5 Feeding Tips: How to feed your horse like a top athlete
1. Feed any GI medications BEFORE grain and hay. Do you use Gastrogard or Ulcergard on your horse? If so, for best results, research shows that when you administer these
Excel Supplements started with a horse woman, her horse, and a problem that wasn’t getting solved. After meeting the right partner with extensive camelina farming connections, Excel was born. We are animal people making camelina oil products for animals, and this is our story…
“People think Excel is a huge company and it’s funny because there are really about a handful of employees. I always tell our team to take it as a compliment when we are met with high standards and fast demands. These expectations mean that we are doing something right, and customers will continue to come back. And because of our ExcelEQ camelina oil Supplement- they do.
Winter of 2011, my stallion was having serious issues getting up and down. I tried everything. Hyaluronic Acid, Glucosamine– you name it- I tried it. Convinced the time had come to do the right thing for this stud, and help him pass over, I felt helpless. Until I spoke to my mom. Necessity is the mother of invention- and it was clear to me our horses needed better joint support and prevention.
My mom is NOT a horse person. In fact, she is terrified by them. So terrified of them, that she suddenly becomes an olympic athlete when she is close to a horse; ready to jump over a 6ft fence to escape “danger” at any moment. It makes me laugh to look back and think that she had a hand in starting this business. She told me ‘Mother Nature always has the answer. Healing has been figured out for decades, you just need to look to nature.’ So, that’s exactly what I did.
I searched for an all natural anti-inflammatory. Flax, of course, popped up first. The benefits Flax provided seemed to be an overall good fit for what my horse needed. The human health world used it, so why not feed it to my horse?
Flaxseed is a prominent fixture in the health community due to the strong ratio of Omega 3 to Omega 6. Multiple articles are written on how Omega 3 is far superior to Omega 6 due to the fact that it is an anti-inflammatory, not an inflammatory.
However, when I started looking into the human health world I found that there were arguments made to use omegas in a balanced diet- not just Omega 3. Multiple omegas, used in conjunction with one another, would give the ultimate balance of support, recovery, and vitality. I needed a solid anti-inflammatory from a natural source that had a balance of omegas.
My family in Germany has a long history in the food industry and homeopathic medicine, so I picked their brains for any information I could. Camelina came up in conversation and I felt like I had heard of this being used before. What is Camelina? Are the benefits it could bring to my horse the answer?
Finally, it came to me. During my younger years, I remembered my father feeding a warm bran mash with camelina seeds to all the horses. It was confusing- why had I not come across this throughout my extensive research? Something told me that Camelina was worth investigating, so I turned to my horse community for support.
A friend of mine, who is a supplier of homeopathic oils for humans, knew where I could get my hands on some form of camelina product. She told me that she could get me a sample of a camelina oil being produced for human consumption. With nothing else to lose, I began feeding him the oil twice a day.
Two weeks went by and the difference was unbelievable. Not only was my stud getting up and down with ease, he was playing with the colts.
Standing at the fence line, watching his movement in the pasture, was the moment when Excel Supplements was born.
My competition schedule continued and I couldn’t help but share what brought my horse back from the brink. Every show I passed out bottles to anyone who would listen. Wanting them to try something new, hoping that they would see the same changes I did. That their horse would feel as good as mine did. And wow- did that start something.
For the next 5 years my boy stayed with me. And not only was he alive, but he LIVED. He continued live coverage, he helped me start my very prominent business, and on top of all of that- he led the way for other horses to get the same relief.
Word spread about my discovery and the benefits it could bring to other horses. Customers found me from near and far to get their hands on this solution to an all too familiar problem- natural joint support for their horse.
Nothing was on the market to offer natural support to joints, while also aiding in prevention of future uncomfortable symptoms. I knew this product, ExcelEQ, had legs, and it was time to start a business that solved a huge problem in the horse industry. But little did I know, camelina had more benefits than just joint support.
Hungry to get Excel off the ground, I set up a workshop for myself to start bottling and packaging the products I knew my horse community wanted. Through the process, I continuously found even more benefits to this oil.
Day after day I filled containers of oil and took care of my horses. Feed AM, turnout, go to the warehouse, Feed PM, sleep. I was a fully committed bottle filling queen. One particularly long day running through my routine, I dripped oil all over one side of me. If you’re a horse person reading this, it was definitely “one of those days” I was “living the dream”.
Covered in oil or not, the horses needed PM feed, so I was off to take care of the horses with no time to change.
Only 15 minutes after getting to the barn I noticed I hadn’t shoed one fly away from me…. My brain went into overdrive as I went through PM barn chores. After having thoughts bounce around the entire night- there was only one key difference I noted that could have kept flies away from me. One side of my body was covered in oil. It was a long shot but I decided to try another experiment.
For every round of oil that was bottled, there was always a small amount left over. I decided to use some of this excess on a cut my mare had been struggling with. Flies love her, and when she has a cut, no fly spray is enough to keep her comfortable. So I thought- give it a try.
Yet again, I was shocked. Sure, the flies weren’t bothering her, but more importantly her cut was actually healing. After four days the cut was not only healed, but her hair was growing back! I couldn’t tell my friends soon enough- I had discovered ANOTHER process to help my horses. Only this time, topically. My second product of Excel Supplements, ExcelRescue, was born.
Interest surrounding my camelina oil products grew in the horse community. Orders were coming in left and right, and my small supply was never enough. Sales tripled over the course of six months and I saw no signs of demand slowing down.
Horse owners feeding my camelina oil were seeing the same benefits I saw in my horse’s joints. Not only did the product work, it became a staple in many feed rooms up and down the west coast.
It was time for me to find a long standing solution to my supply problem. The small amount of oil that was supplying my current customers in Arizona, California and Texas was not enough to keep filling orders. Not to mention my workshop was starting to feel smaller by the day.
