New equine company launches performance-boosting stable lighting solution

A new Gloucestershire company has launched a range of stable lighting products which it says improves a horse's health and wellbeing.

Based near Cirencester, HorseLight UK is the brainchild of former junior international horse rider and pharmaceutical executive Torjus Baalack, who has adapted technology used in the dairy farming industry for the equestrian sector. This centres around the science of the Circadian Rhythm – the body-clock of all mammals that tells our bodies when to sleep, rise, and eat, and regulates many physiological processes – which can be positively influenced to deliver far-reaching benefits.

HorseLight’s range of special LED lighting units emit a specific spectrum of light which replicates summer sunshine inside the stable all year round.

Co-founder and owner of HorseLight, Torjus Baalack, said: “HorseLight forms part of a new science-driven approach to keeping horses in top condition, fit and healthy and,  for those who are competing, provides the opportunity to gain an extra marginal edge and a competitive advantage. We all feel better and more energetic during the summer months, and horses are no different, so finding a way to replicate those conditions for longer is only going to be beneficial – that’s why HorseLight is more than just a stable light.

“We’re the first British-based company dedicated to making this proven technology accessible to all horse owners, which we can do because of our sister company’s extensive experience in supplying and installing this type of advanced lighting in the dairy industry.”

HorseLight’s technology has directly evolved from that of its sister company, DairyLight, which has been providing lighting for dairy farmers for more than six years. Studies on DairyLight’s impact on dairy herds show that milk yields can be increased by as much as 10 per cent, with improved food conversion when cows are kept under such light conditions.

For breeders of performance horses wanting early foals, Horselilght says the benefits of HorseLight are most valuable. Beginning light therapy at the correct time of year can help in bring the mares into season early, with more exact gestation periods for early foals and better early foaling weights, and therefore better yearling weights. Light therapy also helps to ready stallions earlier in the season.