THE ORIGINAL
Pro-Dosa BOOST
Complex oral supplement for horses.
RACING
PERFORMANCE
RECOVERY
HEALTH
WHAT IS
Pro-Dosa BOOST?
Pro-Dosa BOOST is a comprehensive, balanced, bioavailable multi-nutrient paste formulated to replace essential nutrients lost by the equine athlete during training, competition, transport, or stress.
Pro-Dosa BOOST was first launched in New Zealand in 2002 and is now among the biggest selling nutritional pastes in Australasia, The Middle East, and many parts of Europe. It is used internationally in a wide variety of sports including dressage, show jumping, eventing, polo, mounted games, flat, national hunt, harness, and endurance racing after hard training, for competition, and for travel. Horsemen and veterinarians have found it to be useful in supporting the normal appetite, thirst, electrolyte balance, and red blood cell production, needed to support performance, recovery and health.
Pro-Dosa BOOST is a cost-effective, simple to use, less invasive alternative to traditional pre-race and recovery treatments which can be expensive and stressful for the horse. (Pro-Dosa BOOST replaces the administration of electrolytes by stomach tube along with various amino acid, vitamin, trace mineral, and iron solutions normally given by injection).
The body needs a full complement of nutrients in careful balance to achieve optimum health, performance, and recovery. In fact, administration of individual nutrients may result in imbalances that actually impair their absorption and usefulness. With this in mind,
Pro-Dosa BOOST provides complete, balanced, and bioavailable nutritional support.
It contains all of the water-soluble vitamins, trace elements, electrolytes, and amino acids, in doses that reflect requirements established in scientific literature. I have included them in readily usable forms, in good balance with each other, and in balance with the cofactors required for their absorption and function.
What is Pro-Dosa BOOST?
Dr. Corinne Hills explaining what is Pro-Dosa BOOST
Pro-Dosa BOOST is a complete, balanced, bioavailable multi-nutrient paste, that I developed to fill the gap between good daily nutrition and the increased requirements horses have when they are under stress, as a result of hard work, transport, racing, competition, or illness.
Unlike people, who often turn to food when under stress, horses tend to go off feed. Just as they require more nutrients to meet their requirements, they are often inclined to eat less. Pro-Dosa BOOST provides a practical way to deliver essential nutrients to horses that may not be eating enough, on their own, to support optimal metabolism, performance, recovery, and heath.
Optimal performance, recovery & health - Pro-Dosa BOOST
Polocrosse Interview
Pro-Dosa BOOST and Polocrosse
Dr Corinne Hills talking about BOOST
What vital nutrients does Pro-Dosa Boost contain?
I included all of the water-soluble vitamins (C and B group) in significant doses, based on scientific literature that defines the requirements and maximum amounts of water soluble vitamins that can be absorbed and utilized by horses under stress, as well as the ideal ratios between water soluble vitamins and cofactors necessary for their absorption and function.
Vitamin C can be deficient in the equine diet. The main source is fresh, growing, grass, and in many parts of the world, horses have very limited access to pasture. While more prepared feeds are made with vitamin C than when I started making Pro-Dosa BOOST, it isn’t always very stable. When feed is fresh, levels might be good, but as little as a few months later, there might be little vitamin C activity left.
I included 2 grams of vitamin C in Pro-Dosa BOOST for a number of reasons.
Firstly, vitamin C is vital for iron absorption from the gut. If you give Vitamin C without iron, then horses (and people) can’t absorb it or use it.
Secondly, vitamin C is thought to be useful for bleeders as it plays a role in stabilizing cell membranes, including those in the respiratory tract. When I first started making Pro-Dosa BOOST, there were a number of herbal or nutritional “bleeder” preparations available internationally, and most of them had as their active ingredient, 2 grams of vitamin C. That is specifically why I choose that dose.
