Letter from Andrea, who lives in Coín, Andalucia, regarding the improvements to her horse from Baileys Top-Line Conditioning Cubes. Received Nov 09.


I have lived in Spain 6 years now. In England I had owned horses up to the last 2 weeks of relocating. I moved to Spain because my mum was living here and my son and I visited her and decided we would like to give it a try as we were fed up of the weather in the UK and life just seemed very dull and everything was rushed, forever sat in traffic jams and increased living expenses.

I never thought I would ever be a horse owner again although I missed my horses very much. I started hacking out at various stables with friends of mine. One day my boyfriend said, "why don't you buy a horse", I don't need telling twice, so I was on the hunt for a horse, I knew specifically what I wanted and after 6 months of looking/trying horses I bought the opposite of what I wanted.

My horse is black, around 15.3hh, he has asthma and the vet told me he was around 17 years of age and not 12 as I was told. I really fell in love with this horse, his temperament is second to none and as I had lost my confidence from a really bad accident in England, I thought it was worth the risk even if I only got 5 years out of him and regained my confidence. Anyway, he has turned out to be the best horse I have ever owned, he's fantastic, if I could put him in my house I would.

His change of lifestyle has improved the asthma, I know he will never be cured but for what I wanted from him was enough. He had a bad tendon injury 1 year ago so was on box rest for about 3 months, in the 1st month of the injury I moved yards to the one I am at now, it's a dressage competition yard, I was totally bowled over by a spanish instructor there, by the name of Raul, I watched him all the time training horses and I thought it was fantastic, I asked him if he would teach me but on another horse as mine was still resting.

8 months on and I am riding my horse now and he his fantastic at dressage, Raul said he had been trained very well in his younger days, he's a schoolmaster and priceless, he's taught me so much and given me so much confidence, I feel I am ready to enter some competitions next year with him. The reason why I approached Mark at Bailey's, is I didn't think with the work he was doing and the feed he was having was having any effect, I could see him gradually losing condition and weight, he's always had a poor top line from when I bought him. Anyway I decided to buy the Bailey's No 4 Top Line conditiong cubes, it was a risk but worth it, after 2 weeks I could not believe the change in him already.

He's been on the cubes now for about 10 weeks and I have a different horse, he's more active, happier and looks really well, we still have a long way to go with muscling him up again as he was lame again when I started the cubes through another incident but he was only resting for about 3 weeks so he is now being ridden 3 times a week in the classes with Raul and I hack him out at the weekend. I bought a 4 year old stallion 2 months ago when my other horse was on box rest again and I decided I needed something to bring on so if Gitano (my other horse) gets to the stage where he has to be retired then I will have something to fall back on. Raul is training him at present.

If anyone wants more information about training, then please contact me, Andrea, via Mark at Baileys.