SUCCEED is a nutritional approach to managing your horse’s digestive health, including the stomach and the hindgut. It’s designed to keep your horse’s entire GI system healthy, which positively impacts many aspects of wellness as well as performance. A horse’s overall wellness and ability to perform at its best depend on a strong digestive system. A healthy digestive system has many benefits, including keeps a horse’s immunity strong. It keeps the horse eating and absorbing nutrients properly, which helps with maintaining body condition, which leads to better sustainable energy. And all the while, the horse stays more calm and focused.
Gastrointestinal tract problems are prevalent in horses that race, and SUCCEED provides a natural and unique daily program to maintain the health of the entire digestive system before, during, and after the strenuous racing season. Here’s how it can help, and how race-day regulations in your area and discipline may affect when you can feed it.
Why SUCCEED® Leads to Better Performance
SUCCEED Digestive Conditioning Program is a patented, natural formula that is designed and proven to support healthy digestion. Through a simple, daily nutritional program that will fit into your regular feeding schedule, you can maintain the health of your horse’s entire gastrointestinal tract. SUCCEED’s unique formula supports the ideal structure, function, and balance of the digestive system for a healthy stomach and hindgut, good nutrient absorption, and overall wellness.
Listen in as Craig Stein, a standardbred racing trainer owner, explains the benefits of feeding SUCCEED.
As you can tell, there are many benefits of using SUCCEED to support and maintain the race horse’s digestive health. However, depending on where you’re competing, you may be prohibited from doing so on race day. Below we will discuss when SUCCEED can be used on race days, when it can’t, and what the gray areas are.
Racing Rules Regarding Supplements
Performance horses are subject to a myriad of regulations, mostly dependent upon which organization and state or country is overseeing the competition. Oftentimes, the list of banned substances and practices, as well as the sensitivity of detection, can change on an almost daily basis. This can make it difficult for owners and trainers to keep up. To add to that, there are also different regulations based on the type of racing, such as flat racing vs barrel racing even within the same country.
Thoroughbred and Standardbred Racing
For thoroughbred flat racing and standardbred harness racing competitions, no drugs or supplements that could possibly affect performance are allowed within the 24 hours leading up to the race. Although SUCCEED is a natural product and will never test, you should check with your individual state’s regulations to see if feeding SUCCEED on race day is allowed.
Barrel Racing
For barrel racing, drug testing typically only occurs at large events, finals, or sometimes randomly. One example of a banned substance for U.S. barrel racers is anabolic steroids. In the past, these were given to increase appetite, which SUCCEED can do as well. Today, anything that was prescribed by a vet is allowed, including supplements, which means SUCCEED can be given to horses the same day as their barrel racing events.
UK and Irish Horse Racing
Across the pond, the rules are slightly different than in the U.S. In Irish horse racing, horses are not allowed to be given SUCCEED on the morning of their competition. Trainers are only permitted to administer feed, hay or water on race day and no drugs or supplements are allowed.
In the U.K., it is a little bit more of a gray area and tends to change from stable to stable. Some owners and trainers believe that SUCCEED is a part of regular feed, while others view it as a separate supplement that cannot be consumed on race day per the regulations.
Strong Debate Among Veterinarians
The biggest debate surrounding the use of SUCCEED on racing days is whether or not it is viewed as a normal part of feed for your horse or as a supplement separate from your horse’s normal feed routine.
Some veterinarians argue that SUCCEED is not feed or water and is therefore prohibited on race day. On the flip side, others believe that SUCCEED is a functional feed and part of a horse’s normal daily routine and must be permitted for use on race day. Nonetheless, until a definitive answer is provided, the debate will continue.
Our Stance on Feeding SUCCEED® on Racing Days
SUCCEED supports the digestive health of your horses when it is used once a day every day over the long-term to maintain GI wellness. This should include long before, and long after, race day. If you have already established optimal digestive health in your race horses with SUCCEED, they should be in good wellness on race day even if they must go without for a short time.
Always stay up to date on new regulations to ensure that SUCCEED, or any other substance, is within the boundaries set by the relevant governing bodies.
In order to stay compliant and get the best results, we suggest the following:
- ALWAYS know what the rules are for your state, country and discipline.
- Consult with your veterinarian about how to best manage your horses and their health.
- Feed SUCCEED on a daily basis, year-round, for the competitive lifetime of the horse to support good GI health.
- Some SUCCEED users give twice a day in the week leading up to a race, on days that you haul to a race, or while you are away from home at the track or rodeo. If your horse has been on SUCCEED long-term on a daily basis, its digestive system should be in a healthy state.
- If the rules state that SUCCEED is not allowed on race day, such as in the UK and Ireland, we recommend always following the rules and staying on the safe side. If you are unable to give it the morning before the race, do so right after the race as part of your recovery routine.
- If you are in a sport that allows you to give antibiotics and certain medicines during competition, SUCCEED can help to keep the gi tract healthy. If using antiinflammatories or antibiotics that can be hard on the gut, you may consider feeding SUCCEED twice a day.
SUCCEED products are designed to support the overall health of the entire equine digestive tract despite the challenge of modern horse husbandry and racing stresses. See where you can buy SUCCEED online or in your area.
