Industry Innovators

BY JACKIE MCFARLAND

Kompeet with Kenneth
  After eight years with CWD, Kenneth Vinther has taken a leap of faith. The well-connected, experienced salesman and horseman started 2011 by launching a new distribution company, Innordic USA. No longer dealing in leather, Kenneth is now supplementing the horse world with products that are already taking Europe by storm. One of the revolutionary supplements is a natural energy product, Kompeet. Kenneth has already seen impressive results in a variety of horses in several disciplines since he recently introduced Kompeet here in the United States.

  Knowing the proof is in the documented changes, he shared some of these success stories. With notable excitement in his voice, Kenneth further explained the reasons he chose this new route.

EqSol: So how did this career change come about?
KV: My good friend and old trainer Johnny Hansen has all of his horses on Kompeet and he put me in touch with the company. I’ve been talking with them since last summer and it evolved from there.

EqSol: What’s the product that changed your life and apparently can changes the lives of countless horses...
KV: The one product that inspired me is this new nutritional product for horses, Kompeet. The way it works is very interesting. It is an energy supplement that is derived from fat, not sugar. I’ll explain.

  A horse’s digestive system can only physically breakdown so much fat, due to acids in the stomach. Horses are foraging animals, built to eat grass in a pasture all day. Due to this they have a naturally slow digestive system. Most injuries and stress in horses are due to lactic acid, lack of strength which all goes back to a lack of sufficient energy in their diet.

  A European engineer developed a way to blend four types of digestive fat into a water-soluble vegetable fat. This provides a pure source of fat for both energy and weight gain. The key is due to the water solubility the horse will get 100% benefit. This is a huge benefit for high performance horses as well as hard to keep horses. This type of energy is called cold energy and it doesn’t have the highs and lows of energy derived from sugar.

EqSol: Don’t high-energy feeds provide this source of fat? Or what about other supplements?
KV: That’s just it – they don’t. It is not in any high-energy feeds. Yes the feeds have fat but it isn’t water-soluble. That is the simple but important key to how it works.

  Kompeet can easily be combined with other supplements. It is 100% pure vegetable fat, derived to increase energy; it has no added vitamins & minerals.

  There is no competing product available on the market that can do what Kompeet does for horses.

EqSol: You have testimonials. Tell us about these stories.
KV: Besides the great results from Europe, I’ve tried the product with several horses here. All different horses, different levels and different experience – all saw results in a month.

  I tested it on a 17 y.o., 17h Holsteiner dressage horse. He required a ton of feed just to keep his energy up, especially when he was competing. Another test was with a warmblood mare competing in the 1.50m division. They had tried everything to keep weight and muscle on this mare without success. And the third was a young warmblood that also wouldn’t keep weight on and was low energy, lethargic.

  From day one these three horses all had the highest amount recommended of 14 ounces per day. You can feed less but more than 14 ounces has no higher effect. After two to four weeks the results were phenomenal. ALL the horses improved. They look and feel great. The dressage horse is doing better than ever, plus his feed has been reduced by 1/3. The mare is not only more buff, with increased weight and muscle but she is less marish and more energetic about her job. And the young horse developed more muscles and his performance improved dramatically at the shows there after.

  These results stem directly from the right amount of energy and balance in the muscle. Pure energy.

EqSol: And that is just on those few cases. Do you see more potential?
KV: The potential is incredible, from the retired horse that needs to keep weight on to the high-level performance horses in all disciplines. It acts fast. You can control the amount you feed. For example you can maintain and then during a competition you can bump it up. There are no side effects or negative aspects.

EqSol: How do you find out more and where can you purchase?
KV: It will be available through my company, Innordic USA; I am the only US distributor. I’m now working on having it more readily available through some exclusive retailers as well as through veterinarians. For example Kompeet is now available at Beval’s at WEF and Rolling Meadows in Thermal. I also had a booth at AAEP (American Association of Equine Practitioners). The response from the veterinarians was huge; a light went on they saw the potential right away.