Vitamin C supports the immune system and is also a very good antioxidant. Oxidative muscle cell damage is just one type of muscle cell damage that occurs during transport as well as during exercise. Studies have shown that if you put your horse in a truck and take it down the road, even as little as half an hour or an hour, they’ll suffer some degree of muscle cell fatigue and muscle cell damage, similar to what they might experience in a race. If you’re traveling long distances with your horses, therefore, they will undoubtedly suffer some degree of muscle cell damage and fatigue, resulting in performance below their best. There were also studies done a few years ago, in eventers, that demonstrated a 40% reduction in oxidative muscle cell damage when they were given vitamin C. Vitamin C scavenges the free-radicals, produced in muscles while horses are exercising or balancing in a transport, before they can create oxidative damage to muscle cells, helping your horses to get to where they’re going in better condition so they can perform closer to your expectations.
Vitamin C in Pro-Dosa BOOST
Dr. Corinne Hills talking Vitamin C in Pro-Dosa BOOST
Want to know more about the B Vitamins?
Pro-Dosa BOOST contains all the B group vitamins in reasonable doses. It’s important to keep in mind that water soluble vitamins are not stored, so requirements must be met daily. When horses are under stress, their requirements for B vitamins increase tremendously and Pro-Dosa BOOST contains between 20 and 200 times the level of B vitamins that you would find in your daily ration. Pro-Dosa BOOST is intended to fill the gap between good daily nutrition and the increased requirements of horses at times of stress.
The doses I included, directly reflect what researchers have established as the maximum absorbable levels of B vitamins as well as the appropriate ratios between the B vitamins and with their cofactors necessary for absorption and function. It’s important to know that B vitamins have limited affect when given individually, but when given as a group, they are important for many things.
B group Vitamins in Pro-Dosa BOOST.
Dr. Corinne Hills explaining B group Vitamins in Pro-Dosa BOOST
Firstly, they are important for coat and skin condition. If you’re preparing yearlings for a yearling sale, for instance, you might choose to give half a syringe of Pro-Dosa BOOST every other day for 2 weeks to help ensure healthy skin and a haircoat that gleams.
B vitamins are important for nerve cell function, so nervous horses fed appropriate levels, will relax more normally and focus better on their work. Conversely, B vitamins are also important for energy production so, a lethargic horse, deficient in B vitamins, might get a lift. Pro-Dosa BOOST provides a good balance between the B vitamins that are necessary to sustain normal energy levels and those that are important for relaxation and mental focus.
B vitamins play important roles in red blood cell production. Ask your veterinarian for advice, but if injectable iron, B vitamins, and folic acid are prescribed, the nutrients provided in Pro-Dosa BOOST are in similar quantities and can be given as a less expensive and less invasive alternative source.
Most importantly, to my way of thinking, B vitamins are necessary to support normal appetite. If a horse has a hard run or they travel, they often don’t eat that well. If they don’t eat, when they get where they’re going, then they aren’t going to perform very well. Similarly, if they’ve raced and don’t clean up their feed when they get home, then they aren’t going to recover very well or race well the following week. If your horse isn’t eating well when travelling or after work, racing, or competition, you can give them a syringe of Pro-Dosa BOOST. Typically, sufficient doses of B vitamins will have them back at their feed bucket within about half an hour.
Want to know more about the electrolytes in Pro-Dosa Boost?
