ESSENTIALAMINOS for Horses | Muscle, Topline & Recovery Support 🍂NOVEMBER SALE - 20%-OFF

Because the amount of protein in the diet is only part of the story.

Protein must first be digested into individual amino acids, absorbed through the small intestine, and made available in the right proportions for the body to build its own proteins.

Those proteins are used everywhere – in muscle, connective tissue, enzymes, hormones, immune function and the constant work of cellular repair and renewal.

Calories maintain weight; amino acids build tissue

A horse can consume enough energy to maintain bodyweight while still lacking the right amino-acid balance for muscle development.

That’s why adding more food doesn’t always improve topline. It may provide additional calories, but if one or more important amino acids remain limited, the body still lacks the raw materials needed to build efficiently.

Amino acids don’t create energy or muscle by themselves - they give the body something useful to do with the energy, forage and appropriate exercise already in place.

What makes an amino acid “essential”?

Horses can manufacture some amino acids within the body, but others need to be supplied by the diet because the body can't make enough of them to meet its needs.

These are known as essential amino acids.

Lysine is the best-established limiting amino acid in equine nutrition, while threonine and methionine may also become important depending upon the forage and overall diet. Leucine, isoleucine and valine are the branched-chain amino acids closely associated with muscle protein metabolism.

But – proteins aren’t built from one fashionable amino acid at a time. The body needs the appropriate amino acids available together. If one is in short supply, it can restrict how effectively the others are used – a bit like arriving at the building site with plenty of bricks but no cement.

When additional support can be useful

EssentialAminos is particularly relevant when muscle and topline are proving harder to maintain despite an apparently adequate calorie intake.

This might include:

• older horses beginning to lose muscle
• horses returning to work after time off
• horses recovering condition after illness or enforced rest
• horses on calorie-controlled or restricted diets
• horses relying on mature or lower-quality forage
• working horses needing additional recovery support

It won’t replace sufficient forage, balanced minerals, appropriate exercise or investigation into unexplained muscle loss. Dental problems, pain, PPID, poor-quality forage and inadequate calories can all affect topline too.

But where the diet needs additional amino-acid building blocks without a large helping of extra calories, EssentialAminos provides a simple, targeted place to start.

Enough fuel keeps the horse going, while the right bricks help build the horse doing it.

EssentialAminos is a good fit when your horse has enough calories on board, but still isn't building or maintaining muscle as well as you'd expect.

Choose EssentialAminos if your horse:

✔ Holds their weight but still struggles to develop topline

✔ Is losing muscle as they get older

✔ Is returning to work after time off, illness or enforced rest

✔ Needs extra nutritional support for muscle recovery after work

✔ Is on a calorie-controlled or restricted diet where simply adding more feed isn't ideal

✔ Relies on mature or lower-quality forage where protein quality may be limiting

In short: if your horse doesn't obviously need more calories, but does seem to need better building blocks, EssentialAminos is where we'd look.

Before adding more protein...

Topline isn't built in a feed bowl alone. The horse also needs enough overall energy, appropriate exercise, and sound, comfortable movement to actually build muscle.

So if topline is unexpectedly disappearing – particularly in an older horse – we'd look at the wider picture too. Dental problems, pain, PPID, inadequate calories or poor-quality forage can all affect muscle and condition.

EssentialAminos can provide the bricks. The horse still needs a reason – and enough fuel – to build with them.

Supporting the wider picture

For many horses, EssentialAminos may be all the additional nutritional support that's needed. But where the horse is showing us something more specific:

• PSSMFlex – where poor muscle recovery sits alongside stiffness, muscular tension or tying-up patterns that point towards a wider muscle-metabolism picture.
• JointReflexa – where maintaining connective tissue, cartilage and joint structure is also a priority, rather than muscle and topline being the only concern.

Foundation support

Amino acids work best when the rest of the diet gives the body what it needs to use them.

Supporting your horse's baseline nutrition with a forage-based mineral blend such as EquiVita or VitaComplete helps provide the wider nutritional foundations needed for normal protein utilisation, muscle function and tissue maintenance.

In summary

Use EssentialAminos when your horse has the fuel, but may be missing some of the building materials.

Get the forage, calories, minerals and exercise right first, then use EssentialAminos where additional amino-acid support genuinely fills a gap.

Composition

A targeted blend of nine essential amino acids: Leucine, Isoleucine, Valine, Lysine, Phenylalanine, Tryptophan, Threonine, Methionine & Histidine

Active ingredients per 15g:


Phenylalanine	1.7g
Histidine	0.8g
Threonine	1.5g
Isoleucine	0.9g
Leucine	5.3g
Lysine	2.1g
Tryptophan	0.2g
Methionine	0.5g
Valine	2.3g

Feed Guide

• Maintenance: 5g/100kg bodyweight per day, i.e. 25g for a 500kg horse. This can be increased to 20g/100kg bodyweight if necessary.

