Episode 9 - Feeding Your Horse To It's Genetic Potential : The Crucial Role Of Nutrition With Melanie Smith and Dr. James Lattimer

Hi, everyone. I'm Melanie Smith with Solo Select Horses. We're here today with Dr. James Latimer from ADM Animal Nutrition. We're here to talk today about feeding horses to their genetic potential. This is a conversation I have with so many of my clients on the phone year after year, just trying to make sure that they have the education they need to get these horses to the finish line, which for most of them is selling them as yearlings. We've got to make sure that these horses have the nutrition and the minerals. And, you know, as you know, and what we're going to talk about today is it's a full program of things that we do to make sure that when we sell these horses as yearlings and they go on to begin their careers, they have every chance possible to be as successful as possible.

And so that's really our job. Solo select when we grow them here or advise our customers is how do we make sure that these horses are prepared for the work and demands of the careers that we've brought up to have and be successful in. Yep. And we need to recognize, you know, so many horses, you know, out there, last survey, 7.2 million, I believe. And so, so many different goals from owner to owner. But, you know, today we're going to talk about, you know, those elite horses, right? The one percenters. And we can't feed them like we used to feed them 20 years ago, 50 years ago. So as genetics advance in the breeding barn, so does genetic potential for growth, for performance, and so their nutrition moves up as well, right?

So it's no different from any other species. Let's take, for instance, you know, a hog today. Very different genetics than 30 years ago. And we feed them very different than we did 30 years ago. They look different. We feed them different. The horses are the exact same, right? As we get pickier in our genetics and select, the genetic potential goes up, their nutritional requirements go up. And so it is very common for owners newer to this to buy top-end genetics and simply underfeed them. And we'll go through some examples of how we've seen that with some of your customers. And I think the way I've tried to explain it to people is, hey, you know, some of the horses you guys may have had previously were literally bred to survive.

They were bred to survive in the wild on whatever forage was available to them based on the geographical location that they were raised in. And they were bred to be survivors. We are now breeding horses to be, you know, unimaginably athletic, exceptional individuals. And that just takes a different kind of feed to get them to that point. For sure. There's not just when we talk about the nutrient requirements of horses. Right. And we have a book in it. The book value, the book value does not hold true with advanced genetics. It's simply not enough. And that shouldn't be surprising. It's old data and it wasn't done on this caliber of horses. And so, yeah, there are different nutrient requirements. As you said, I have a nutrient requirement just to stay alive, just to exist and be a horse and even just have a baby, a mare to have a baby is a very different nutrient requirement than reaching our genetic potential and running as fast as we can, sliding as far as we can, scoring as high as we can on a cow.

Those are two totally different numbers. And we can have programs to meet both of those. But today we're talking about over here on the right end of the bell curve. Sure. And so we've been with you guys for a long time. Solo Select has been feeding you guys' mineral since 2015, 2016. Before Solo Select was a thing, we were feeding Grow Strong Mineral. It's been a staple of our program. But we've recently moved to you guys' feed, maybe, what, in a year? I think we've been out of the year now. And so we got to see the results this year with our self-fitting horses. And I don't know how many people came up to us at the sale and said, you guys as horses look outstanding. They look outstanding. And we appreciate that. And we know a lot of that goes hand in hand with the work that our crew puts in and the time and the hours and the sweat equity that they put into these horses.

But the fact is that a very large, if not more than half of that portion is based off of our feed. And so let's talk a little bit about the feed that we've put together and what you and Ty and me and Maria, we've all kind of put our input in to make this feed and what is it? Sure, sure. So, you know, the very first place we'll start and has nothing to do with us is a good forage, right? And that's where we're always going to start. And that is one thing, just to interrupt you, that we've loved about y'all's program from the beginning is forage first. Because we also feel very strongly that the forage is so important. And you read some of these feed bags and they say to feed so much grain and it's an excessive amount of grain.

And for us, we want to give them as little grain as possible, but still meet all of their needs, but really have that high quality forage. So we love that. That is our favorite thing about y'all's program and why it blends so well with ours, because we do want to feed as much forage as possible. Better for the horse is better for the pocketbook or the owner, right? Yeah. There's a lot of horses out there, not these, but we'll say the average horse, right? Which most of them out there, right? The 90 percenters. On a good forage, all they might need is two ounces of growth strong mineral and that balance and that diet's now balanced. So now here, that's not the case. But when I evaluate a diet or a customer calls, we're going to look at the forage first.

