I have a 3/4 thourough bred 1/4 draft cross warmblood, with suspected epsm (shivers when picking up back feet for picking, and pony stride in hide end till warms out, very stiff. His muscling is good, I currently have him on professional massage treatments, and lots of walking, turn out, lunging, lite riding. When I got him 1yr ago he was dead lame in the canter, read your articals and changed his diet to high fat, results seen in about a month, I had him on Amplify, and added 1 cup oil with grass hay pellets, and fed oat hay and alfalfa 17.lbs per day . He was doing great,but was then trailed round trip from ca. to co. within 2 weeks, and came back never the same. I switched ranches and now feed grass hay, oat barley, alfalfa, amplify w/2 cups oil and timothy pellets. I've also had him injected with legend series, and 1 adequan shot, thinking arthritis and joint disease could be setting in as well. Nothing has really brought him back to his previous conditon of overall feeling well and athletisim. From reading your articles, as of today I will be taking him off the oat/barley hay, and will put on 1flake bermuda grass hay and 2 flakes alfalfa,per feeding and once a day the amplify with 2 cups oil and timothy hay pellets. I guess my question really is, is amplify a good choice for him or is their to much starch in it, and is my choices of hay ok? I do suspect the oat/barley is causing the problem due to the time of year, and cuttings of the hay, which can change the sugar content tremendsly and here in Ca we don't have to many choices, and as well I keep him at a boarding facility. He's about 14yrs old, and was a schooling horse for jumpers(low)and also 3rd level dressage, and knows western. So I hate to see him decline, if theres anything I can do. Any help would be appreciated. By the way I did increase his oil at one point to 3 cups per day, without much conventional work, and he got fat, I thought maybe he needed more fat in his diet to compensate for whatever was going on, but now have backed down to 2 cups, and are riding western loose reign every couple days/with turn out or lite lunging the rest of time to keep him moving.

Hi Penny. I absolutely agree with deleting the oat/barley hay from his diet. I have seen EPSM horses develop obvious issues again when on this type of hay. You could also try increasing his oil just slightly, say to 2 1/4 cup per day. Otherwise, everything looks good to me (including the Amplify). I'd want to add some extra vitamin E, though, as it never hurts and sometimes helps. You'll need to check with your veterinarian to know if your area of CA has low selenium and if a selenium along with vitamin E supplement would be useful for him. Hopefully these adjustments will help to get him back on track. Please let us know!