I first heard about Equisolv when Lorraine told me she had bought a new calm aid for Albert after seeing positive reviews of it on Facebook. I’ll be honest, I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention, our horses are very different – Maisie is anxious but older and wiser and I’ve never really worried about her getting wound up (that I didn’t enjoy anyway!). Whereas Albert is highly anxious in certain situations, especially getting separated from his bestie. Lorraine tried out the calm aid, and it worked like magic, I took Maisie out and he barely noticed or cared. 

So then Lorraine mentioned that there was a competition on facebook to win a tub of Equisolv, and in my little thought box a voice was saying – this might be good for cross country, Maisie was so forward that it became a little unsafe and if anything could rein that in (haha) I would be unstoppable. So I entered, and to my utter shock – I won. The rest as they say…no not history, just a long road but always with the help and benefits of Equisolv.

So I won a tub of the original and as soon as it arrived on my doorstep I was off to the yard to lob it into her feed. After about 10 days I started to notice a chilled out change in Maisie. She always had an edge, just a tension or awareness of everything going on around me, but now, especially out hacking she seemed to just take everything in her stride and with almost a shrug of her shoulders. At the time we were mostly hacking, so I can confirm that it made a difference. But when a shitland I call Elvis jumped out at us on a hack, both Maisie and Albert landed on the middle of the road with the fright..but do you know what, instead of myself and Lorraine getting worried or panicking we both ended up doubled over in the saddle laughing – now that’s what I call a positive result! 

So I kept using the Equisolv Original with the intention of going cross-country. Before I could though I entered a local riding club show where I entered the show-jumping and my first dressage test. I had attempted 2 shows with Maisie since I brought her home, show-jumping in January where I retired after the 6^th fence because of speed, direction and communication issues, and a pre-novice hunter trial which was last minute and I completely convinced myself if would be fine – it was not fine, Maisie got faster and faster, belting into fences and scared the bejeesus out of me so I retired half way round before we both died. Those experiences did not set me up with a good feeling for the show in Roscrea, but as I often say to friends – either ride the horse or get off, and I choose to ride. 

Now I need to explain something of our history here for context, I bought Maisie in 2017 and she had only ever hunted. I retrained her for show-jumping, which she loved and was built for – she has a super pop in her. My circumstances changed drastically and by January 2020 I had to sell Maisie. In the years I owned her I did everything, absolutely everything with her – showjumping, hunting, cross-country, endurance rides, solo hacking. She is such a sane mare, that after my back surgery in December 2018 I had no qualms about pulling her out of the field after a winter off and heading off up the road hacking by myself. I was lucky that she sold to a lovely girl in Limerick who kept in touch with me and gave me updates on what they were up to and how Maisie was doing. Luckily, things for me got back on track and I was offered the opportunity to buy Maisie back in August 2021. I jumped at the chance! 

So once she came home, I began getting to know her again by hacking out, which was as safe as ever. There was one difference though, and that was Maisies brakes – normally a slight touch would bring her back from turbo gear, but that was gone. So I worked hard on trying to get her brain back to my speed, but those two shows told me that it would take a lot more work before she understood that speed and power is best left to Jeremy Clarkson. 

So then Equisolv came into our lives, and after a month or so of feeding it I loaded up and headed off the Roscrea. First, I must acknowledge a well run and thoroughly enjoyable show, hosted by Golden Grove Riding Club. The nerves were real, but I got tacked up for the jumping class and headed in to the warm up. From the first few jumps I knew I had my girl back. Our round was hilarious, we jumped everything; she listened to me and didn’t race at fences; we forgot where number 8 was, but I ended that round with my face nearly split in two with a smile that lasted for days. Now, Equisolv gets a lot of credit here, as it should but please understand that it was the work I put into my mare as well as the aid of Equisolv that made my first big riding club event a thundering success. 

Around this time 2HorseReviews were approached to be brand ambassadors for Equisolv. After seeing the results of this product first hand I was only too happy to agree and promote such a genuine and results based product. They kindly sent us a variety of their products, all of which I have been able to use due to different changes in Maisie since the success in Roscrea. This success in May made me much more confident about bringing Maisie out and about so we spent the summer doing riding club training evenings and enjoying our time together and every single time she was one-hundred percent the mare I remembered, the one who let me gallop around a stubble field when I wasn’t even supposed to be in the saddle. 

I had originally planned to ride cross-country while using the Equisolv but circumstances changed once again and that will now not be possible..but that’s a story for another day!

You can visit the Equisolv Website here: https://equisolv.ie/product/calm-aid/

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