It could be easily 100% of the diet, 80% of the diet. it. And we always want to focus blame on what's coming out of the bag, but let's focus on what's the bulk of the diet. And that's going to be the forage. So we're going to start there. And so we've got a good program here. It's pretty much straight alfalfa, right? And then depending on the horse we're talking about, we have different products, whether we're talking about horses that are in the sales prep barn, a re-sip mare, an open mare, they're all a little bit different. But we start with the tubs, which pretty much everything outside would have our Grow Strong Vitamin and Mineral tub. And on the mare side, that's all they have, right? Alfalfa, grass, grazing grass, and they'll eat about one to two pounds of our tub per day, and they're balanced.

Our tub is not a cooked molasses tub, which most people are used to, that cooked, poured molasses. Ours is what's called a pressed tub. So it has very little alfalfa. It's kind of like if you take a feed, grind it up and press it really hard into a tub, that's what it is. And how hard we press it in there is what regulates the intake. So it has our grow strong vitamin and mineral in that tub, some protein, some energy. And so the easier keeping horses, the re-sip mares, that's pretty much what they're on, right? Now, as we go on, the mares get into last trimester. We've got to do more for sure when they're lactating, we have to do more. And then through growth, the tubs cannot maintain them. Well, it could maintain them. It's not going to reach genetic potential.

We've got to do more. And so we do that in a variety of ways. And it's been a little bit of learning curve, hasn't it? So when we first came on board, like, okay, let's try our Patriot performance. And with the tubs and by all means, what the book told us, we should be good. Right. Those horses started going backwards. Where most horses we'd be good to go they started going backwards i was trying to save you guys money decreasing the amount of vitamin and mineral decreasing the amount we were feeding it didn't work so instead of trying a bunch of have the feed put more mineral on top of it we we developed grow strong professional which is a 14 8 to 14 protein 8 fat but we really ramped up our inclusion rate of grow strong vitamin and mineral in that, ramped up the essential amino acids, put some other goodies in there.

And then that's what we're feeding today. Yeah. And it's working great. So just to recap, because I think what a lot of people that are listening to this want to understand is, hey, lay it out for me. Tell me how to make my horses look the way theirs look, whenever they're yearlings or two-year-olds or whatever age. So basically what we do here is our mares are on great alfalfa grass and turnouts. They always have tubs out. They always have their green tubs. Every pasture you drive around at this place, whether it's recent mares, babies, it doesn't matter. There's a green tub out in that pasture and they get changed out and kept up. So those mares that are early in their pregnancy may just be on that, may be on a little bit of our feed, just depending.

And that's something that I think it's important for people to understand that depending on what the forage is like, as far as the grass and things like that, we may have to up or increase or decrease that grain. And that's on us and the guys that are feeding out here to watch. And so there's no exact rule is what I'm getting at. There's no every mare needs one scoop of it a day. Some mares need a pound or two a day of actual feed. Some mares don't need any of it or they're going to found her. And I think it's important that people understand that you've got to cater to each mare's needs. Yep, that's right. Because they're just so genetically different, right? And different life stages, of course. You're going to have some mares that are out that are, you know, three years old that may be pregnant for the first time.

And you're going to have some 21-year-old mares that are carrying. Yep, that's right. So it's important to understand body condition score, a very elementary basic knowledge that any horseman, horsewoman should have is how to properly body condition one. Because if I can't see them and you call me and we're going to talk about it, one of my first questions is, is it an ideal body condition score? And that's how we want to feed two, right? We don't want to see ribs, but we want to feel ribs, right? So around the body condition score 5-6, generally, is where we want to be, right? Now, that really just tells us are we feeding the right amount of energy. If she's thin, we don't have enough energy. If we could roll a quarter down her back, we've overshot it, okay?