  Other innovative products coming to the United States through Innordic USA include organic products for hooves, an Omega 3 Fish Oil as well as an organic treatment for riding arenas which eliminates the need of watering for up to 15 months. All products are scientifically based and engineered for the Equestrian world.

  Thank you Kenneth for giving us the new supplement scoop. Congratulations on your business venture. Seems certain many will soon be seeking to Kompeet with Kenneth.

BY JACKIE MCFARLAND; PHOTOS BY ERIN GILMORE AND JACKIE MCFARLAND

More on the North American Riders Group
  This young yet robust organization seems to have a big stride and a great jump. Since forming in March of 2009, founders McLain Ward, Chris Kappler, Norman Dello Joio, Jimmy Torano, Kent Farrington and Beezie Madden added influential names to the Board, including Will Simpson, Andre Dignelli and successful CEO Murray Kessler. As of this year yet another powerful CEO, Hunter Harrison joined NARG as special liaison for Horse Show Management. An avid supporter of the sport, Mr. Harrison serves in an advisory position for several world-class equestrian events, including Spruce Meadows, The Global Champions Tour and the Winter Equestrian Festival. Dynamo Jen Markee serves as Executive Director. Clearly they represent a group that essentially makes the show jumping world turn – the owners, riders and trainers.

NARG Board Member Murray Kessler

  Serving the equestrian world as an activist and lobbying group that seeks positive change through action, each Board Member puts their money where their mouth is. Seeking global changes that start at the source, besides contributing countless hours to achieve collective goals (more on that below), each Board Member contributed a minimum of $5,000 to the organization.

  The achievements this active group has accomplished illustrate that NARG seeks to work with, and preferably not against, the governing bodies and horse show managements.

AN AWESOME ANNUAL
  On February 1, 2011 NARG hosted their third annual meeting at the Wanderers Club in Wellington, FL. Several hundred owners, riders, trainers, managers and members of the press attended and were duly impressed.

Olympic Gold Medalist and NARG Board Member Will Simpson

Kessler Opens, Simpson Engages
  Murray Kessler opened the meeting, reminding the audience of NARG’s mission to “unite professional riders and trainers to use their collective strength to make show jumping in North America the best in the world.” He then introduced Board Member Will Simpson, who went well beyond reviewing the NARG 2010 accomplishments; the Olympic Gold Medalist engaged and entertained the group with his narrative. During his descriptive tale, he mentioned how the management team from Equestrian Sport Productions had already responded to NARG “At WEF every ring has great footing, and you can hear the horses from here saying ‘thank you, thank you, thank you’.”

  Onward and upward, NARG had a busy year nationally and internationally. The group re-submitted a prize money alignment rule change to the USEF that would uphold an avid NARG belief that like in other sports, the top level earns the biggest purses; continued discourse on the Mileage Rule; weighed in on the water jump debate; created a recommended course designers list; addressed the United States Olympic Committee regarding the top level of the sport; supported McLain during the incident at the 2010 FEI World Cup, including legal assistance, distributed the Young Riders handbook written by Kim Land which should ease some NAJYRC confusion, worked to get Katie Prudent elected to the IJRC (International Jumping Riders Club) Committee plus developed and presented evaluations to horse shows that resulted in significant improvements at major events like WEF, Hampton Classic, Devon, and the Pennsylvania National Horse Show (PNHS). This initiative led to the inaugural NARG Top 25, a list of the top 25 horse shows in North America. Before NARG announced the results of that year long effort, several more important people addressed the crowd.

Peter Doubleday

Doubleday Delineates, Prudent Will Persevere
  Next Simpson invited Peter Doubleday to speak. A long standing name in the sport, Doubelday explained how NARG influenced the PNHS Board, which has a large share of non-equestrian Members, to make some marked changes this year - notably a major investment in improving the footing as well as increasing prize money and improving award ceremonies. He encouraged other events to consider changes to improve the overall experience, ultimately to make North America’s top shows some of the best in the world.

