John Dowdy:
Hello, and welcome to this week's Equinety podcast. We are swinging up into the great state of Delaware. We've got Valerie Burrows on the call this week. Valerie, welcome to the Equinety podcast.
Valerie Burroughs:
Thank you, John. And it's great to speak with you.
John Dowdy:
Well, it's great to have you as always. We're always excited to have guests on every week. You caught my attention. We run a lot of Facebook ads and you had gone to great extent talking about the challenges that you were having with your horse, Fad. I reached out to you and thought, "Oh, my gosh, this one is a doozy." How long have you had this ...? [crosstalk 00:00:43].
Valerie Burroughs:
Yes, he's a puzzle.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, so before we get into talking about Fad, you're very active in riding horses. Tell us a little bit about kind of your daily or weekly or monthly activities that you do. Then we'll get into how you acquired Fad.
Valerie Burroughs:
Well, I don't get to the farm right now, as much as I'd like, because I'm living in the northern part of Delaware so the drive is a little long to go several times a week, but probably in a month or so I'll be moving about 45 minutes from him. So I'll be down to the farm at least three to five days a week. Right now I'm kind of stuck up here in northern Delaware. I like to concentrate my efforts as much as I can with horses, do a lot of reading, studying, looking to get my equine massage certification, among other duties with horses.
John Dowdy:
Sure.
Valerie Burroughs:
I also compete on a team, with a team, Wolf Training out of Georgetown, Delaware. We travel around to the different Arabian shows, [inaudible 00:02:19] shows, regional schooling, or regional and national as well.
John Dowdy:
Nice. So [inaudible 00:02:32] in one of your barns is where you had kind of locked eyes on with Fad there. Tell us about how that relationship started.
Valerie Burroughs:
Well, I rode at a barn for about five years, that was also downstate, and I rode a horse for many years and competed just locally with him and Fad was across the aisle way and Fad would look at me all the time and watch me take care of his buddy. I started to talk to him, but it took me a good, I'd say six to nine months before I could really get Fad to even come up to the stall door. He always kept his head in the corner. He would look, but then turn away.
He was never mean, he's a very passive force. Even when I would watch him out in the geldings pasture, he was always the one that the other horses would kind of pick on. He's very sweet, passive, but I'm still working on taking the wall down. And then finally, I got him to come over to me and I just knew he needed somebody. So I asked the owner if I could buy him and I told her to think about it. She came back to me right away and said I could buy him.
John Dowdy:
A little too fast there.
Valerie Burroughs:
He was 11 when I bought him, so maybe it has been a little less than five years, Fad had been there for ... I guess he had been there for nine years and there were things that happened to him. I saw manhandling, but my teammates who left the barn with me said that they couldn't even ... They don't even want to tell me what happened to him as he was growing up at that barn. So I feel like he was meant to be my horse.
John Dowdy:
Right.
Valerie Burroughs:
I've actually spent more time on the ground with him than I have on his back because I'm just trying to bring him back to health.
John Dowdy:
So as you had taken ownership of him and started realizing there were a lot of things going on, kind of give us a rundown of the different things that you were finding were going on.
Valerie Burroughs:
Okay. Well, there was always a problem with his feet, always soft soles, seemed very tender. He was always shooed on his front feet, but I had a friend of mine take his shoes off and I found a laminitic ... He showed me a laminitic ring, so he had past laminitis. I didn't know that because I didn't even have him vetted when I bought him, I just bought him. I trusted the person that I bought him from.
He was thin, he had a big neck, like a crusty looking neck, but thin, and we would build him up, build his muscle up, build his top line up, but then he would just fall to pieces. He was spooky, but never mean, but spooky. He would just like see, I don't know, ghosts almost, and he would run away when I was on his back I actually kind of liked it because I like the feel of that shiftiness, but it's not safe because I did fall off of him one time.
John Dowdy:
Uh oh.
Valerie Burroughs:
From that spookiness. But he has a lot of potential. We all knew he had ... My trainers knew he had potential, but we couldn't figure it out. So he had some blood tests done and his liver enzymes came back, and this was back in September, August/September of 2019, his liver enzymes came back very elevated. So the vet, she made some just suggestions, she retested him. Not only were his liver enzymes still up but his white blood cell count was up really high.
