Success Profile: Creek
Breed: Thoroughbred
Age: 3
Discipline: Hunter/Jumper
Owner: Courtney Bolduc
I got into horses because my mom was a manager at a polo barn and I tagged along every day and helped muck out stalls. I was on a horse at four years old – there was one little companion mini at the barn that I would hop on bareback and ride around the property. Ever since that little pony, I’ve been hooked!
Over the years, horses have changed my life by teaching me the importance of patience and love. Horses love you no matter what you look like, or if you have a bad or good day. They are always there to lend a nuzzle or a neck to snuggle. They have taught me that you need patience, not only in working with horses, but for everything in real life. I have learned that if you approach the situation without time constraints, then there is less stress and more goals get reached.
Nowadays, I work in a hunter/jumper facility where I take care of the horses every day, and I also teach lessons and am training my own horses. Horses are my life, and I wouldn’t change that for the world. The bond you create with a horse is just so magical. Just being able to communicate with something that doesn't speak and outweighs you by at least 1000 pounds is amazing to me, even after all these years. I just adore working with horses.
I heard about SmartPak through a friend who had her horse on SmartPaks and ordered the majority of her riding gear through SmartPak. I looked up the company myself, and I was hooked, too! The barn that I work at has been using the SmartPaks feeding system for over three years. My favorite things about SmartPaks are that you don’t have to measure out individual supplements or remember what horse gets what supplements. Plus, they keep our grain room a lot neater because every horse has his or her own SmartPak drawer. If each horse had a separate bucket for each supplement they got, our grain room would be a disaster!
Along with using SmartPaks for the horses at work, I’ve been giving them to my own horse, Creek, for a year now. When I first met Creek, I was scrolling through Facebook and saw a picture of a gangly, underweight colt with rain rot covering half his body. He was posted on a sales page where he was on his way to a kill pen, and something about his sweet eye and defeated look drew me in. I made the call and one hour and two hundred dollars later, Creek was on his way to safety and arrived home two days later. His skin was dry and his coat was dull, matted, and covered in mud. You could count every rib and see his spine poking out, and he weighed less than 500lbs at 15 hands. I worked with my veterinarian to determine the best ways to help him, slowly introduced grain to his diet, and decided to start him on SmartPaks to provide the extra support he needed during his recovery.
The Supplement Wizard made choosing the perfect supplements so simple. It saved me a ton of time because I didn’t have to browse through hundreds of supplements, and I love that it suggests supplements and also gives you different price options. I put SmartGain and SmartShine in Creek’s SmartPaks to start with because his weight and the health of his skin and coat were my biggest concerns.
Slowly but surely, he gained weight and I noticed that his coat was shiny and sleek. He now weighs in at just under 1000 lbs, and everywhere I take him, all people have to say is how shiny and smooth his coat is! I can’t thank SmartPak enough for being a part of my special horse’s healing process, and I wouldn’t trust any other products for him.