And now we're just wasting money and making it harder on her. Then we're going to look at, obviously, muscle mass. Top line is going to be the first thing to go. if we have amino acid deficiencies. So assuming we've got enough flesh, meaning fat to cover, our top line looks good, muscle mass looks good. We've just covered protein, amino acids, and fat at this point. We haven't talked anything at all about vitamins and minerals. Right. The likelihood that we have a vitamin and mineral deficiency is exponentially greater than to have a protein deficiency. If we don't have a good vitamin and mineral program, we can guarantee a vitamin and mineral deficiency. Let's say we have a horse, pick the horse. It doesn't matter what stage of production, on the best alfalfa we can find.

And that's all that alfalfa can meet, energy requirements, protein, amino acids. It doesn't matter how good it is, how much money we spend on it. It will not meet all of her vitamin and mineral requirement. It just can't do it. So like I said, in some horses, that's all they need, two ounces of Grow Strong. Now, it's a little bit different here. But we get so caught up on fat and protein, and every horse owner can tell you, I feed a 14-8, I feed a 12-6, whatever it might be. Very seldom can tell you how much copper, zinc, selenium is in their product. The likelihood we have a copper deficiency is much greater than a protein deficiency. So that's the first place I start. I'm going to start with the forage and then we're going to go straight into vitamins and minerals.

Well, I think one thing that people need to keep in mind about that too is some people bring their mares and they're fat and they look good, but they don't breed very good. And that's not always the case. Obviously, it's a very big picture with a lot of things that feed into the reproductive success of a mare over the breeding season. But I think that is one thing that's not very expensive and should be done anyways, is make sure that you're meeting her vitamin and mineral requirements. You just bring her to us and she's in a five perfect body condition, like you said, doesn't necessarily mean she's getting everything she needs. And that's not also an overnight thing. That's not something because every horse that comes here is going to have that mineral in front of them, whether they're long-term or short-term residents.

We're going to feed that either through their feed or it's going to be in their feed bins and they're in their stalls or in their turnouts. But those are going to take a hold the next day, right? So let's talk a little bit about that. That's not something you could just say, oh, it's breeding season. It's February 1st. I'm going to put my horse on vitamin on growth strong. All of a sudden, she's going to breed great. It takes a while for vitamin and mineral deficiencies to manifest themselves into something that you can see. An energy deficiency, she'll get thin and shed weight pretty quick. Amino acid, she'll start losing her top line pretty quick. What's a vitamin and mineral do? Well, think of any metabolic process that you could think of and a vitamin and or minerals involved in that. So growing.

Everything, right? A muscle contraction. Yeah. Building a healthy joint. Right. Your studs, semen, motility and morphology. A vitamin and mineral was involved somewhere in that biochemical process. Sure. So when we have a problem, it's too late, right? Well, I got a radiograph, I got a problem with my radiograph. Well, that just didn't happen, right? That could have happened in utero, okay? And real quick, we have to remember on mares and babies that a mare's colostrum is practically devoid of trace minerals, copper, zinc, things like those. And so if we don't feed that mare those trace minerals, so here. Those mares are on a good vitamin and mineral program. In utero, she deposits those in fetal liver.

Then when she foals, that baby draws on those fetal stores until it's consuming the feed or the gross drop. Well, when those fetal stores are not there. She has nothing to draw on or the baby has nothing to draw on, no reserves. So we are deficient in those trace minerals. And now we have problems. And I think that's so important because we spend so much every year making sure that these recipes before we put an embryo in them, even they are on this mineral and and we do it, you know, while they're in full and all of that. And some people are like, why do you guys feed all this mineral? because it the success of those babies starts at conception from the nutrition they get from those mares and i think that's one thing that as i've gotten more educated and learned and understand how important that is to the success that somebody has at the sale as a yearling or the two-year-old sale or at the maturity when their horse is crippled because of things that happen sure you know in utero and so i try to help my customers understand how important it is that we're laying that foundation for these horses from day one.

And that's something that we did long before we were ever associated with you guys, as we saw the importance of it. Originally from Kentucky, that's where we originally got the growth strong. They were using it over there. And I can tell you that they don't use things over there that don't work. Yeah. So we kind of jumped from a mare getting her in full, right? Which, yeah, we need to start a vitamin program well before that to help her get into full, right? And the studs, right? Same thing there. We want good morphology, motility, you know, but we have her in full now. And first and second trimesters, fairly easy to meet her requirement in retrospect to what's coming later in life. Third trimester is very different and we have to start ramping up her nutrition.

