lot of thoroughbred in him, which is known for having very finicky hooves and needs that perfect... Everything needs to be perfect for his hooves to being perfect and that's not Missouri weather. We've got mud and then we've got dry. We've got, it's just flip flop, back and forth. And it takes a toll on his feet really, really bad every year, especially in the fall. Once we come out of the dry weather and then go into the wet fall weather, that's where the cracks come in and I almost have to stop riding them because I'm afraid they're just going to fall apart. And so of course my farrier is doing all he can to create more structure for his hoof too and that's where I've of course used lots of different hoofs supplements for him to try to prevent it. And then of course, once the cracks start happening and try to help it grow out as fast as we can too.
Jenn Van Booven:
So with him, of course, since I already got the XL for Maverick, the six year old, of course, I'm just going to go ahead and give it to Oakley as well. Actually, the vertical cracks in his hooves right now are really pretty good. They're superficial all the time. There's no real deep, deep fissures until that late fall and that's when I worry about them. But right now there's just a real thin line that we're really maintaining and I think the XL has been a big part of that. But he also has injured himself somehow or another and has a horizontal crack right along the coronary band. And that happened right when I started feeding him the XL as well.
Jenn Van Booven:
I went ahead and I'm like, "Okay, we've got this XL going. I want to go ahead and document and monitor what's happening here." And I went ahead and took a picture. It was probably a week after I initially found the horizontal crack by his heel, and then took it again in three weeks before he was due for his next shoeing. And it had already grown out an inch, maybe an inch and a quarter downward. It hadn't been expanding across or anything like that. You can also see ridges in his foot, where I changed his supplement as well. So you can even see the change in his diet as far as that goes too. So his feet, of course, we're in maintenance mode. We're maintaining, but it hasn't been getting worse where for some reason, Missouri in July has been a swamp. So at this point I would have expected his feet to be falling apart, but they are really maintaining that structure that we need for him, especially at 17 years old.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, no doubt. Well, and I've got these pictures that you sent over to me. It is incredible in just three weeks, how far that crack has gone down. Like you said, an inch and a quarter, and I'll post this on our website at teamequinety.com. We have a link on there for our podcast. So I'll post this picture in the transcription of the podcast, so people can get a look of it, but it's quite impressive.
Jenn Van Booven:
Yeah.
John Dowdy:
Yeah.
Jenn Van Booven:
I was really excited to get to monitor that portion too, because a lot of the times you kind of just go along with, is it working? But that line for sure was a good marker to really tell what that supplement was doing for him.
John Dowdy:
Yep, that's right. Now, going back to your farrier, who now has witnessed two different horses and seems to be on the impressed side, anytime they have something to work with. And I tell people all the time, "This Equinety Horse XL, it's not a miracle supplement. However, it has shown to do some pretty miraculous things."
Jenn Van Booven:
Right.
John Dowdy:
The one example I give is, you could have the best farrier on the planet standing in front of your horse, but if there's nothing to work with, what are you supposed to do? And I know in our conversation, your comments to him is well, just do whatever you can. I mean, what else are they supposed to do, right? And so by adding the Equinety Horse XL, we just seen it time and time and time again. It's giving the body what it needs to help repair itself from the inside out. And so it's going to help get that stronger, healthier, faster growing hoof, sole depth and everything, which Ultimately is giving your farrier more to work with in a shorter amount of time.
Jenn Van Booven:
Right.
John Dowdy:
And so, it's great for that benefit. There's so many other benefits along with it as well that's just in these two examples with the hoof quality. So let's get into the third one here who has great feet, but has other things going on.