I needed a partner.
Ideally, the perfect partner for Excel Supplements would have extensive experience with farming camelina sativa. This was a sure fire way to make sure that I would have consistent access to as much oil as my customers needed.
Next, Excel needed room to grow. My workshop could only hold so much and I couldn’t imagine bottling, packaging, and shipping any more product than I already was. Not to mention, the day to day business responsibilities were taking more hours than I had in the day. I needed to find a situation where I could focus on selling this product and sharing my story.
I researched top camelina producers and found the ideal company. This company has substantial production of the camelina sativa crop in North America and Europe and has been working with Camelina for 20+ years. The company is well-established, has extensive knowledge around plant breeding, access to a large collection of camelina varietals and was active in research surrounding camelina sativa.
The process behind making the best camelina starts with the selection and development of the highest quality camelina varieties. Selected farmer partners then grow the crops without the addition of chemical fertilizers or pesticides.
After cultivation, the camelina seed is cold pressed using a proprietary process that is the result of years of research into the best way to preserve the qualities of the oil while extracting them from the seeds. This careful extraction makes this camelina product superior to the others on the market.
It was clear that this company was the best in the business, and I was impressed. They were established in the farming and production space. Not to mention they had extensive camelina development experience. With such a successful company background and track record, I knew it was my mission to make them my partner.
I called the company office, in the hopes that I could order a couple hundred gallons of oil to fill my current orders. Little did I know, I would get one of the owners on the phone. Usually, he was dealing in massive quantities of oil. He wondered what I was using the oil for, so I told him my horse’s tale.
Because his family had a background in the horse industry, he was intrigued by my story. He explained their companies’ ongoing interests in the benefits the oil could have on animals. However, they never thought to use it on horses.
After successfully selling the oil I purchased from him, he was interested in hearing more about my business model and where I saw the future of Excel Supplements.
Before I knew it, I was on the plane to Ohio to meet with his team. As I nervously walked into the room, my heart was pounding. In front of me were highly successful professionals in the camelina industry, ready to hear my pitch. I stood ready with a product built off of an emotional story- that of my horse. Even though doubt flooded in, there was one thing keeping focus – why this all started in the first place. I wanted to provide support for animals like mine through natural products.
I was pleasantly surprised when the conversation went in an unexpected direction. They wanted to learn more about my likes and dislikes concerning running Excel Supplements. This answer came easy to me- telling my horse’s comeback story and selling this product became the most important aspect of my life. On the other hand, the day to day operations, like packaging, production, and marketing were wearing me thin.
After diving into hours of deep discussion about the opportunities surrounding Excel’s potential, I was presented with an incredible offer. This Harvard educated co-owner of the top camelina company was interested in partnership. With their connections in supply chain and branding strategy, we could create something that no other supplement companies on the market had. Excel Supplements could own our ingredients! But it wasn’t just limited to horse supplements; this idea opened paths for us to use these benefits in other animals too.
I could hardly contain my enthusiasm as I envisioned taking part in developing something that would revolutionize the animal health industry. Goodbye long hours laboring away in workshops – hello larger sales opportunities! We mapped out changes necessary to grow bigger than I had ever expected and enabled me to share what I developed to as many horses as possible.
My new partner had innovative ideas on how Excel would stand out as a brand. He knew they had a great product in their camelina oil and decided to take it one step further- by creating proprietary varieties that would make our oil more functional and unlike any other camelina. To ensure success, continuous research and development would be conducted on camelina crops to create varieties specific to benefiting our targeted animals. Excel Supplements was about to have our very own custom camelina seed lines, something no other company had access to.
In addition to our very own ingredients, Excel was about to inherit another trait no other competitor had. The crops, ingredients, and all manufacturing within this current company were gold standard. Meaning no additives, routine quality control checks and heavily enforced processing procedures were already in place. A dream manufacturing situation for a business of Excel’s size.
Lastly, to make a bigger splash in the market, Excel needed to focus on national sales and a centralized distribution would be a huge benefit. Going beyond Arizona, California and Texas would open up even more opportunities to connect with customers across different areas.
After seeing the potential strategies outlined, I knew this was the right partnership for Excel. Horse owners that were experiencing road blocks in keeping their horses comfortable, would finally have a solution.
A solution that wasn’t hidden by dangerous additives and unregulated procedures, a solution always sourced from the same controlled farms, a solution that would have the same quality every time you opened a new bottle, a solution born from the love of the horse’s well being.
As a result of my journey, Excel is now sold around the world. Throughout the past nine years, our team has continued to work with our crops, processes and manufacturing with tremendous success.
We are continually improving our products. In 2017 we improved ExcelEQ by adding camelina polyphenols extracted from proprietary method and in 2018, we launched ExcelEQ ProElite, the first omega supplement of its kind. Through the ongoing research of Excel’s camelina crop, developers found even more ways to use the plant for healing properties.
ExcelEQ ProElite contains a proprietary addition, CamOlive, that holds an unparalleled balance of omegas, Vitamin E, and a proprietary extract from olives. The first of its kind, ProElite is bursting with antioxidants and anti-inflammatories that give even the largest industry names a run for their money.
Beginning as a small company, we have worked endlessly over the years to collect as much data as we can to show the benefits of Excel’s proprietary oil. And to be honest, we are still learning so much each study about the amazing benefits that come to light through our routine research process.
1. Feed any GI medications BEFORE grain and hay. Do you use Gastrogard or Ulcergard on your horse? If so, for best results, research shows that when you administer these
The Henneke BCS (Body Condition Score) is a scoring system that evaluates the amount of fat on your horse’s body. Don Henneke developed this universal scale in the early 1980’s
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