Laura McWhinnie is typical of many legacy customers that we have from the days before we realised the issues involved in artificial magnesium and GABA agonist herbs. The chelated calcium in the Cool, Calm and Collected she was using was helping but, we now realise, was having to fight against the negative impacts of ingredients in other components of the diet.
We carried out a review of her gelding's (Arubah’s) diet which is not unlike many others we see day in day out. Here was her diet with some comments attached:
Grass and hay – There isn’t much most people can do about their grass and hay forages. We encourage people to feed high fibre low sugar forages if possible. In almost every case grass and hay provides way in excess of the RDI for magnesium – even low magnesium forages achieve this. And, what is better, horses have had millions of years to work out how to manage this magnesium (which is mostly tied up in the chlorophyll molecule). We have never knowingly seen a horse overdose on chlorophyll sourced magnesium.
XXX XXX Performance light balancer – Except for EquiFeast’s balancers every product we know of in the UK has magnesium added! We recommended to replace this with our CoolCORE balancer.
YYY YYY Hoof Feed molasses free – More magnesium and the GABA agonist Garlic. We recommended to replace with our product MORE Chaff or drop it altogether. The CoolCORE balancer has a full package of hoof nutrients incorporated into it.
Micronised Linseed – No conflict with our system though we normally recommend our product MORE Fibre which incorporated linseed and many super fibres too.
ZZZ ZZZ Herbal Calmer – A real cocktail of GABA agonists and GABA modulators. “Herbal Valium”.! We recommended to stop this immediately.
Garlic – stop – another GABA agonist
Salt – fine
So what was the outcome of these changes. Here is the email we got from Laura soon after:
“Morning guys,
I just wanted to let you know about the fantastic weekend Arubah and I have just had at our local riding club camp. We did three days of lessons, one flat, the rest showjumping and cross country and he never put a hoof wrong! There was a marked improvement in his behaviour, he wasn’t in the slightest bit spooky at the new XC fences he’s never seen before and jumped everything first time (usually we have a few stops and he needs to look at things before he’ll go).
And it was all done in a snaffle bit, usually I need a gag to stop him tanking off after jumps but he was so calm we didn’t need it.
I don’t know if it’s a coincidence (doubt it!) but I couldn’t be happier!
Here’s a picture of us so you can see his happy wee face……
A couple of weeks later and things are still great:
"Hi guys,
Just another update on Arubahs progress, we were at an eventing camp at Lindores over the last few days and he was impeccably behaved! No issues at all, I was super happy with him. He learned to jump a working hunter course with fillers and never batted an eyelid at them. Cross country he jumped everything I put him to, even taking on the bigger stuff as I felt so confident in him.
The following day he went to a showing show at an arena he’s never been to before with flags and banners, again he was impeccably behaved and came home with sashes/rosettes and trophies. Everyone was very complimentary and he felt amazing!
Can’t thank you both enough for your help and support! Some photos below for you.
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