  Katie Monahan Prudent spoke about her election to the IJRC. She spoke candidly about how the FEI’s actions against McLain during the 2010 World Cup had ‘damaged our sport worldwide’. She felt that the incident was not only ‘disgraceful and unjust’ but there was no unity among the riders. These negative aspects mixed with her strong desire to improve the sport, increase support and introduce NARG’s ideas are the driving forces behind accepting her new international position.

Ward Remembers, Morris Insists on Excellence
  McLain Ward approached the microphone. As painful as it may be to relive the nightmare he experienced through the unbelievable elimination of Sapphire in Geneva, he actually had some positive perspective. Ward commented on how good can come from bad, and that the unity he felt via NARG’s support during a difficult time was both effective and personally moving. “It was like having a bunch of pit bulls in my backyard. It was phenomenal.”

  Ward then introduced a video where Board Member Jimmy Torano interviewed the iconic George Morris. With vintage images woven into the piece, the two generations spoke about what has become of our sport. When Morris speaks people listen and he insisted on excellence – to eliminate the ‘limited’ mentality, to put quality first, always be open to learning, pay attention to the details – no shortcuts, and don’t lower standards. He addressed both the trainers and the horse show managers for the notable decline and commented on how we need to re-establish meaningful breeding and horse sales in this country. Acknowledging the challenge of his decree, and even his own admission of succumbing to the ‘sexiness’ of traveling to Europe to buy horses, Morris upheld that the excellence factor is truly how ‘together we can improve our sport’. Board Member Norman Dello Joio then addressed the crowd with comments that reiterated the Morris message and ended with the explanation that “NARG is working hard to restore greatness to North American horse shows with their Top 25 initiative.” Which led to the big announcement.

The NARG Top 25, Winner & Special Guest Speaks
  Via volunteer evaluators, NARG quantitatively analyzed over 50 horse shows last year. After numerous Board meetings to discuss the final results, NARG developed the Top 25 of 2010. Murray Kessler returned to announce the top events and to explain the importance of this effort. Labeling it the horse show version of Consumer Reports, he emphasized that although it is an honor to make this list it is important to note that after the top four shows all scores were below 80%, effectively a B- or lower. Certainly room for improvement. NARG feels that the key to improving our sport lies within this competitive structure and they seek to work with and not against horse show managements.

The NARG Board presents the Top Award of 2010 to Linda Southern-Heathcott and Ian Allison of Spruce Meadows

  With a score of 92%, Kessler proudly announced the number one equestrian events in North America, the Spruce Meadows Summer Series and Masters. Linda Southern-Heathcott and Ian Allison were present to accept the award. Stepping up to speak, Heathcott admitted that she has not been to Wellington for quite a few years (25 give or take) and that the management here has done an incredible job with the venue.

  She said the NARG evaluation of Spruce was constructive and candid, essentially appreciated. Heathcott further inspired the audience by relating that several decades ago Spruce Meadows was her father’s vision and dream. That is how it starts. The Southern family ignored the naysayers who claimed no one would come to Canada, and that this vision of hosting some of the world’s top equestrian events would never work. She concluded by claiming, “There is no can’t, you can.” View the full Top 25 Report here.

Kappler Concludes
  NARG President Chris Kappler wrapped up the meeting by highlighting NARG’s goals for 2011. They will again focus on their top 25 ranking as a way to continue to help North American horse shows improve, support the mileage rule and prize money realignment rule modifications, listen to their members - at their request NARG has added three open member meetings for 2011: At WEF on February 17, 2011, another at the Hampton Classic and a third on the West Coast (location and date to be announced). Kappler added that in 2011 NARG was creating an owner’s initiative with a goal to bring back the pride in owning a horse for our nation’s top riders. He closed with thanking the group for attending and asking for their continued support. He encouraged everyone to join and to be a part of shaping the future of show jumping. He ended with the resounding message of the evening “Together we can improve our sport.”

