Shakespearean origins saw the creation of Kelcie’s Treats

An unlikely encounter in a pub in Shakespeare’s birthplace proved the catalyst for the creation of Kelcie’s Horse Treats. Mary Elizabeth Kent – who manages her sister and Olympic gold medalist showjumper Laura Kraut – was wandering through the streets of Stratford-Upon-Avon in England with her friend and showjumper Julie Welles, when they stumbled upon a bar with music.

“I walk up to the bar and I’m like, can I have two glasses of Pinot Grigio please?” Mary Elizabeth recalled. “Then this voice from across the bar says: “It’s cheaper if you get a bottle.” The man behind the advice was local Kevin Nairne and the couple have been together ever since. 

Kevin was non-horsey. He had a background in IT. But he was looking for a new path in life and after meeting Mary Elizabeth he wanted to find a way to fit into the show jumping world and that was his motivation for coming up with Kelcie’s Horse Treats.

“Initially I was going to go into grooming equipment,” Kevin said. “But then Mary Elizabeth said I think there’s an opportunity in the market to develop a really healthy horse treat.”

The story had an interesting plot twist that came to light in the couple’s first conversation in the pub. Kevin had to confess he had not heard of Laura Kraut, but when Mary Elizabeth mentioned Nick Skelton – Laura’s partner – the Englishman knew exactly who she was talking about. “Funnily enough I grew up in the same town as Nick – Bedworth in Warwickshire,” he said. “Let’s just say it was a working class town and there was no show jumping coming out of that place. I mean there were people that worked in factories and down mines and that kind of stuff. But Nick’s dad had a pharmacy and in there was a [life-size] cardboard cutout of this kid, called Nick Skelton.” 

Back in the ‘80s at the time, Nick was a household name due to the nightly TV coverage of showjumping. “We only had three or four channels,” said Kevin of British TV at the time. “And they used to struggle to put sports on, so they’d look for other sports. Show Jumping was on a lot and it was huge.”

When Nick and Kevin met in person through the sisters “needless to say we got on really well,” Kevin said. But thrust into the world of show jumping – horses even – Kevin was out of his comfort zone as far as equestrian knowledge went.

He went back to what he knew, and applied his methodical IT background to the task of developing a horse treat like no other. He set up a white board and he started asking questions from those in the know. “I wanted to understand what the perfect horse treat looked like,” he said. The information he gleaned proved invaluable. The treats had to be hard, he was told. Why? He asked. So they would not be sticky or break apart in a pocket.

“And then we started just working through process by process,” Kevin said. “What would be the ideal ingredient list?” Surveying advice from horse people, Kevin came up with a list of 15 ingredients. “If you look at any other competitors they’ve usually got about four or five,” he said. Multiple ingredients meant cost was higher, but with input also from Nick and Laura, there was a determination to come up with a treat that had to be right for riders of their caliber to feel comfortable feeding to their horses.

The design for the bag for Kelcie’s Treats also came from a collaborative effort – this time at a dinner during the Nations Cup in Lisbon. “It was a young riders group and we were having our team dinner and it was the grooms and the riders who helped design the bag,” Kevin said. “That was the fantastic thing about it – everybody had an input in what this thing was going to be like, what the packaging was going to be like, the ingredients, the texture – everything was done from the ground up.”

Some 12 months passed before the actual product was delivered. Finding a manufacturer proved challenging, since most required a minimum run that was in the tens of thousands of pounds. “You don’t need a 20,000lb run when you don’t even know if a horse is going to eat it,” Kevin said. 

Eventually they found a US manufacturer who agreed to do a 300lb sample run.  “It arrived at the house at eight at night and you’re like ‘oh god what if they don’t eat them’,” said Kevin. “I’ll never forget: it’s dark and we go into the barn and we start passing them out, and every horse ate them, and then the dog ate them. She [Mary Elizabeth] said those down there are fussy eaters and even they like them. I didn’t know what a fussy eater was!”

Pumpkin is the staple ingredient of Kelcie’s Treats as well as turmeric, which brings anti-inflammatory properties to the mix. The treats were low in sugar and the distributor was happy to be able to put low in sugar on the packaging. The treats had been tested and were safe to give to any horse with sugar-related illnesses, not least the relatively common condition known as Cushings disease. 

Kelcie’s Treats hit the market in 2019 and continue to gain in popularity. “I get emails from all over the country now,” said Kevin, of the positive feedback from horse owners. “It’s become a real thing. This is our base [USA] and this is our home. This is the market that we are very, very strong in. The customers love it because once they know that the treats are safe and they feel comfortable, they just stay with you forever.”

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