Electrolytes in Pro-Dosa BOOST
Dr. Corinne Hills explaining Electrolytes in Pro-Dosa BOOST
Pro-Dosa BOOST contains the electrolytes calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, and chloride. Generally, sodium, potassium and chloride are the main electrolytes lost in sweat, but as I have included 21.5 grams of electrolytes, and had I included all of them as sodium, potassium and chloride, a dose may have produced a significant osmotic draw. What that means is this. If you put salt into the gut, it draws fluid first from the blood stream into the gut and dehydrates the system in the short term. If you’re going to tube a horse with electrolytes prior to racing or travel, you do it a couple of days out because it takes that long to re-balance fluid and electrolyte levels. In order to provide 21.5 grams of electrolytes then, I felt it would be safer to include part of them as calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus. They are also electrolytes, but they don’t produce the same degree of osmotic draw and should be safe to use in traveling horses that might be dehydrated, or for an endurance horse, in between loops when they are a bit precarious, metabolically speaking.I
In addition, the calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus perform other vital functions. They’re important for muscle cell contractility and energy production. Studies have demonstrated improved performance in both speed and endurance athletes, supplemented with extra calcium. The doses I included in Pro-Dosa nutritional BOOST are comparable to those I used to administer by injection in the “calcium-magnesium jug” I provided as a pre-race treatment, especially for fillies that struggled with tying-up.
For endurance horses, who sustain higher sodium losses when racing in hot and humid conditions, add an additional 15g of table salt (sodium chloride) to water or molasses water, shake it up, and squirt it over the tongue after you have given a full syringe of Pro-Dosa BOOST each loop.
Can Pro-Dosa Boost help with horses that tie-up?
I’d like to start by saying that Pro-Dosa BOOST is not going to be the answer for tying-up. Really, I would encourage you to have a look at your daily ration. The soluble carbohydrate in the daily ration is really the culprit for the vast majority of horses that struggle with tying-up. If you can replace some of that soluble carbohydrate with fat, as the energy source, you can reduce the incidence or eliminate tying-up. If your daily ration is very high in soluble carbohydrate, you’re going to struggle to control tying-up in some of your horses, and no supplement, Pro-Dosa BOOST included, will fix that problem.
However, if you have adjusted your diet as far as you can, and you have 1 or 2 horses in your stable that are particularly good horses and struggle with tying-up, then you can feed Pro-Dosa BOOST to strategically provide essential nutrients to help manage those horses. Probably, the best way to use it in those individuals is to give one full syringe the night before they gallop, and then another half immediately post gallop. (This is more than you might give to normal horses that need only a full or half a syringe after galloping and nothing prior.)
Tying up and Pro-Dosa BOOST.
Dr. Corinne Hills explaining tying up and Pro-Dosa BOOST
I’d like to start by saying that Pro-Dosa BOOST is not going to be the answer for tying-up. Really, I would encourage you to have a look at your daily ration. The soluble carbohydrate in the daily ration is really the culprit for the vast majority of horses that struggle with tying-up. If you can replace some of that soluble carbohydrate with fat, as the energy source, you can reduce the incidence or eliminate tying-up. If your daily ration is very high in soluble carbohydrate, you’re going to struggle to control tying-up in some of your horses, and no supplement, Pro-Dosa BOOST included, will fix that problem.
However, if you have adjusted your diet as far as you can, and you have 1 or 2 horses in your stable that are particularly good horses and struggle with tying-up, then you can feed Pro-Dosa BOOST to strategically provide essential nutrients to help manage those horses. Probably, the best way to use it in those individuals is to give one full syringe the night before they gallop, and then another half immediately post gallop. (This is more than you might give to normal horses that need only a full or half a syringe after galloping and nothing prior.)
What are all the amino acids for?
The last group of nutrients that are important for muscle cell function are the amino acids. Pro-Dosa BOOST contains 22 amino acids in free, unassembled form.
I included those for a number of reasons; not just for horses that struggle with tying-up.
First of all, amino acids serve as the body’s most efficient buffering system for lactic acid, and I think most horsemen are familiar with the branch chain amino acids, isoleucine, leucine, and valine, and their capacity to buffer. The reason I just didn’t include the familiar, branch chain amino acids in the Pro-Dosa BOOST formulation, is that, while all amino acids have the capacity to accept and donate protons, so they all have the ability to buffer, three branch-chain amino acids will not support muscle cell repair and recovery. You really require all of the amino acids, in appropriate proportions and in unassembled form in order for the horse to make proteins and repair muscle cells.
