ADM Animal Nutrition is now the official feed of Solo Select, solidifying an already long-standing partnership that powers the health and performance of the thousands of top-level prospects and performers that come through the aisles of Solo's Texas facilities.
ADM's program centers around its Forage First® principles, which emphasizes the importance of high-quality forage-based feeds rather than grain-based feeds. Solo Select's performers, prospects and breeding stock all are asked to perform their very best, and ADM Feeds partnership provides the nutrition to make that possible.
"We have hundreds of horses in our care at all times, and we are dedicated to giving each one of them the very best nutrition," Solo Select's Melanie Smith said. "ADM is a company we are very familiar with, as we have been using their products for over six years. When we started feeding GROSTRONG® Minerals in 2018, we saw cleaner X-rays in our young horses, and we’ve continued to see these results through years of developing young horses. We pride ourselves on providing radiographs on every performance horse we sell, because our customers need horses that can hold up to training and competing at the highest levels. ADM is a tool in our arsenal that we can't replace. We have recommended them for years, and we are confident in the product they put out. This partnership is not anything new—it’s just official now. They have been a staple of our program from the beginning.”
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Solo Select first started using GROSTRONG® Minerals in its breeding program six years ago, implementing ADM Feed's GROSTRONG® PRO-VITA-MIN™ Tubs and seeing success in eliminating a number of radiographic deficiencies in the yearlings. Mares were given the free choice minerals from conception to foaling, and foals had access to the minerals from the day they were born until the day they sold. Over the last two years, Solo Select has kept the mineral in its sale prep program for outside fitting horses, ensuring that young horses had the nutritional building blocks for long-term success.
"Anytime that you combine superior genetics with superior nutrition, you get really good outcomes," ADM's Equine Business Manager James Lattimer, Ph.D., said. "It’s a no-brainer for us to get more closely involved with Solo Select. Anytime you have advanced genetics, you have to look at advanced nutrition. We’re proud of what we were doing for them and thought we could continue and do even more for them."
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What is ADM Feed? ADM’s Equine Program is focused at providing high-quality, research-supported nutritional products for horses of all life stages and performance levels. ADM Animal Nutrition’s Forage First® Program:
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Puts horse feeding priorities in the right order
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Based on the horse’s unique digestive system
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Built on the foundation of feeding horses as nature intended with good-quality forage comprising a large proportion of the diet
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Primarily rely on highly digestible, fermentable fiber sources and fats/oils (stabilized rice bran and vegetable oils) rather than high-starch diets to meet energy needs
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Results: Your horse can perform better with less risks of metabolic and digestive disorders.
Going forward, Solo Select will work with ADM Feeds' nutritionists to pinpoint the ideal nutrition program for all of its stallions and mares in its Select Genes and Select Reproduction programs, because proper nutrition is essential for a stallion's motility and longevity in the breeding shed, as well as a mare's overall health to pass that along to her offspring.
"We’ve got a Forage First philosophy, and that should be the bulk of the diet and where we always start," Lattimer added. "But no forage will meet all of a horse’s requirements. They will have vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Vitamins and minerals are where we look to balance a forage-based diet. As we ask more of our horses, push one for more growth, for more exercise, their vitamin and mineral requirements go up. The more advanced genetics have a higher nutrient requirement. We have to feed those horses on a higher plane of nutrition. A BLM mustang—a wild horse—and a horse at Solo Select will have very different genetics and therefore very different nutrient requirements. Vitamins and minerals are in immune system, energy, metabolism, reproduction—every chemical process in the body."
Lattimer and his team of nutritionists are available to help consult to build a program that matches your horse's genetics and performance demands. Find out more by emailing admequine@adm.com or visit admanimalnutrition.com.