California Riding Magazine sales rep, Stephanie Baldwin, leaned across our booth at Equine Affaire in February and asked, “Your little blond mare, she has joint problems, right?”
I replied that my little blond mare has a lot of problems and asked if she wanted a list? Instead Stephanie threw me a smile that made me more than a little nervous and told me she had someone she wanted me to meet.



That someone was Daniel Haggerty, owner of BlueRidge Distribution, Inc. He had been showing Stephanie their canine joint supplement, K-NINE-1-1, and had offered to give her a sample to review. After hearing about BlueRidge’s equine product, she told Daniel that he should speak with me because I handled California Riding Magazine’s product reviews and she knew my mare had been having some “issues.”
I sat down with with Daniel in the busy fairway and had a consultation where I told him my long list of woes. I explained how when I first moved out West from the East Coast my mare, Skeeter, who had always been an easy keeper, dropped a great deal of weight. My trainer, Nancy, advised me to add Bermuda pellets to her diet and I was able to get most of her weight back on. But she never gained that little bit of extra weight that gave her the look of a nice, round apple. Furthermore, her overall condition had never been the same.
She used to practically glow with health, her coat was shiny, she never had skin problems and she was always easy to get fit. Now her coat, though not in terrible shape, appeared dull, her skin was somewhat dandruffy and she always seemed just a little tired. Last summer I even had her tested for lyme disease because of her lethargy. Over the past three years intense work brought on sporadic, minor lameness in her hocks and stifles, but I figured that was just one of the nonnegotiable woes of owning a middle aged ex-eventer.
He asked me what I fed her - one full scoop of pellets, one full scoop of a brand name textured sweet feed, and a cup of oil with probiotics thrown on the top as well as a flake-and-a-half of Bermuda twice a day. Then he asked if this is what I fed back East.
“No we used a different product, but it’s not available out here,” I told Daniel. Plus, we never had to feed her much grain. She could live off grass back East (think pudgie pony that could get fat on air). But as any horse owner in Southern California knows, grass is in short supply in San Diego County.
Daniel told me one of my problems right off the bat. Quickly flipping through an enormous book of product labels, he found the label for the processed sweet feed I had been giving my mare. The first ingredient listed wasn’t oats, wheat or another grain, as I would have imagined. It was grain byproducts. I was shocked! No wonder my mare’s health and condition weren’t improving. I always considered myself an informed buyer, after all, I checked the crude protein, fat and mineral percentages on the label.
He put my mare on a “detox” program, which slowly switched Skeeter to a diet of natural grains and BlueRidge’s products. She was to receive a half-scoop of rolled oats twice a day with six Win Treats in it, a scoop of GoldMotion and one Win Treat soaked in water and coated in BlueRidge’s probiotic, EquiBiotic. Their probiotics guarantee a minimum of 25 billion CFU, live bacteria, per teaspoon, verses the product I was using that only guaranteed 10 million CFU.
Within two weeks of using Daniel’s BlueRidge Program I saw an improvement in my mare’s coat and skin. After a month her barrel and haunches started filling out and developing more muscle. She once again had a spring in her step. When I took her down for a lesson with Nancy at Hazy Meadow in San Diego County’s Lakeside in March I received a dozen compliments on how much better she looked this spring.
Skeeter hasn’t had any acute lameness in her hindend, just a little stiffness that we have easily been able to work out this year. However, we have started using a chiropractor regularly in coordination with the GoldMotion. That being said, this summer, for the first time in three years, Skeeter was able to do flying lead changes in both directions without struggling or galloping in a small circle.
Also, my horses love the Win Treats, which contain 55 vitamins, minerals, amino acids, nutrients and micronutrients and can replace up to 30 percent of any supplemental grain. How do I know this?
A few weeks after I started Skeeter on BlueRidge, she organized a jail break with her 3-year-old cohort Prize, and together they escaped from their paddock. My friend Mary and I tried everything we knew to catch them. Neither of my horses would let us within 50 feet of them.
I even got a scoop of oats and shook it at them. This raised their heads and their interest, but they stubbornly refused to be caught. Finally at my wits end I told Mary I was going to approach them with the Win Treats. In addition to feeding Win Treats as a grain supplement, I will occasionally slip them both treats after a hard work out. In fact, if I say the words, “you want a cookie (aka, a Win Treat)” the entire barn goes into a frenzy!
Picking up the Win Treat bucket I went to the top of my dirt driveway and yelled down, “Cookies!” Both my horse’s heads shot up and they whinnied. I have never seen two horses come up a hill so fast. In their enthusiasm they almost took out a sapling that had just been planted. After that I had no problem corralling either of them. Now when I need to catch them I just take two Win Treats with me.
I strongly recommend BlueRidge products to any horse owner looking for a natural, safe way to improve their horse’s health and performance. All their products are Certified Organic, whole food products, that come with a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee and Win Treats are made to order so they are always fresh. I give BlueRidge five horseshoes!
For more information about BlueRidge Distribution Inc. call 877-379-7777, visit them on the web at www.wintreats.org or email info@bluerb.com.