Reno: The Platinum Flying Horse
"Reno: The Platinum Flying Horse"
Downhill ski racing and trick horseback riding are both difficult sports to master. Combine the two and you get an even more intense and challenging sport.
Just ask Kendra Kinghorn, her skier Jobe Board, or, if you could, Kinghorn's horse Reno, a handsome and hardy quarter horse.
They're part of a growing cadre of people and horses hooked on skijoring, a daredevil competitive sport in which skiers are pulled through an obstacle course by a horse at speeds up to 40 miles per hour. The trio from Hailey, Idaho., won the 2003 Idaho State championship.
Kinghorn credits Platinum for their success. Not only does skier Board regularly consume Platinum bars and Platinum Wellness Formula while training, but so does Reno, whom she describes as a regular Platinum fiend when it comes to scarfing down his Equine Wellness Granular Formula.
Kinghorn and her boyfriend, Board, can tell you there's more to skijoring than adrenaline and speed. All members of a skijoring team - rider, skier and horse - need to be in sync. There's teamwork, cooperation, and the skill of the horse, rider and skier. Imagine clinging to a tow rope behind a galloping steed racing on a straight or oval track. Everything's coming at you at speeds of up to 40 miles per hour. They fly through gates, over jumps, and sometimes pick off small plastic rings for points. Overall, they're scored for cumulative best times.
It not only takes a special rider and skier to finish without wiping out, but it takes a well-conditioned horse with a steely focus.
When Kinghorn first got Reno last summer she wasn't so sure he had it in him. She got him when he was 5 years old after being turned out. A former track racer, during his 3rd and 4th year, he had gone to live in Wyoming with a friend of Kinghorn's. After he came to live with her, spending the nights in a 12 by 24 foot stall and the days out to pasture, he started "acting sick." She says he had no energy and seemed to mope around and urinate a lot, especially when they went riding.
A trip to the veterinarian determined that the hay Reno was eating was too high in protein. Hay is a key part of a horse's diet, providing most of the nutrients it needs to survive, but a horse getting too much protein in his diet often urinates more than normal. This in itself isn't considered a serious health issue, but a secondary problem of this condition is a wet stall. Excess protein in the urea converts into ammonia and can cause irritation to the lungs of a horse kept in a poorly ventilated barn. It also can lead to hoof damage since the ammonia in urine is caustic to hooves.
Kinghorn's vet recommended she change his hay and getting him on a high-quality nutritional supplement. She had learned about Platinum Performance at the Reined Cow Championships and decided to give it a try.
Within three weeks of giving Reno a morning and evening bucket of Platinum she noticed a difference in his haircoat. She says it went from matted to sleek and shiny. First his health perked up and then his attitude. She had planned to use him to barrel race but decided to give him a try during her first shot at a skijoring competition in Cascade, Idaho.
In Reno's first race, he took off lickety-split, like he knew what he was doing: "He took a couple of strides on the track and just took off," says Kinghorn.
And the team won the race - their very first. From there they went on to win the state championships.
"I have to say," says Kinghorn, "I owe all of this to Platinum. Here's a horse that goes from 'no want to or will' to a top performer, and I also have to add - he's the prettiest horse out there. People are constantly asking me what I do to make him look so good. The credit really goes to Platinum."
Kinghorn also shows reined cow horses and has her other horses on Platinum Performance's Equine Wellness Formula now. She says people always ask about why they look so good.
But she's especially excited about Reno and hopes are high for running barrel racing competitions with him this summer, as well as more skijoring next winter.
She says her team has a nickname for Reno that's a derivative of his registered name Usari. They call him "U-sorry" - an alliteration of their comment to competitors who try to pass them: "You'll be Sorry."
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