SHANNON DUECK: Yeah, no.
You know, I'm so nervous at horse shows
that I really have a hard time eating or enjoying food
during the horse shows.
So no, I don't.
I try to make sure that I have something to eat and force it
down.
But the nerves make it not so much fun
to eat during a horse show.
Afterwards, I have a favorite food,
but not during a horse show, no.
I don't really have a superstition,
but I do have a good luck charm.
I have a stock pin that my husband gave me
years and years ago, and it's getting really ratty.
And I hope it never, ever breaks,
because I love this thing.
And I have to wear that.
The first horse that I was lucky enough to own-- my parents
bought me an Anglo Arab mare when I was, I think, 11.
And her name was Bella, and she was beautiful.
And she was, actually, for that time was pretty well trained
in dressage.
But I wanted to jump, so I made Bella jump.
And she didn't really want to jump that much.
So I made her jump for a few years,
and then I got a real good event horse after that.
And Bella went on to do her dressage career after.
I wish.
I wish I could sail.
I really wish I had time to sail.
One thing I try to do every year is
go away for a couple of weeks with my husband
and do something that's completely non-horsey.
And that reminds me that there's another world out there.
But otherwise, I'm so busy and so committed to this
that I have very little time for other hobbies.
Well, I'm a trained equine nutritionist.
So I do know a little bit about equine nutrition.
And most horses-- their basic hay and grain
isn't going to cover all of their nutritional needs
for their optimal performance.
And no matter how good your hay is,
there's usually something that's missing.
Like most hay has got selenium missing.
So even a horse that's not doing anything and just on hay,
needs some supplementation.
And then I've got high performing horses.
They really need to have optimal nutrition.
And so I go through each one of their diets,
and I figure out what they need.
And then I get the individual supplements
that really helps to match their nutritional requirements.
The other thing that I love about the SmartPak supplements
is I do think horses that are performing,
and especially in horses that are getting older,
need a joint supplement to make sure that those joints stay
healthy, as healthy as we can.
And it really minimizes how much other therapy I have to do,
which can be really expensive.
So I have them all on a joint supplement
to make sure that the horses that have no joint problems,
hopefully, never develop them.
And the horses that do already have a little bit of arthritis
get the nutritional support for the best possible outcome
and to keep them comfortable.
Probably the best thing about them
is that once I've decided on the supplements
that each horse gets, I don't have
to worry about it ever again.
So I go through each horse's needs,
and they're all individual.
And then I go through the SmartPak catalog
and I figure out exactly which supplements I want.
I call up SmartPak, and we put that down,
and then it gets delivered once a month.
And they all get delivered at the same time,
and I never have to think about it again unless I decide that I
want to change the supplement.
And then I just call up and we change it around,
and for the next month, it's done.
The other thing I love about that
is that they remind me every month, in time,
to make any changes that I need to so that it's done
in a timely manner, basically.
So I'm really, really busy, and it takes
care of my supplement needs.
But my feed room hasn't got all of those buckets in there,
and that's really nice.
I have so much less clutter.
My barn manager doesn't have to spend hours
scooping things into baggies.
And I've got the drawer system.
Each horse is labeled.
Anybody can feed my horses.
I know that they're getting the right supplements,
and that just makes my-- I can go
to sleep at night knowing the horses are fed correctly
all the time.
It also makes things so much easier
when I go to shows, because they don't have to pack
buckets or anything like that.
They just pack in-- if we're gone for five days--
five sets of SmartPaks, and we're taken care of.
The service department seems to be really well staffed.
And whenever I call, I get somebody really
quickly on the line, if not immediately.
They also seem to be quite knowledgeable.
So I think that SmartPak trains them pretty well
in nutrition, and also in the rest of their products.
So that's very nice to deal with knowledgeable people
on the end of the line.
I've had a couple times where I've had questions
about what I got, or I got two things or I
didn't get something.
And when I call, they put me right
through to the right person.
I get a call back, usually within eight hours,
and things are resolved right away.
So I've been thrilled with the SmartPak service.
Yeah.
The best way of describing them is
to say that they're supplements simplified.