We got to think that mare two-thirds of that fetal growth occurs in that last trimester so at p depending on the genetics but but peak gestation she's building one to two pounds of fetus per day that's incredible and and we expect her to just do that on half dormant grass no way Well, she will, but it's not going to be what we want, right? And so last trimester of pregnancy is critical. Now when she folds and she starts lactating, her requirements have now doubled. Pretty much any nutrient requirement has now doubled from when she was early, when she was open or first trimester. They doubled. Yep. Super easy to underfeed them in last trimester and during lactation. I see it quite a bit on underfeeding because they're scared, they're largely scared to feed enough.

When you say, well, if you were feeding five pounds, we need to be at 10 to 12. Maybe not, but if she's that big of a producer. Yeah. Yeah. So for the ADM line of feeds, what feed do you recommend during that time then specifically? Yeah. So generally what we say is we put them on a growth feed. We'll transition them to a growth feed in last trimester. Okay. And we have a couple different ones depending on the line. Our glow line is our super premium and our Patriot is our premium line. And we have growth feeds in each one of those depending on the goals and what other goodies you want along with that. But we'd like to have typically we'll put them on a growth feed through last trimester and through lactation.

And during lactation, we'll feed down low. Right. And so that baby will eat beside mom. hopefully mom will let her. And then by weaning, the baby's already adapted to eating that grain. And when I say adapted, the gut is adapted. So that's one less stressor of during weaning. Yeah. Right. And we want to minimize stressors during weaning. So the baby's already adapted to the feed. We wean and the baby stays on growth feed, again, depending on genetics, but somewhere long yearling, two-year-old year. And then we go to what we call an all-life stage. You could keep the growth feed, but it's over nutrition. We don't really need to. The mare, after weaning, she comes off the growth and she goes to her maintenance feed.

Again, you could keep her on growth. It's going to cost you more money and it's over nutrition. You don't need to do it. Some people get nervous about swapping feeds. If you do it correctly and transition them, it's no problem. No problem. Yeah. And so these people, you know, customer of ours, let's say now they've put their marron weanling on their, well, it's not a weanling yet, marron foal. They're on the growth feed and baby's accustomed to it. So now they get ready to wean. So one thing I want to talk about now is I caution my customers too, like we don't need to overfeed them either. That's right. There's a very fine line. So after weaning, we don't need them. You don't need to roll a quarter down their back until you bring them to me as a yearling. Yes.

So let's talk a little bit about that. And I think some of that is so important to having the person that's feeding for you if you're not doing it yourself. Understand that. Yep. And again, body condition score. We've got to get our hands on them consistently. We can't just drive by the, oh, everything looks good, especially if they're woolly. Yeah. Poof. Yeah. We've got to get our hands on them, right? So we have some general rules, stereotypical rules on baby weanlings. We generally say, or the general rule is, a pound per 100 pounds of body weight of our growth feed. So if we've got a 500-pound wiener, five pounds, something like that, right? Now, that's soon going to go out of the window.

A 10-month-old is not going to be on 10 pounds, right? But it's a good starting point. So we'll be at weaning somewhere around five pounds, depending on genetics, right? Now, as we come and we start to get yearling, we're going to adjust that and feed the body condition score, right? We're going to monitor. We're going to put hands on where I'm, where I need to be. We're a little ribby here. We need to up. Okay. We were at six. We better be at seven or who I'm getting a little, little heavy. Okay. It's getting tough for me to feel ribs which in babies that's tough to do yeah it's tough to push but but and then we may want to back them off because the last thing we want to do is big bodies on little legs yeah right because now they're gonna go well one thing that i see a lot of and i'm not sure the right way i'm interested to hear your answer on this is i have some customers that'll send me pictures of their babies say yeah they look good and it's hard to tell in a video or picture you know but they're not fat they're fat and when i say fat their bellies are full of something yeah but they're not growing and so they get here and you walk down and it is crystal clear in july of their yearling year august when they come and you can see all of ours.

And all of ours came in this year. I didn't take the average, but it'd be interesting to see. I bet they weighed between 850 and 975, and probably right in the middle of theirs is an average in August of their yearling year. Because we weigh all of them here. These came in weighing 650. And it's year after year. And I don't... But they're not thin when they get here. But they haven't grown. Yep. So let's talk about that. Yeah, so there's a couple of things going on and very common. Do you see them in those pot-bellied year? Fairlings, we see them a lot. And so there's a couple things going on. And we have to recognize one thing. So they're on a lot of grass and a lot of hay, and rightfully so.

