There Just Aren’t Enough Joint Supplements

We constantly reflect on the fact that there just aren’t enough joint supplements on the market, don’t manufacturers care about this important area? How can we possibly care for our horses when there are only about 200 products out there? More importantly each one is the best, so there has to be room for more products that are the best. I do have to hand it to SmartPak Smart Supplements who are at least trying with 16 joint supplements. We need to find new ingredients, each one of which could spawn another 30 or 40 products, once everyone makes their own version – so come on let’s all pull together.The shelves of feed stores and websites are begging for more variety and yet all we can hope for is perhaps 10 or 15 new joint supplements a year – that is pathetic! Call your local manufacturer and ask them to get a move on and get formulating, we are only here once and time is a’wasting.

We are trying to address this urgent need by trebling the levels of all active ingredients in our joint supplements and are calling them Supermaxultraplusmega. We will also be offering a free Ferrari or Lamborghini with every purchase, while supplies last. We are confident that, when feeding these new products, you can be assured of an Olympic medal in whatever discipline you choose to compete in. Your horse will never be ill or lame, will always behave impeccably and will be featured on the cover of Vogue for Horses.

Forgive our overtly tongue in cheek opening, but if you have watched this market for the last twenty years you might understand why the issue of the number of joint supplements on the market can make us sound somewhat tweaked. We made the very first Glucosamine based joint supplement for horses, Grand Flex, back in 1992.  Life was simpler back then – cue the violin – as the years passed however more and more companies decided that the equine supplement business was the place to go and now we have a truly ridiculous number of joint supplements.  Is there a perfect joint supplement out there, just like a perfect steak? The simple answer to that is no, because there are so many different places where the horse can be, relative to the condition of his joints. I have had so many people come up to me at trade shows  and they are really pleased with the results they have seen and then I ask them about their horse and find out it is young and has no real problems, yet they are feeding our most powerful joint supplement, Grand Flex Senior.  I then try to explain that Grand Flex Senior is way beyond what they should be feeding when they are basically trying to protect the horse and that Grand Flex would be a much better choice for them. At Grand Meadows we are very much focused on less is more, I hear a lot of complaints about companies always trying to push additional products “If you are feeding our joint supplement you need to feed our hoof supplement and our vitamin mineral and while you are at it our coat supplement is pretty good” and so it goes.

How on earth do you decide which product is right for your horse(s)? The first thing is deciding what you are hoping to achieve by feeding a joint supplement – are you trying to protect your horse or is he an old thoroughbred from the track or is he somewhere in between? What do you know about the manufacturer, are they an audited NASC (www.nasc.cc) member, how long have they been in business, ask your friends if they know the company.

If there is one constant that I have heard over and over again it is “I tried that and it didn’t work”. It is worth doing the homework, good joint supplements are not cheap but at the same time the most expensive one is not necessarily the best as it may have ingredients that are superfluous to your needs.

I will say one thing that is shamelessly biased and that is if you call us with a question you will receive customer service that will restore your faith in that concept. You will not talk to a machine, unless you call us in the middle of the night and your questions will be answered thoughtfully based on years of experience.