Footnotes

• Human Grade.
• UK certificate of analysis available on request.
• ♻️ Eco Note: Our packaging is recyclable and refillable.
• 🧊 Storage Tip: Keep cool and dry.

How EssentialAminos works

1. Completing the set - If one essential amino acid is in short supply, it can limit how effectively the others are used. Providing the complete spectrum helps reduce the chance of one missing building block limiting protein production.”
2. Supporting muscle protein synthesis - Leucine helps signal the process of muscle protein synthesis, while the full amino-acid spectrum supplies the material needed to build and maintain muscle. Appropriate exercise provides the instruction; amino acids provide what the body builds with.
3. Supplying whole-body building materials - Protein isn’t only found in muscle. Amino acids are continually used to produce enzymes, hormones, immune proteins and structural tissues, supporting everyday repair and renewal throughout the body.

Big picture

EssentialAminos doesn’t build topline independently of forage, calories, minerals and movement. It fills a specific nutritional gap: the raw materials the horse cannot make for itself.

Calories provide the fuel, exercise gives the instruction – EssentialAminos brings the building materials.

Advisories

• Designed for daily use and particularly useful during periods of training, rehabilitation, recovery or ageing, or where maintaining muscle and topline is a priority.
• For best results, feed consistently as part of a balanced forage-based diet.

Contraindications

• Seek veterinary advice before introducing any new supplement to horses with significant metabolic, renal, or hepatic disease, or those receiving veterinary treatment.

My horse holds their weight but still lacks topline – could EssentialAminos help?

Yes – this is the exact scenario we'd think of.

Maintaining weight tells us there may already be enough calories coming in, but building muscle also requires the right amino-acid building blocks – and simply adding more feed won't necessarily provide them in the proportions the horse needs.

EssentialAminos provides all nine essential amino acids without adding a large helping of extra calories.

Will EssentialAminos make my horse gain weight?

Not in the way a conditioning feed would.

EssentialAminos isn't primarily supplying calories – it's supplying the amino acids used to build and maintain muscle and other body proteins.

So if your horse is genuinely underweight, we'd first make sure they're receiving enough forage and energy and ask why they're struggling to maintain condition.

But if Ned is carrying perfectly adequate weight while his topline seems to have quietly left the building, adding more calories may not be the answer.

Is EssentialAminos useful for older horses losing muscle?

It can be – particularly where an older horse is eating well and maintaining weight but becoming harder to keep muscled over the back and quarters.

But we'd also look at why the muscle is disappearing.

Dental problems, pain, PPID, inadequate calories, poor-quality forage and reduced comfortable movement can all affect muscle in older horses.

EssentialAminos can provide the bricks, but we still need to make sure Ned has the fuel – and is comfortable enough to do some building with them.

How quickly should I expect to see a difference?

Think weeks and months, rather than days.

Muscle doesn't appear simply because amino acids went into Tuesday's feed bowl. The horse needs consistent nutrition, enough energy and appropriate exercise to stimulate muscle development too.

Photos can be useful here. Take one from the same angle every few weeks rather than inspecting the topline seventeen times a day and deciding nothing's happening. Not that we horse owners would ever do that, obviously. 😉

What's the difference between EssentialAminos and GutAminos?

Same word in the name; very different jobs.

• EssentialAminos provides the complete spectrum of nine essential amino acids for muscle, topline, recovery and wider protein needs throughout the body.
• GutAminos is specifically formulated around the digestive tract and intestinal lining.

So if the question is “Does my horse need better building blocks for muscle?” – think EssentialAminos.

If the question is “Does their gut lining need targeted nutritional support?” – think GutAminos.

Do I need to feed anything else alongside EssentialAminos?

Possibly nothing extra at all!

EssentialAminos can be perfectly useful on its own where additional amino-acid support is the missing piece.

What does matter is getting the foundations right: appropriate forage and calories, balanced minerals and enough comfortable movement to give the body a reason to build muscle.

That's why we'd normally use EquiVita or VitaComplete underneath it as the nutritional foundation.

If there's a more specific picture, PSSMFlex may fit where muscle recovery comes with stiffness, tension or tying-up patterns, while JointReflexa makes more sense where connective tissue, cartilage and joint structure need support too.

But don't build a supplement tower just because we're trying to build a topline. Fill the gap the horse actually has.