But you've got to recognize that their GI function, so back in the hindgut, their cecum and large colon, it's not fully functional yet. It's still learning. That gut's still learning to process a long stem forage. It's not peaked, not anywhere close. So what can happen, and especially if we're dealing with low quality forages, they'll consume it. And because it's low quality and they're not quite as good at breaking down that long stem forage, it sits there and it sits there. And when their gut's full, it tells their mind, don't eat. And so all that hay just kind of sits there and distends them out. right? And now because they really don't want to eat, they're not eating the feed that's going to drive the growth. Right.

Because we've had some of those that come in and it seems like it takes them forever to get on the feed too. Like when they come in and they look like that, it just is a little bit of a process for them to learn to eat it. And then it's like when they do, man, they take off, but it is a process. And it's an interesting that you say that because I feel like Maria's like, hey, I've had this one 60 days and we're starting to gain, but it's just now starting to really eat good. Yeah. And you spent a lot of that time. Teaching that horse, but also adapting his gut to process the feed that he should have been getting all along, right? The other thing we see in those horses is they're largely deficient in essential amino acids.

So like lysine and methionine, which are driving growth, right? Because they don't really want to eat and they're not getting enough. They're largely amino acid deficient as well. And so they don't look as good as in their top and they're a little bit shorter and And now for the good horsemen that can see that. So in cattle, cattlemen love a thing called compensatory gain. And good cattle buyers will buy those mismanaged cattle, knowing that when I put them on a good program, they're going to just go berserk and then I'm going to sell them. So a good horseman will see those mismanaged horses. They'll be like, that's a good horse underneath there. He's just been underfed. Wasn't fed right. I'm going to get him bought for a discount, put him on a right plane attrition.

He's going to go berserk through the roof, compensatory gain, and I'm going to sell him for a mint. And that is fine, but that's not what we want our customers to do, right? No, no, no, no, no. So yeah, but you're exactly right. I don't know how many of them we see at the sale that Ty will end up buying. And he's like, that colt's nice. He just needs some feed. Yep. He just needs some love, you know, and somebody needs to feed him and put them on the right program. And he has a totally different horse. And so. I think it's a tough pill to swallow for some that here's a weanling that's 500 pounds or something and should be getting five pounds per day. What my mare is getting as a maintenance. Yeah.

That's where we need to be starting at, yeah, of a right feed. Now, some of your customers have sent me, hey, this is what I'm feeding, and we'll get into this, right, a little bit more. This is what I'm feeding. I'm not happy with the way my solo genetics look. Can you help me? Send me what you're feeding. Send me a tag. And it says growth feed at the top. It's not a growth feed. It's not anywhere close. I wouldn't even call it a maintenance feed. And that's my job to know that and why I exist, right, as an equine nutritionist to help. But shame on those feed companies that call it a feed when it's clearly not. Right. It's not even all life stages, but largely the owners don't know. And so, yeah, I got to kind of help them through that. And I fully expect you to not be happy with your horses with this feed.

Right. You'll never be happy. Yeah. And so, so to, to kind of clear everybody in that's listening in here, we use Dr. Latimer as a, as a tool for our customers. And when they call and say, Hey, you know, or I call them a lot of times and say, Hey, your horses don't really look up to par. Or they call me and say, Why did my horses not bring enough? Well, for this reason, we, a lot of times I say, Hey, I am not an equine nutritionist. I can give you a broad idea of why I think it didn't work, but this is the guy you need to call. And so we've had a lot of customers this year use that tool in their toolbox. And you guys have taken it, and it's been great. I've had great feedback from them. And they, like you said, they send you a tag, and you're like, this isn't a growth feed.

