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So I'm married to one of Purina's Equine Educaiton Specialists & usually
stay mum over the urban legends about feed companies, but I  extracted some
dope from the horse's mouth so to speak.   Ultium was developed by Purina's
research center, near St Louis, definitely NOT a one rat operation.  It was
developed by Drs Randy Rob, Ray Geor, King, and several others.  Big
hitters w/lots of lots of research experience.  I've met Randy and he is
very practical guy with years as a trainer, farrier, and horseman, in
additon to an extensive back ground in equine nutrition research, I believe
at K State.  Ray is one of my former students from OSU and an extraordinary
research specialist with a laundry list of work in equine nutrition and
exercise physiology who writes extensivley in both equine journals (JAEEP)
and popular publications (i.e The Horse).  The product was tested
extensively in the field in many types of performance horses for 3 years.
It was not designed specifically for endurance horses (sorry folks we are a
tiny fraction of the horse world), though some of the initial field testing
was done on endurance horses.  It is slated for limited release in selected
markets.  Presently they are selecting performance horses in various
disciplines such as race horses and others (such as endurance horses) in an
expanded test market type of scenario. Full release won't come until this
summer I am told.  Like many of you I am anxious to see this product &
probably try it myself on several of our horses & yes its slated to be
$1/bag more than most of their other feeds. Although we own endurance and
race horses, both candidates for the product, I can not get it until its
available to the general public, and even then at retail cost.

As far as cost per bag of the product, we find that we are able to feed
less total feed to our horses & actually save $ using some of their higher
cost feeds in our horses, such as Strategy and Race Ready.   Lest you think
I bleed checker board, while my wife is racking up 50,000 miles a year on
the road for the company I drive down to the closest feed store to plunk
down the same hard earned cash you guys do, so I am on the same wagon when
it comes to cost.   Large horse operations that feed premium products in
bulk find they save $ over mill mixes due to the lower volumes of feed they
wind up using on their horses.  My own "one rat example" is our now 1200
pound thoroughbred ( a dressage horse) who was starving to death on bucket
loads of his then-trainer's "home brew" cut w/another commercial product.
She spent tons of $ on him and chalked it up to some sorry line about
thoroughbreds being hard to put weight on.  Back home he has gained and
mainted over 200# on about 12-14# of strategy, growing a wonderful coat,
hooves, and muscle tone, back from the brink of death on a fairly low
volume of feed and of course high quality forage.  He is also not the dopey
lazy  horse the trainer complained about either, rather he romps, frolics,
and works at a level that belies his 20+ years.   When my wife gave away 2
bags of feed at each of our clubs events in 2003 we found some people
actually turned down the free bag of feed citing the "cost is too high" &
they didn't want their horse or horses getting used to it.......?????
We've found its cost per feeding not cost per bag.

If you make a mash and its consistency negatively affects your horse, is it
the product or the way it was used?  I am empathetic to a horse becoming
ill but do we think that the product designers envisioned a scenario where
their product is transformed from a coated extruded pellet to a gelatenous
mass of wet grain and beet pulp? Oftern I read that person X says they
don't like product A for some reason, but then later admit that they cut it
with x, y, or z, which was not how the product was intended to be used,
regardless of the company.  Would you blame Valvoline for a blown engine
when you "just" cut it w/a quart of mazola?  My horse devours Race Ready
and would fight to the death for it, but at some rides if I add too much
beet pulp he'll snub his nose at it..........do I blame the product or the
user (me) for adding too much beet pulp for his particular taste?

I have also heard people complain that their store can't get Purina
products.  One woman in our former 4H club was furious that her feed store
was not "allowed" to get Purina anymore.  The company is pretty dedicated
to keeping good customers and smaller opreations that are slow to pay (or
don't pay in her store's case!), and operations too close to an established
dealer are not given direct distribution.  Some of the apparent high cost
comes from "back door" sales, where a feed store buys the product from a
Purina dealer and sells it in their store for a very small profit and
higher than intended cost.  If you owned a feed store that invested
considerable floor space in Purina or any other product you wouldn't want
Billy Bob's drive thru 5 miles down the road to also have access to the
product.  Also keep in mind that if a feed store has a checker board logo
out front selling Dog and Cat Chow, that is not the company that makes feed
for cattle, horse sheep, goats, etc.  Heck the two companies don't even
like each other!  These are not subsidiaries but wholey separate entities
that have a tenous and litigous agremeent to share the logo and thats all.
So selling Purina dog Chow and not getting access to Purina ag products is
completely understandable.  Chrysler doesn't sell their cars to Ford
dealers.

Smaller cottage companies have next to zero research, often using
formulations of other comapnies, even labelling and naming products
suspiciously similar.  There is one feed company, popular w/some endurance
people, that is basically an office in a warehouse.  I've been there!  No
research, just a mill and a name, and formulations developed over 20 years
ago.  It is also somewhat suprising, as my wife would say, that we all tend
to be witch doctors in some way in the horse world as a whole, always
convinced that we can make something better than dozens of people who've
dedicated their career's to a particular field of study.  I find with my
own career that just about anyone knows more than I do, or at least thinks
they do.

It will take some time for Ultium to make its way into the market & time
will tell if it is a good product for performance horses such as endurance
horses.  I doubt a product will come to market with more research and field
testing than this one, though the name IMHO leaves a bit to be desired,
frankly the name sounds like a new mens deodorant stick not a horse feed.

Happy Trails........gotta mow.


Jon



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...but then, I do ride my horses a lot more than most people 
~  Karen Chaton

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