The benefits of silver have been known for thousands of years. When Hippocrates wrote about its healing and anti-disease properties, the Phoenicians began storing their water and wine in silver containers. Silver compounds were used to prevent infections during World War I, before antibiotics were created. The benefits of silver continue to be found.
Kelsey Danner, assistant trainer to Wayne Catalano who is preparing Ken and Sarah Ramsey’s Stephanie’s Kitten for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, recently began using Ballew’s services.
“Coming into this race we wanted her to be 100 percent, so that’s why we started using Mickey,” said Danner. “Our vet recommended him actually. He’s been treating her a couple of times a week since then and we did it on a couple of other horses with allergy problems and stuff like that.”
With the banning of many equine medications and the threat to completely ban the most common of medications, Lasix, the horse industry will soon need to look to other options to help with ordinary issues. According to the Equisilver product materials, it contains no ingredients to be known to violate current regulations of the Jockey Club or other performance governing organizations.
“I do a lot of work with horses that are bleeding. We found that three or four days of treatments before a race can prevent a lot of that,” said Ballew.
The use of Equisilver when Lasix cannot be used will not prevent bleeding, but could still be beneficial.
Danner said, “When a horse bleeds, they usually get a lung infection. His machine helps clear that up, so if you have a horse that you can’t give Lasix, and it bleeds, you can get treated afterwards.”
“I think I’ve really brought an awareness to respiratory,” said Ballew. “If they can’t breathe, the rest of it is irrelevant.”
For more information about Ballew and Equisilver, visit his website.
Photo: Jessie Oswald