Amino Acids in Pro-Dosa BOOST
Dr. Corinne Hills explaining Amino Acids in Pro-Dosa BOOST
Muscle cells take up amino acids, really efficiently, for only about an hour, right after hard work. If you can get amino acids into them, during that little window of opportunity, you can prevent a lot of the delayed muscle pain and stiffness that occurs from hard work, and you can help horses build and maintain muscle mass more efficiently. If you fed your horses the moment they came of the track, it would take longer than an hour for them to eat their feed and digest the proteins down to amino acids. You would miss that little window of opportunity where you can influence muscle cell recovery. For optimal protein synthesis, therefore, all the amino acids must be provided, and not just a few. I included amino acids in ratios are ideal for protein synthesis and muscle cell repair in horses.
The last reason I included the amino acids in free unassembled form is that they may support thirst more effectively than electrolytes in dehydrated horses.
Want to know more about trace minerals?
The trace minerals in Pro-Dosa BOOST are all in very bioavailable forms. They’re largely bound to organic molecules that the body is really good at absorbing and using, and I’ve included them in doses that directly reflect NRC requirements. I’ve included zinc and manganese, important for bone and joint health, and I’ve included iron and copper because they work together to support normal red blood cell formation, along with B vitamins, vitamin C and the amino acids.
Although NRC states that the requirements for iron for horses in hard work are approximately 383mg, I’ve included 500mg of iron in Pro-Dosa BOOST. That’s because some researchers have reported improved performance, in racehorses, in particular, fed iron in doses between 500 and 800mg. If you look at your feed bag and calculate what you are giving your horses, you would conclude that dietary levels should be sufficient.
Trace minerals in Pro-Dosa BOOST.
Dr. Corinne Hills explaining Trace minerals in Pro-Dosa BOOST
However, your daily ration includes vitamin E, as it should, and vitamin E binds with iron, reducing its availability. Secondly, your daily ration may not contain sufficient levels of vitamin C, which is necessary for the absorption of iron from the gut. The main source of vitamin C in the equine diet is fresh, growing grass, and not all horses have access to grass. As a result, the iron in the daily ration may not be entirely available for metabolism.
The copper provided in Pro-Dosa BOOST is in a Bioplex, in an amount directly related to the NRC requirements.
What has been left out of the Pro-Dosa BOOST formulation and why?
Pro-Dosa BOOST is a mostly complete, balanced, bioavailable multi-nutrient paste, providing water soluble vitamins, electrolytes, trace minerals, and unassembled amino acids, required in greater doses when horses are under stress to support optimal metabolism, performance, recovery, and health.
There are a few nutrients I chose to leave out of Pro-Dosa BOOST. To begin with, I left out the fat-soluble vitamins, A, D, E, and K. They are important for the health of the horse, but fat-soluble vitamins do not need to be administered at the time horses are under stress because they can be stored. They are generally present in the daily ration, in sufficient doses to meet requirements when horses are working hard. Also, some of the fat-soluble vitamins bind with trace minerals and prevent their absorption. There is a particularly negative interaction between iron and vitamin E, and if you give them together, iron availability is greatly reduced. I really had to make a choice, then, between the fat-soluble vitamins and trace minerals. Because my Pro-Dosa BOOST paste was made to replace the injectable pre-race treatments I use to give, and since those treatments were designed to support normal red blood cell formation, I wanted to ensure iron availability. As a result, I couldn’t put the fat-soluble vitamins in.
There are also some toxicity issues with fat-soluble vitamins. As they’re stored, they can accumulate. If horses are fed too much, therefore, they can have toxicity issues. Pro-Dosa BOOST is used very frequently in some horses, such as endurance horses, who are typically fed a tube in-between each loop in their long races. They could be getting a lot on a single day, and I didn’t want to have any toxicity issues, so I thought it would be much safer to leave them out.
In addition to the fat-soluble vitamins, there are few other nutrients I left out.