To find out more, go to NARG.org. Several in depth articles are also on PhelpsSports.com.

STORY AND PHOTO BY ERIN GILMORE

Use Your Head - Wear A Helmet
  Last winter Beezie and John Madden went on a skiing holiday. Between the busy schedules of an international show jumper (her) and an FEI official and coach (him), it had been at least six years since the couple had taken time off from horses to hit the slopes. Once suited up, the pair quickly realized they were missing an essential element. Halfway down their first run, John and Beezie became acutely aware that they were the only two skiers on the mountain not wearing ski helmets.

  This realization made the vacationers feel uncomfortable on many levels. So much in fact that post that initial run down the mountain they went straight to the ski shop and bought helmets.

  In January Beezie attended the Riders4Helmets Helmet Safety Symposium 2011, held in Wellington, Florida, and retold this story to illustrate a very important point. She explained, "If more people did it (especially well regarded Olympic level riders) more people would get comfortable doing it."

  Beezie was attesting to the importance of helmet use while riding horses, and pointed out that if a sport such as skiing, in which helmet use was nonexistent a decade ago, can experience a universal shift to helmet wearing, there’s no reason that the horse industry can’t do the same.

New Rules, New Trends
  Recent rule changes by the U.S. Equestrian Federation to enact stricter helmet laws in the disciplines of dressage and eventing are a good step, says Beezie, but we still have more to do.

  Referring to the recently passed rule change for dressage that requires helmets with the exception of those "competing only in FEI levels and tests at the Prix St. Georges level and above." Beezie agreed with one exception. "I wish they [USEF] had gone so far as to say that dressage riders had to wear helmets at the grand prix level. It’s important that the top riders wear their helmets, and be seen wearing their helmets."

  The helmet-wearing campaign launched by Riders4Helmets.com in April of 2010 was initiated after Olympic dressage rider Courtney King-Dye fell from a horse and sustained a traumatic brain injury that left her in a coma for nearly a month. Thousands rallied around Courtney, who was not wearing a helmet at the time of her fall, in the weeks after the incident, and since then the discipline of dressage has seen a remarkable shift in perception towards helmet use. At the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games last fall, dressage bronze medalist Steffen Peters donned his helmet during the awards ceremony, and dedicated his ride to Courtney, who was in the audience watching.

Show Jumpers Should Strap One On
  Currently sponsored by Charles Owen Helmets, and previously sponsored by GPA, Beezie has longstanding relationships with helmet makers. She became one of the first three riders in the United States to wear a GPA helmet back when the popular style still leant towards the velvet hunt caps of yesteryear. At that time, a GPA "skunk stripe" noticeably stuck out, but "I figured if it was a safer helmet, it was a good thing," the top rider noted. "If it got a lot of people to wear safer helmets and if it saved one or two lives, not to mention maybe my life, that was a big deal."

  A two-time Olympic gold medalist and show jumping icon, Beezie is fully aware that thousands of horse enthusiasts look up to her and other grand prix show jumpers as role models. She believes that not wearing her helmet, even in the warm up ring at a competition, sets a bad example for the up and comers who watch her and tend to emulate her every move. "For the last four or five years, I’ve always had a helmet on, every time I’m on a horse."

  "I think that USEF has already gone a long ways in saying that juniors at hunter/jumper shows have to wear a helmet all the time, and lots of venues have helmet rules," she commented. "Saying that everyone at hunter/jumper shows has to wear a helmet is the next step for sure."

  Old habits are hard to change, but as we all know a random spook or misstep can happen at any time, and can cause any level of rider to fall off unexpectedly. Beezie sincerely hopes that it won’t take a serious head injury incurred by a nationally known jumper rider to change rules and minds in her discipline. As skiers on the slopes can attest, global acceptance and change is possible.