Jenn Van Booven:
Yes. So Brother is a nine year old and he's another off the track quarter horse, but he's intense. Like his energy is just so high all the time. He's a cribber, he's not buddy sour, but he's buddy dependent, that's what I call him. So when you take a horse away from him, he just gets flustered. He doesn't do anything really stupid, but he'll weave a little bit and he'll start sweating. He's very ulcer prone and all of those things that go along with that type of hot blooded horse. So he just needs calm. Everything for him is just targeted towards calm down.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, that's interesting. As we were talking before we were recording the podcast, you had been giving the Equinety Horse XL for a good couple of months, but you weren't really doing a lot of work with them. So it's not that you noticed a lot of stuff, but he also was prone to coughing and different things. So was it at that point, you decided to add the Equinety Ultimate OEC?
Jenn Van Booven:
Yeah. So before working with Brother, because he's high energy, he needed a lot more intense training as well. And so, on those days that it'd be hot or anything like that, I would find that he had a hard time catching his breath and he would cough. I couldn't really targeted if it was just dusty arena or if we have more underlying, maybe he's a bleeder, things like that type of issues. So then of course the spring time, we had a big low in my writings because life, hidden baseball and everything like that. But when I would bring him out to work him, of course, I had to work him hard because it was fewer and far between works and things like that, but he wouldn't cough. I can just pick up to the next drill or whatever we needed to do because he was catching his breath so much faster as well.
John Dowdy:
True.
Jenn Van Booven:
So conditioning-wise, he wasn't in super shape to make up for that recovery rate. So I was like, "You know what? I think it's the supplement." And actually, I looked into the OEC because of the colloidal silver, and I knew just with background of ingredient knowledge, how much healing effects it had. And with him having ulcers, I really wanted a product that had that particular ingredient in it. Then of course, the vitamin E is just another bonus for immune support for him as well. So I was really excited to start incorporating that with him too. And just noticing the difference in his mental capacity of being calm without his buddies around, a lot more focused when I did work him, he's kind of one of those that you almost think his feet just work faster than his mind, and I found that he was just a lot easier to work through with drills. We didn't have to come back, like calm down, come to me or anything. You just work through it, not get all flustered and things like that with him as well.
John Dowdy:
Sure. Yeah. I would say that's pretty common feedback we've received with horses that have stress, anxiety, or a bit spooky. Even with the... Using the Horse XL, the amino acids, we've heard of complete demeanor changes in as little as two or three days. Some of the other things that we've getting a lot of feedback by adding the Ultimate OEC, the horses are doing great on the Equinety Horse XL, but maybe they still have a cough or they're tying up or they didn't want to drink while they're being hold. And when they added the Ultimate OEC to it, these two products, the combination just seemed to be the missing puzzle piece.
John Dowdy:
Being on the market for seven years with the Equinety Horse XL, about three years ago, Dr. Bruggen, who's out of Arkansas, a mobile vet out there, he absolutely loved the Equinety Horse XL and had been using it for about a year. And he calls me up and he says, "Hey, have you ever thought about coming out with another product?"
John Dowdy:
And I said, "Well, not for the sake of coming out with one, it would have to make sense with what we have and work with what we have. The Horse XL is just amazing."
John Dowdy:
And he says, "Yeah, that makes sense." He goes, "Well, here's what I have in mind. I like oils."
John Dowdy:
"Are you serious right now? You obviously know how many oils are on the market."
John Dowdy:
He goes, "I know."
John Dowdy:
He goes, "But nothing like what I have in mind."
John Dowdy:
And I said, "All right, okay. What do you have in mind?"
John Dowdy:
He says, "Well, a lot of people that are using oils, for whatever the reason they're using them for, the quality of the oil isn't good."
John Dowdy:
In other words, it's very high in Omega-6s so you're causing a lot of inflammation, which is really defeating the whole purpose of giving them the oil in the first place. And so, what we want to use as a flaxseed based Omega-3 oil, which is going to help reduce inflammation and there's all kinds of benefits that go along with using Omega-3 oils, so that's first and foremost. The second ingredient is a natural cold pressed vitamin E, and a lot of people use vitamin E but they might be using synthetic, which you might as well just pour that on the ground because the horse can't use that. And so, the Ultimate OEC has a 1000 international units of cold pressed natural vitamin E. And then the third component, which you mentioned is the colloidal silver. And there are so many benefits to that, helping with horses drink while they're being hold, ulcer issues.