So I actually took matters into my own hands, I called New Bolton. I had the tests sent over from that vet over to New Bolton, and they had me come in the next day. I had him trailered in and he was there for four days with many tests, many lab tests. He had a biopsy of his liver, of his duodenum. He had an endoscopy done, had the whole intestinal gastric track checked. I had actually had him on a product that I got out of Australia that killed all the ulcers. He had ulcers all over his intestinal tract, in his hind butt and all over [inaudible 00:09:13], so the poor boy.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, no doubt. Wow. So just to recap it, so you found out, of course, acute laminitis, liver enzymes were elevated, underweight, tons of ulcers, top line, couldn't keep a top line on, very spooky, no focus, was extremely stressed, and cushings, IR, EMS. Really a big train wreck. Thin souls.
Valerie Burroughs:
Yes. Yes.
John Dowdy:
Yeah.
Valerie Burroughs:
Absolutely.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. So as you started now figuring out all these different things, and of course up to this point, did you know about Equinety? Had you started researching the Equinety product? Where were you in that timeframe?
Valerie Burroughs:
I actually started seeing Equinety on Facebook. Probably, I don't know, at least maybe a year ago or so, about that timeframe. It could've even been a little shorter than that. And then when I started realizing, well maybe let me start researching this, I started reading reviews from people, started reading your website, and thinking maybe this might be good for him.
However, I didn't purchase it until about seven/eight weeks ago, and he's been on it now for about seven weeks. He is on a very low sugar diet, low carb, lowest NSC, non-structural carbohydrates, feed on the market that I had found, and he is on percent for his liver and he's on a liver aid as well, like a supplement. And I started that at the end of October.
John Dowdy:
Right.
Valerie Burroughs:
Then I started looking at Equinety even further, like really, really researching it and then researching not only your product but different amino acids and how they work with a horse's body. And I liked that it had no sugars, no starches, no preservatives in it, and the little tiny scoop and what you get for how long you can use it.
John Dowdy:
Right.
Valerie Burroughs:
For a good three months. And I was like, "Wow, this is something I need to really check that out." And after I guess on a tub if it doesn't seem to really be doing anything, then I'll just discontinue using it. I like the fact that it goes into that pituitary gland and then synthesizes itself through the liver and through the body and research on that, not just with Equinety, I mean, that is how a supplement should work.
John Dowdy:
Right. Yeah. So with you using the product now for about seven weeks, what things have you noticed since using the product?
Valerie Burroughs:
Okay. His coat is unbelievably shiny. It is so shiny. It has helped put weight on him. His top line, his muscle, it's just really building and I look at his whole body and feel his whole body, and I actually have said to my team members and to the owner of Classic Arabian, "I honestly think his legs or the bones are getting heavier. They're getting more dense." And they're like, "Val, are you sure?" I'm like, "No, I am so serious about that."
John Dowdy:
Right.
Valerie Burroughs:
His last time he was shooed, his feet were trimmed and checked, my farrier, he had some bruising on his soles, on his front seat because of the laminitis, with the acute laminitis, and his soles are actually tougher now. They looked sturdier, like maybe thicker, and a lot of times they'll have a little thrush in them most of the time, and especially when it's really wet out, and it has been really wet here a lot, but I can actually clean his hooves and he's not sensitive to it. And they look good. They were really of blackish looking and no matter what I put on him they just never seemed to clear, and they're starting to clear up. I'll have to take some photos of that.
John Dowdy:
Sure. Absolutely.
Valerie Burroughs:
Also, like I said, his top line is building. I had to buy him a couple bigger blankets because they're so tight on him, he looks like a sausage now.
John Dowdy:
So he's filling out.
Valerie Burroughs:
He's filling out. He wants to work. We just two weeks ago put a saddle back on him, fitted him using the side rein, and started now last week, starting riding him slow. We're walking, we're bending, we're doing that sort of thing, and we're going to start our trotting.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, no, I think it's important to note as well, especially those tuning in for the first time, maybe you've been doing your research on this product and what exactly is this stuff? It's 100% pure amino acids. There's no fillers, no sugars, no starches. There's no loading dose and a serving size is 5.2 grams, which is not quite a tablespoon, but the amino acids in the Equinety product are specifically combined to stimulate the pituitary gland, which is the master gland in the body, and that's what releases the necessary hormones that help heal at a cellular level.
