Apple Soft Chews

Glucosamine is the building block of the glycosaminoglycans that hold water inside cartilage and let it take load without flattening. A horse makes its own and makes less of it as the years and the miles add up. Ours is the HCl salt, which carries more glucosamine per gram than the sulfate does.

Green-lipped mussel is the whole-food route to chondroitin, and it brings its own marine omega-3s along with it. It is among the better-studied single ingredients in equine joint work, which is why it is here as well as the isolated actives rather than instead of them. Ours is cold-processed so those fats survive the drying.

Hyaluronic acid is what makes synovial fluid thick enough to do its job — the difference between a joint that glides and one that grinds. Concentration falls with age and with hard work. Ours is a low-molecular-weight form, which is the one with the most evidence behind it for being absorbed when it is fed rather than injected.

Methylsulfonylmethane is a natural source of sulfur, the mineral connective tissue is built with. It occurs in green vegetables in quantities far too small to matter at a functional dose, which is why it is here in measured form. It is the most widely fed comfort active in equine supplements and the one owners most often notice after hard work.

Boswellia serrata resin has been used for joint comfort for about as long as anyone has been writing things down, and the boswellic acids in it are the reason why. It sits on the calm side of the formula alongside turmeric, and the two are usually fed together because they work on different parts of the same everyday wear.

Vitamin E is the formula’s own bodyguard. The omega-3 oils that do the rebuilding are themselves easy to oxidise, and d-alpha tocopherol is the fat-soluble antioxidant that keeps them intact — in the bag on the shelf and in the horse that eats them. A stabled horse off grass is the one that needs it most.

Curcumin, the yellow pigment in turmeric root, is one of the most examined plant compounds in the comfort literature. On its own it is poorly absorbed, which is why ours is carried alongside the fats in the chew rather than fed dry — the oil is what gets it past the gut wall.

Flaxseed is the horse’s natural omega-3. Grass is where they would normally get it, and a stabled horse on hay gets almost none. The ALA in it feeds the tissue that has to rebuild between sessions, and it is the ingredient behind the coat change owners tend to spot before anything else.