Anna Hallene: BioStar’s New Trainer Spotlight
Meet Anna Hallene, BioStar’s newest Trainer!
Anna Hallene is a young hunter/jumper professional based in the Chicago, IL area as well as Wellington, FL. Last year she launched Glenwood Farm, where she provides her clients with a personalized experience to help them achieve their unique goals. BioStar’s whole food supplements are a natural addition to her program, which focuses on equine health and wellness for sport horses.
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When did you first learn about BioStar, and what made you interested in trying their supplements?
“I started looking for more natural alternatives and whole food supplements as a result of my own health journey. I had seen BioStar before, but then I listened to an episode of The Equestrian Podcast with Tigger, talking about how she started and her thought process behind it. I realized this was super well-thought-out and not just throwing ingredients into a bucket. It’s very scientific and targeted towards sport horses, so that inspired me to look more into it. I started with an older horse we have in the barn, and saw really good results with the Optimum JS. I have a lot of my horses on that product because I feel like it’s a great starting point.”
Why was it so important for you to include high quality, whole food supplements into your horses’ diets?
“Horses can’t perform their best unless they feel their best. To feed a whole food diet means feeding an anti-inflammatory diet, and naturally derived foods in their most organic state are by default anti-inflammatory. Especially for sport horses who are working hard and breaking down muscle fibers quicker, sweating more and traveling a lot, they need a little bit of help in the form of a supplement most times because they deplete their resources more quickly. For me, that is what BioStar does so well with Optimum EQ, and if you have other specific health concerns, they have other things in the line for that. I feel that it targets the needs of sport horses so well.”
Tell me a little bit about your personal experience with BioStar Whole Food Supplements so far and how they’ve made a difference for your horses.
“In addition to Optimum JS, I’ve also used the Optimum HW “Healthy Weight” for my personal horses. The horse I used it on to start was my really good horse who did 1.45m jumpers. She is still in the barn and she’s 21. She’s still going in work and still happy and sound, but as she got older, her topline was decreasing and her coat wasn’t as good. I noticed her topline and her coat improved within a few weeks of using Optimum HW, then I noticed that she was coming out of her stall just a little less creaky. She’s still very sound, but as she’s gotten older she just takes a little bit longer to warm up. For me that was a huge testament to the supplement. We don’t do a ton of joint injections on her or give her a bunch of other stuff, that was the only thing we changed.
My own horse that I started on the Optimum HW had come in as a seven year-old who was kind of skinny and gangly coming over from Europe. Then as she grew up, she put on good muscle but put on a little more fat than I had wanted her to. Her blood work always came back normal but she started to get a crestier neck and her coat did not look as good. She even got those white spots on her coat that can be a sign of a mineral deficiency. So for her, I just wanted something as a multivitamin and multi-mineral supplement as a starting point. I had her on that and it took about three months, but her weight came down to a point I thought she just looked better overall. We didn’t cut her grain or increase her work at all, and what made me feel really good about the product and made me feel like she was getting the vitamins and minerals that she needed was that her white spots started to disappear and my vet was super impressed because they are sometimes hard to get rid of.”
What is your favorite BioStar product, and why?
“Optimum JS is my favorite all-over wellness supplement for our equine athletes. I like that it has ingredients that target both joint health and gut health as well as minerals that are lacking from many horses’ diets nowadays, but so important for overall health and for keeping inflammation at bay. Most of our sport horses are on this supplement. After they’ve been on the Optimum JS for a little bit of time, I notice that they come out of their stalls looser on a regular basis, and that their recovery times after competition are decreased. The horses’ coats and toplines also look fantastic, which I feel is a true reflection of their health from the inside out.”
BioStar Trainer Anna Hallene
Optimum JS 2.0 is a multivitamin & mineral formula PLUS ingredients to support healthy joints. Optimum JS 2.0 includes bioavailable minerals, vitamins and amino acids, plus green-lipped mussels, cabbage, and organic kale to support your horse’s own production of glucosamine sulfate from the glutamine and sulfur that are naturally present in the ingredients.
Optimum HW (“Healthy Weight”) is a multi-layered supplement, providing the science and efficacy of real ingredients to assist in the management of metabolic horses, IR horses, Cushing’s horses, and easy keepers. With a wide range of important vitamins and minerals sourced from plants to support whole horse wellness, Optimum HW has a total NSC of 9.8% which makes it ideal for horses with metabolic issues.