So we always try to stress that this is not a miracle supplement. It's not the end all be all. And in this case with Fad, he's got some unknown history to you, a lot of issues going on, and you did what any responsible horse owner would do, and that's okay, let's go find out everything going on. Let's start trying to deal with each one of these scenarios and what we found time and time again, is the Equinety product seems to be that missing puzzle piece to help speed up the healing process of whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish. Is that kind of what you found by adding and using the Equinety product?
Valerie Burroughs:
Absolutely. I really notice the change. I'm going to say two weeks ago is when I really noticed that leg, like that density with the leg, the whole filling out faster, because honestly, I thought it was going to take us well into May or June, about six months or so, to really start to see an improvement with his health.
We're still dealing with some sugar levels and his glucose levels, I should say, and his cushings, he still has to stay on his percent. I'm hoping that, within eight, maybe 10 months or so, it'll come back that we won't have to use that anymore. But if I have to, I will. But the Equinety I think is going to keep him stabilized and keep improving, help to improve his health, increase quality of his health. I'm really happy with it. I mean, I just got my second tub and I'm going on the auto delivery.
John Dowdy:
Right.
Valerie Burroughs:
And I have introduced it to my trainers, to my trainer, Jenny, and she's giving it to her horse, Shadow, who is almost the twin of Fad with the same type of issues because they're both Arabian Saddlebreds, So they tend to have those same type of health issues.
John Dowdy:
Right.
Valerie Burroughs:
And he's a little older, but I can see a difference with his temperament as well. He's much more ... Oh gosh, he's almost like a little lovey, well he's big lovey because he's a big horse.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, yeah. Right.
Valerie Burroughs:
But, I really, I would highly recommend Equinety, even to people, I think whose horses don't have the gamut of issues that Fad has, that just want to keep them on a slow, steady, healthy pace. Amino acids, I think probably, I wish we could take this. I don't know, can humans take this, John?
John Dowdy:
Well, we cannot promote that in the public review.
Valerie Burroughs:
I know you can't.
John Dowdy:
I will say that it did start off as a human product, so people tested, animal approved. I will throw that out there.
Valerie Burroughs:
Yeah, did I read that?
John Dowdy:
You did.
Valerie Burroughs:
Did I read that [inaudible 00:20:22]?
John Dowdy:
Yes, you did.
Valerie Burroughs:
Okay.
John Dowdy:
Yes, you did.
Valerie Burroughs:
I thought that was just me making that up in my own head.
John Dowdy:
No. I mean, amino acids are very, very important. They're the building blocks of protein, we all have to have them. And you bring up a good point because even horses that are at the top of their game, there's really no issues going on per se, they really benefit a lot with ... A lot of people use it as a preventative as well, but especially for the performance horse, it's going to help with recovery, stamina, soft tissue repair, focus is a big one. They haul better. They just recover a lot faster. So it is an amazing product. We are definitely blessed. And again, as I reiterate, it's not the miracle supplement, although sometimes listening to these podcasts, you scratch your head and think that must be a miracle I just heard.
Valerie Burroughs:
Well, I know. I know you're saying that that it's not a miracle cure, but I would say that in addition to what Fad requires, it sure has a little miracle added to his daily life.
John Dowdy:
Yeah.
Valerie Burroughs:
I'm grateful for it because my vet, the other day, we were talking extensively about his blood work and about Fad's overall appearance, and I asked him, "Am I going to be able to finally show this horse this season?" And he said, "Valerie, I see no reason. Just start out doing some schooling shows, see how he does, and you build from there." Because like I said, Fad is a little anxiety ridden, kind of like me, and we're like two peas in a pod and just trailering him, I mean, he comes out of there and he's sweating profusely. And it's just a hallmark for him to get ulcers and not be able to perform in a show ring outside of his barn.
John Dowdy:
Sure.
Valerie Burroughs:
So he's supposed to be my show horse. I didn't plan on this with him but I love him and I want to do the best for him.
John Dowdy:
Right. Absolutely. Well Valerie, I really appreciate you taking the time to share your story here on the Equinety podcast. We'd love to do a followup later in the year to see how Fad is doing.
Valerie Burroughs:
Sure.
John Dowdy:
So Valerie Burrows out of Delaware, thank you so much for taking the time to share your story here on the Equinety podcast.
Valerie Burroughs:
Well, thank you, John. I enjoyed myself. Thank you.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, well you're very welcome. Thank you. Bye bye.
Valerie Burroughs:
Bye bye.