RESOURCES:
Ride smart and strap one on. Everyone’s Doing it! Check out:
www.riders4helmets.com

Information on what’s happening with helmet rules and more: http://sidelinesnews.com/blogs/whatshappenin/usef-passes-new-safety-helmet-rules-for-eventing-and-dressage-riders.html

USEF Press Release:
www.usef.org/_IFrames/newsdisplay/viewPR.aspx?id=6569&star=true

Dressage & Eventing Rule Changes:
www.usef.org/_IFrames/RuleBook/Changes/2011.aspx

Read Courtney King-Dye’s blog:
www.courtneykingdressage.com

BY EQUESTRISOL FOR ESP: PHOTOS BY RANDI MUSTER/MUSTPHOTO, INC

A Million in One Night
  The second annual WEF FTI Great Charity Challenge is an admirable event by many standards. As one of several signature events at the prestigious Palm Beach International Equestrian Center in Wellington, Florida, this exciting Pro-Am class presented by Fidelity Investments® has galloped out of the gates as one of the largest fundraising events in Palm Beach County. The single evening goal is to raise $1,000,000.

  On Saturday Feb. 19th, 2011, thirty teams consisting of one professional and two junior or amateur riders will compete for thirty randomly assigned Paslm Beach charities. The unique format is a thrill not only for the charities who will benefit but for the spectators and riders as well. The team aspects allows juniors and amateurs a chance to be a part of a team, side by side with top professionals all under the lights of the prestigious International Arena. These teams are generously sponsored by an equestrian family with additional monies coming from corporate and individual donors as well as all proceeds from ticket and VIP table sales for the evening’s event.

Pablo Barrios and his team in the 2010 Great Charity Challenge

EVERYONE IS A WINNER
  Seems everyone is a winner in this event. Based on the fundraising goal of $1 million, the charity matched with the winning team will win $150,000 with a sliding scale where even the last place finisher will win $10,000 for its assigned charity.

  Equestrian Sport Productions, producer of the FTI Winter Equestrian Festival and the FTI Great Charity Challenge presented by Fidelity Investments®, donates the venue and its staff for this charitable event. Many of the team sponsors are not only vital to the equestrian sport but are international leaders in business, finance, the media, and politics.

CHARITIES AND FAMILIES UNITE
  A record number of 161 charities serving Palm Beach County applied to be a part of the 2011 event. About 15% (26) of those were randomly selected to participate in a drawing during the Holiday HorseFest at the Meyer Amphitheater on December 12, 2010.

Liliane Stransky's Step by Step Foundation Team, winners of the 2010 GCC

  A handful of charities were pre-selected or pre-qualified, like YMCA of the Palm Beaches, who qualified based on their outstanding ticket sales from the 2010 event. The Wellington Community Foundation was pre-selected due to their initiative to act as a representative for Wellington non-profit charities. And finally, Home Safe was pre-selected at the discretion of the Great Charity Challenge directors to remain in accordance with the theme of "family."

  Upolding the generosity of this happening, numerous families sponsored teams this year. Recognizable equestrian names include Bellissimo, Bloomberg, Crown, Dammerman, Fleischhacker, Goldstein, Grange, Harrison, Bob Johnson, Kellogg-Sadrian, Kessler, Lourie, Mershad, Mirabal, Moran, Porter, Raether, Riley, Smith, Thatcher, Duchossois, Tisbo, Woschenko, Rodich, Ziegler, Burton, D'Ambra, Allen, Spogli, Mitchell-Innes, Gammino, Alali, Johnson, Pasmore, Boyer, Williams, and Stein. Now that’s charitable.

  It takes a village, in this case the one of Wellington to raise a million in one night. We commend all those who are gearing up for a great cause.

  More details in the next e-newsletter, after EquestriSol’s next trip to WEF.

  For more information on the FTI Great Charity Challenge presented by Fidelity Investments® and on the FTI Winter Equestrian Festival please visit www.equestriansport.com. Media please contact Heather Buchanan or Clara Belden.