John Dowdy:
The combination of these three ingredients, it's not that there's anything proprietary, I guess you could say, or unique because there's products on the market that have one or two of the three, we just put all three together and this is what we have. And working in combination with the Horse XL is just really proven to be a really, really strong combination. It's solving a lot of problems out there. So now, I didn't ask you this before and we get this, I would say from time to time in regards to cribbers, have you found that it's helped as cribbing at all or what have you found there?
Jenn Van Booven:
I have noticed he doesn't crib as bad when he's in turnout, but he's a... I call it, he just smokes. He's smoking. After he eats is when he really crib, and I have noticed a lot. Well, a lot of times, he'll take a bite and then he'll crib and then he'll take a bite and then he'll crib but here lately, he doesn't. He'll actually eat all the way through and then he'll go and have his cigarettes and crib a little bit after he gets done eating. But he can actually eat all the way through his portion without stopping to go have some cigarette.
John Dowdy:
That's funny. That's a good way to put it. And that could just be a little bit on the habit side too, or the smoking the cigarettes. That's funny.
Jenn Van Booven:
Yeah. Exactly.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. Now, we've had a lot of people through the years that have reported to us that just the Equinety Horse XL because we've been on seven years with that. It's helped a lot of cribbers, not in every single scenario, but more times than not. It just helps in so many situations. And that's the other thing too. When you're going to try the Equinety Horse XL, it starts working very quickly. The vast majority of people see changes in 30 days or less. And we recommend don't change anything you're doing. Just add this to it. And then that way it's only one element you've changed.
John Dowdy:
And then over the next couple of weeks to 30 days, you can make decisions on whether to reduce or stop using other things. If you're been in a position where you're iffy, if those things are really working or not, whatever they might be. And then being able to add the Equinety Ultimate OEC is a game changer as well. That just working in combination. So there's two things, the Equinety Horse XL were giving that to the body to help repair it the cellular level. The Ultimate OEC is serving two purposes. One, to work in combination with the Horse XL to give those repaired cells some nutrition and in addition, it just serves as a really powerful antioxidant, which helps reduce inflammation in short.
Jenn Van Booven:
Right.
John Dowdy:
Awesome.
Jenn Van Booven:
And the other thing that I really liked about the ingredients and how they're made is the delivery to the horse as well as far as going to the pituitary gland, instead of going all the way through the gut, because we know horses guts, especially the old three highest static ones, it just breaks down most of the supplements before it can even affect the horse in general. So whenever we're actually working on the hormones of the horse, it makes so much more sense than trying to get it all the way through the horse's digestive system. So that was my other big reason for starting that too.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, absolutely. And even to break that down a little bit more, when a horse eats protein... Amino acids are the building blocks of protein, so when they eat protein, the protein molecule is too big to be absorbed. And so, the body has to break all that down into amino acids before it can get absorbed. And that's what you're talking about. It takes a long time, plus it's in an acidic environment. With the Equinety Horse XL, and we're only talking a teaspoon, it absorbs very, very quickly within an hour or so, then it goes right to work. And that's what we're after we need fast absorption. And then the pituitary is releasing the hormones.
John Dowdy:
Now, one of the common questions when people hear that, they say, "Well, is it safe for Cushings in horses?" And yes it is because again, we're helping the body to release a balanced hormone levels. So we've had a lot of really great feedback from Cushing horse owners. It helps them shed out faster, often helps get rid of that crustiness that's going on, if they have that and just make for an overall well balanced horse from the inside out. So well, Jen Van Booven out of Missouri. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your stories here on the Equinety Podcast.
Jenn Van Booven:
Yeah. Thank you.
John Dowdy:
All right. Bye-bye.
