"Why I trust Curafyt to keep my horse Sultan comfortable and at his best, all year round"

I read labels obsessively now. Sultan's gut taught me to. So the first thing I did with Curafyt was turn the tub around, and there was very little to squint at. Up to 99% natural, no bulking agents padding it out.

The part I respect more is what they don't do. They don't call it 100% natural when it isn't. A few ingredients are synthetic, in tiny amounts, and only where the synthetic form does more for the horse than the natural one. Certain vitamins, for instance, fall apart in their natural state. Rather than hide that, they print it on the packaging. A brand that's upfront about its exceptions is a brand I'll trust on the rest.

"Vet recommended" is on half the tubs in the tack shop. It means less than people think. What actually caught my attention is that Curafyt's products are formulated by vets in the first place.

Valérie, the founder, is a vet, and she built the range off her degree and her clinical experience instead of off whatever's trending. The range is recommended by the largest veterinary university in the world, Ghent, and it's used to support horses through all sorts of issues: stiff joints, endurance, weight, sensitive hooves, recovery, fertility, and of course digestion.

I'm a rider, not a scientist, but I've been working a lot around horses' well being these past years and I know it takes more than a label to make a great and efficient supplement.

Curafyt leans on published research for the ingredients it uses. On the digestive side, two studies worth naming:

• Alterations in Intestinal Permeability: The Role of the "Leaky Gut" in Health and Disease, Journal of Equine Veterinary Science.
• Integrated Nutraceutical – Nutritional Approaches to Address Equine Leaky Gut Syndrome, by Michael I. Lindinger.

For a horse whose gut has been the weak spot since his illness, that matters to me. I don't want to give Sultan something because the marketing seems nice. I want to make sure that it will be an effective support for him, and this is, also relying on scientific facts.

One horse is one horse, and I know that. But I also know several riders around me, including some of my students, that have been trying it and they all got some very positive results on their horses' general digestive comfort ... And in the end, the horses are always the ones I am listening to.

As I recommended it to some of my students who are competing, one of my question was: is this clean for competition? Curafyt confirmed their supplements are 100% clean-sport compliant before I'd committed to anything, and I didn't have to chase them for the answer.

The support doesn't stop at the sale either. They'll actually help you work out how to build the products into a daily routine and what to expect, rather than leaving you to guess once the tub arrives. That kind of care is rarer than it should be, and it tells you they're thinking about the horse, not just the order.