And like you said, that's your job to educate them. But it's been so handy for our customers to have somebody... Has spent their entire lives understanding equine nutrition to explain to them why their feed program, is it quite working? Well, and that's the fun part, not the difficult conversation. That's not the fun part for me. That can be a difficult conversation. Because they love their horses and they're not trying to do wrong. It's just, we all had to go through it. We just had to get that education. And so don't take it personally if somebody says, or you say this horse isn't meeting its genetic potential that you should be like oh okay thank you for telling me that right but multiple cases of your customer hey i've got solo genetics but when i go to solo my horses don't look like those horses i'm like okay well tell me what you're feeding and one was this you know knockoff growth feed that wasn't a growth feed and some grass hay One was oats and alfalfa. Okay.

Oats and alfalfa was how we fed horses for a long time. Right. And it was fine. And it was fine. We're not feeding those types of horses here. Those are 50, 100-year-old genetics. We've moved on. Right. Now, will you keep your horse alive and will you have a horse that you can ride and do some things with? Yep. Is it going to look the same as a horse that's on here and get hands in the air as quick? No. Yeah. No way. Again, I can't tell you what the goal is. Only you can tell me and then I can lay out a plan for what the goal is. Right. But those are two very different feed programs, right? Just to have a horse and to whatever we're talking about. Win the world. Get as many hands in the air as we can on sale day. Right. Two totally different programs. Sure.

And I really enjoy turning those horses around. Because I know the potential is there. And so getting them on track and then they call back in 90 days, like, holy cow, you know, or, you know, we have a high seller at a sale. I mean, that's why I love my job, right? Is, you know, secondhand success, right? Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay, so we've raised these horses. Some of our customers have taken them to the horse sale. Now, some of our customers are going to keep these horses. We're not going to take them to the horse sale. We're going to take them and put them in a two-year-old program or whatever it may be. Let's talk now about what those nutritional requirements look like as they go through the training process and become adult horses. Sure.

So they get a little easier, but a two-year-old still growing a lot, right? But that growth feed really after a two-year-old, not really necessary. It'd be over nutrition. You could, not necessarily. That said, slower maturing genetics should be on a growth feed for longer than an early maturing. And what would some slower maturing genetics be? Would that be something that somebody would know, you know, these horses really don't peak till they're six? We know some genes are that way. Or if you want to use a severe example like draft ready. Right. Okay. So it's no different than dogs. Okay. Okay. So you take, I don't know, a little dog like a Schnauzer and a Great Dane. Okay. The Schnauzer is going to be on a puppy food really no longer than 12 months.

That Great Dane, still growing tons, could easily be on puppy food past two-year-old year. They're just slower maturing. So no different here, right? Horses are like all of our other species in a lot of this. So somewhere around two-year-old deer, we're going to transition them off the growth feed because it's better for our pocketbook to what we call an all-life stage, okay? Because there's still a lot of growth. We don't want to go to just an old mature horse diet because we'll still create deficiencies. A mature horse diet is something that's six years plus. It's lower in essential amino acids. It's lower in vitamins. it's lower in minerals because they're just done growing at that point, right? They're fully mature.

Well, still a lot of growth. Between two and six. So we want to be an all life stage. And in general, these horses are going to be performance horses and they're going to stay on that all life stage until they're retired because work increases nutrient requirements. Right. Yeah. So we want to be very mindful of, you know, those $12 bag mature horse feeds. I would advise against that if I have a solo selector. Yes. Like you said, if we're just trying to keep the trail horse out in the pasture alive, they're perfectly fine. Fine. They'll be fine on that. Fine. But generally, most people that are buying these horses, breeding these horses, raising them, whatever they may be doing with the horses that come from here have, you know, some kind of aspirations for them to be winners of some sort, you know, and that just takes a different, it's no different than feeding an athlete.

No, it makes absolute zero sense to pay for premium genetics and then not reach their genetic potential because we're trying to save a dime in the feed room. You would have been well money ahead just to buy average genetics and feed an average feed program. Yeah, that's so accurate, too. I mean, that hits the nail on the head. If you want to have average horses, you know. And that may be their goal, not what we're talking about today. Sure. Sure. So to finish up today, we've talked a lot about, you know, how to feed these different life stages. But the fact is, is everybody's situation is a little bit different based on where they're at, the kind of forage that's available to them, the horses that they have, the life stages that they have.

