Meet Tanya and Juno, our SmartPerks Hall of Fame Inductees

At SmartPak, we’re on a mission to make the world a better place by using our smarts to power healthy horses and happy riders. Out of the tens of thousands of riders and horse owners that we’re proud to call SmartPerks members, our SmartPerks Hall of Fame Inductees have been supporting one special horse for the longest amount of time. This honor celebrates their commitment to changing the world, four hooves at a time by taking great care of their horse. We’re thrilled to introduce you to our inductees, Tanya and Juno.

I’ve had Juno, my 28-year-old Dutch Warmblood mare, since she was seven. At 28, she’s pretty much the same exact horse that she’s been for the past 21 years. She’s as willful, confident, and independent as she was when I first got her! She’s not the friendliest horse in the world or a snuggle muffin, but I have a great deal of admiration for her independent spirit. I competed her through third level dressage myself and then after I stopped competing her, a bunch of my students showed her and finished getting their bronze medal scores on her.

After that, we put her into our riding school program. She’s more advanced than the other horses in our school, so she was able to add a lot of value to our program. Her party trick is that when I come out and stand next to her, she’ll piaffe. A lot of riders won’t feel a piaffe for a long, long time, so it’s really special that they’re able to feel that on her. However, she isn’t the easiest horse to ride and the number one thing she teaches students is how to ride with a good seat. The students that ride her have had to really double down on developing a secure seat because she’s easy to ride from the seat and not-so-easy to ride if you’re hanging on her mouth. As she’s aged, she’s continued to compete with our students. Last year she qualified to go to the Region 8 Championships in Saugerties at training level with one of my assistant’s students.

When horses are 28 you just don’t know what’s going to happen next, but my goal for Juno is to keep her as healthy and comfortable as I can. She’s a beautiful mare and doesn’t look her age at all, and I’m going to try to keep her that way for as long as possible because it’s important to me that my horses are happy, healthy, and comfortable. With everything she’s done in her life she doesn’t need to do more, but I think bringing her in to groom and keeping her moving around is what helps keep her looking great. We see our horses to the end, and I’m going to keep her as happy as possible until that time comes.

I have a relatively busy show barn with a lot of horses that compete, and that seems to go hand in hand with supplementation. Many of the horses at the barn – including Juno – receive supplements as part of their diet. When SmartPak first came out I was skeptical about the cost, but I heard good things about SmartPaks so I looked into it and found that it was usually no more expensive than buying the tubs individually. At the time we had 30 horses in the barn (we’ve downsized to about 24 since then), and SmartPaks were a much better way to feed supplements because the staff didn’t have to deal with all of the buckets of stuff. SmartPaks were an easy way to make sure supplements were fresh and easy to give to all of the horses.

Because Juno has been SmartPaks for eighteen years, we were inducted as members of the SmartPerks Hall of Fame. I was sitting in the tack room and one of the girls brought in the box with the gift package and said, “You have to see this!” I looked inside and saw the beautiful halter and gift card as well as the gift card. I was expecting the gift card amount to be $25, so when I opened it up and saw the amount I just about had a heart attack! It was very touching, very exciting, and incredibly surprising, and I was thrilled that Juno and I received it.