I’ve spent most of my career in show rings, doing everything from eventing to cutting—but I landed on endurance riding after representing the U.S. in the 2014 Mongol Derby, a 1000-kilometer horse race across Mongolia. I love the endurance sport because of how much the horses enjoy it. Who wouldn’t want to gallop through state and national parks on a willing horse?
Simply put, besides a rider, an endurance horse needs to have just two things: an engine and bravery. Keeping that horse’s engine fueled properly is vital and staying calm enough to eat and drink on the trail as well as score highly on metabolic examinations at vet checks is a primary concern.
A great deal of conditioning and feeding calculate into the success of our sport, and the most stringent veterinary rules protect the equine athletes we ride. A low heart rate and good gut sounds are important not only because they’re a veterinary requirement, but they’re also a good barometer of a healthy and happy horse.
Currently, I work at Action Horse helping international and domestic riders realize their dreams of completing the Tevis Cup—a 100-miles-in-one-day trail ride. Having many hot-blooded and competitive horses in our racing program, we’ve found many get too anxious and won’t eat properly—a serious problem on the trail.
It was at my first Tevis Cup where I was attending as a crew member that I met with a Redmond representative and learned about Daily Gold Stress Relief. It being a locally-sourced product with natural ingredients and solid science behind it made me want to give it a try. Once I saw the difference our horses experienced on Daily Gold, as well as Redmond Rock Crushed and Rein Water, I never looked back.
After just two weeks on a combination of these products, our most competitive horse went from C+ gut sounds to all A’s at vet checks and has never dipped back. During the entire Tevis Cup ride we scored heart rates varying from 48-60. What an incredible change!
We don’t mess around in our program—all our horses are now on Daily Gold, and we have Redmond Rock salt available to lick at will. During competition we up Daily Gold and also make Redmond Rock Crushed and Rein Water available to combat dehydration and promote a healthy, calm demeanor.
Redmond products are truly game-changing. Using natural earth materials to solve problems we never thought could be fixed through diet was an amazing and simple fix. Now the sky is the limit!
Stephanie Murray
