By: John Samsill

What I would like to talk about today can be applied to any discipline, from show jumping to trail riding but I’ll be discussing team roping. Before you ride into the roping box for the first tie at a roping, what are you thinking about? The last thing you want creeping into your mind is doubt. I talk to a lot of people who may be confident in their own ability but have doubts of whether their horse will perform at the level that they need to be competitive. I have said many times that if there are one hundred teams entered in a roping you have ninety-nine other teams to beat, the last thing you want is to try and compete against your horse when they are not working. I have ropers ask me to evaluate how their horse is working and what they can do to fix any problems they are having either with their horse or with their roping. You may or may not be surprised as to what I find is the problem most often.

What I find most often is that their horse is sore or what I like to call, uncomfortable doing the job they are being asked to perform. The reason I like to say sore or uncomfortable is that they are not lame, they show no signs of lameness in normal conditions, only when they are working. An example of this may be that a horse will not rate a steer when your roping. Some ropers may think that the horse is to fresh or not paying attention to the rider. On closer inspection the horse may have a sore back, but it only shows up when he takes a jerk from the saddle horn or is pulling a steer. these are circumstances that we cannot repeat except while roping. The horse doesn’t want to rate because he knows this is one way to avoid that jerk or pull the steer.

All horses are athletes in their own discipline. The soreness happens so often that that is always the first thing I look for when a horse is not performing as well as they should, whether its my own horse or a client’s. Keeping your horse in working shape along with the proper nutrition can help eliminate these nagging problems. I have noticed a big improvement in not only how my horses look but their overall athletic performance since I’ve been feeding Omega Fields Horseshine Complete along with Proventum. After talking to the helpful people at Omega Fields I’ve concluded that one of the biggest factors in a horse’s health and especially a performance horse is the same as human athletes, inflammation. By feeding Horseshine Complete I help eliminate inflammation throughout my horses’ entire body. Thus, eliminating most of the uncomfortableness that athletes experience, whether human or equine.

So, help eliminate some of those thoughts of doubt by giving them what they need to help eliminate that chronic inflammation. Doing such a small thing as feeding Horseshine Complete can reap huge dividends in the long run. I know it did for me!