You know, there's just so many different things that go into it. And so for us, it's worked great when people call me and ask me about how do I feed these horses? I'm like, I got the phone number for you. Call this guy and he will explain to you exactly how to feed them. He's going to ask you a lot of questions first, and then he's going to lay a plan out for you. And so we want our customers and the people that follow us to know and understand that you're an available resource for them. Sure. This isn't an hourly feed. This is a, hey, I want to improve my feed program. You know, what can I do to do that? And that is a resource that you guys offer that I think a lot of people don't know about.

Yeah. And I enjoy it. And that's my job, right? I spent too much time in school to learn how to feed horses, which on the surface is super easy, but at this level, it's not. And anybody that tells you different, feeding sales prep colts is an art form. And if you don't think that's right, you're not really a sales prepper. Try to sales prep a couple and then stand them up next to these people that do believe it's an art form. It is a true art form, but I, I, and I enjoy it. I enjoy the one-on-one and it doesn't matter if they have one or they've got a hundred head, we'll go through it. I'm going to ask the same questions to both of them. And we're going to kind of go through and, and we might be on point or, or we might be missing, But that's why I'm here.

And ultimately, what I do is when I leave here and retire and no longer, I just want to make sure that I did my part to work. Feed horses the way that they were supposed to be fed, right? Doing what's right for the horse, but also seeing the industry advance and making better horses today and tomorrow than we had yesterday. Well, and we're doing that genetically. And I think that it's important for the industry as a whole to understand that we've got to stay caught up with that nutritionally as well. I mean, we're making leaps and bounds so fast on these horses are just every futurity. it's clear like how competitive and how exceptional these horses are. And it just gets better every year. And we've got to make sure we follow that up nutritionally.

So sorry, I don't jump in, but that'll keep that'll keep advancing. Yes. As geneticists and breeders, as they continue to advance, so will it become harder to meet the nutrient requirements of those horses. And that's just that's just the way that it is. Right. For for any species, not not not just one horse. And so if a nutritionist isn't out there and in the field and at barns like this and still using the book value, it doesn't work. That works for the average horse, the book value. It doesn't work in an operation like this. Well, I think, too, as these faturities and all of this grow, it's getting so much more competitive that it's those little things that are making you one half a point, one point, two points better.

And, you know, we feel strongly that the nutrition is a lot of it. There's just like everything else we've talked about today, there's a lot of other pieces that play in, but this is one thing that we can control, right? And I always say in the breeding or whatever it is, there's a couple of things we can control. We can't control mother nature, but we can control what these horses eat. So we need to try to control what we can. Sure. To finish this up, if people want to get ahold of you, we're going to have your information in the description of the podcast, the description of these videos, however you're watching or listening to this. In general, how do they get a hold of you guys? Well, so I could give my email if they've got technical questions, that can come straight to me.

And usually it's where, okay, this question's in depth enough. We need to call on the phone. And so I'm going to call you and we're going to talk through this versus trying to do it via email. You've been super responsive. Everybody I've sent you is like, man, Dr. Latimer was great. I picked up so much. It was an instant deal. And so I can appreciate that. But I also am a great resource for anybody listening to this, that I'm happy to talk to anyone about, you know. The breeding decisions they have, you know, all of the things that we do here, what statutes to breed to, are your mares the right mares for your goals, things like that. But then when it comes time to have that nutrition, then I'm going to push them to you.

That's fine. And that's what I enjoy. Yeah. And so, and it could be as simple as start as if they just wanted to Google grow strong vitamin and mineral, it's going to come up and that's where I'd start. If you just wanted to do some learning, if you wanted to reach out to me right now, that's perfectly fine. I'd say, shoot me an email. My email's james.latimer at adm.com and that's L-A-T-T-I-M-E-R. So james.latimer at adm.com. And if you missed that, L's got it. You can contact Sello and we'll get you hooked up. Sure, sure, sure. But I'm happy to help and I enjoy it. Yeah. Well, thanks for being on with us today. Once again, guys, if you have any questions about any of this, we have a page on our website devoted to Grow Strong and the ADM feeds that we feed.

At Sello Select, we exclusively feed ADM mineral, or I'm sorry, Grow Strong mineral and ADM feed. And so if you pull through here, you'll see it in our barns and you'll see it in our pastures. We believe in it and we've believed in it for a long time. It's been an integral part of our program for a long time. So thank you for being on here today. And look forward to a great partnership moving forward. You bet. Very good.