When we started researching about 12 years ago on how to supplement a performance animal the size of a horse what soon became obvious was companies supplementing race horses faced a real dilemma how to supply the level of nutrition that meets the demands and needs of these hard working athletes and still make a profit. What was clear was if you kept equine nutrition in the stockyard based on traditional thinking you could create a profit margin, on the other hand because human grade compounds and high end nutacuticals are expensive when supplying a horse you would probably go broke. What to do?
At that time we decided to try an experiment, take a racehorse and apply all the human nutritional science we could muster and without regard to cost attempting to fully meet the nutritional demands and needs of this athlete.
So we picked a horse at Golden Gate Fields a nice 3yr old filly named Bella Villa. My thinking then as it is now is a good defense makes a good offence. With that in mind our first order of work was to put nutritional defense mechanisms in place, as we would later learn it’s not so much getting them to run fast as it is making them feel comfortable and happy to run, we would do this by first of all putting high levels of antioxidants in place with a host of other compounds to stop or at least arrest the degeneration on a cellular level from the rigors of racing and training. Our goal at first was not to be anabolic but rather it was to be anti catabolic to slow and reduce oxidative damage. Because a racehorse is a huge oxidative animal slowing free radical damage was primary. The first thing we noticed with this approach was it gave Bella very significant recoveries; these recoveries became two things accumulative and highly accelerated. Not stopping there, we further set a defensive nutritional system in place that would address thing like reducing inflammation and pain, blunt high levels of cortisol, and buffer lactic acid just to mention a few things we were trying to target. With Bella training well the results were phenomenal, to say the least.
Now we turned our attention to the other side of the equation the anabolic side, my thinking here was to build her from the inside out, we must build on the cellular integrity of a high level nutritional foundation. Fully nourish and support the inner horse, use nutrition to address the heart, liver, muscle and blood to create a high level of internal health in which the end result is greater than the sum of its parts.
We began calibrating formulas with the finest protein, fats and sugars along with pharmaceutical grade vitamins and minerals and again with a host of other ergogenic compounds. As we predicted it was expensive, but what we learned from Bella was priceless. What we saw was her reaching her genetic potential and basically grow into her biomechanical speed limit. The whole point was to bring nutrition and supplements for horses out of the stockyard and into the laboratory.
What were the results? A very healthy, happy horse that trained and raced on an exceptional level. A horseshoer who had been working on the racetrack for 30yrs said he had never seen a mare develop like Bella. Bella would win 9 races and a host of seconds and thirds starting at 6,250.00 claiming she would win at 20,000.00. We would in the end consider this project a great success also it should be noted she was raced as a completely natural athlete.
The question now was how to make this affordable to the general public. Around this time I met and became friends with a brilliant scientist in the nutritional industry a guy named Bob Fritz. After prodding him to put together a nutritional system that duplicated what we had learned from Bella, Bob came up with two important products that I would personally field trial on many horses, Show n Go and a sports recovery drink called Go Horse. Now after a number of years and a lot of hard work we are prepared to share what we have learned.
Is there a basic philosophy that emerges from our work on performance animals it is perhaps this- to provide the highest quality supplements we can find in human science and to build our animal athletes from the inside out. To supply all the demands and needs of the inner horse or dog, and that only a good defense will make a good offense.
Why are we at Performance Animal Nutrition so passionate, very simply because we love animals, we love these creatures who unconditionally bring us so much joy and pleasure. In return it’s our moral obligation to do the very best for them and be good stewards of their health and wellbeing. Not resting there it is our mission at Performance Animal Nutrition to ever work for the greater good of our equine and canine athletes. I would like to Dedicate this work to a mare who would come to mean so much to me and would teach me so much about nutrition and life itself, this is for you Bella.
