Meet the Founder – Ove Lind’s Story
Let’s start with a heartfelt thanks to my ex-ex-wife.
No, really.
After our divorce, she enrolled our two kids in riding school — and left me to manage the logistics. It didn’t take long before I got fed up with freezing on the sidelines while the kids bounced around learning nothing about horses. So I bought three ponies.
I fenced in a big pasture with my house right in the middle and began my own horse journey — the real kind. For me, it’s always been simple:
Horses belong outdoors, barefoot, always grazing. Period.
Well… maybe that was just the beginning.
You might know me from Swedish Hoof School (Svenska Hovskolan) or my online group “NoFrog–NoHoof–NoHorse”. But my deep dive into horse welfare started back in 1996, when my ponies lived on a pasture paradise — open fields, forest, a mountain, and a big feed box always filled with oat straw or hay.
That feed box became the first problem to solve. Hay was being wasted everywhere, and I was constantly clearing it up. So I started experimenting with ways to reduce waste.
Over the next nine years, I built and tested countless feeding setups. But gradually I noticed something far more important than a cleaner paddock:
My ponies were changing — becoming calmer, friendlier, more balanced in every way.
While my neighbor’s horses still fought, fussed, and stressed, mine were peaceful.
That’s when I went digging into research.
What I found was EGUS – Equine Gastric Ulcer Syndrome. Not just a few papers, but a mountain of studies going back decades. It was clear: most domestic horses suffer from stomach ulcers caused by stress and unnatural feeding routines.
The cause was known. But the solution? Still missing.
No one had figured out how to give horses constant access to hay without triggering overeating or obesity.
That’s where Real SlowFeeding® began.
What started as a mission to reduce hay waste turned into something much bigger — a way to:
- Prevent ulcers and digestive issues
- Re-train horses to self-regulate their eating
- Support mental relaxation and social harmony
I don’t have a clinical study to hand you — but I have decades of living proof:
Horses that eat in a natural posture, with soft, knot-less nets and no anxiety around food, become healthier, happier, and more themselves.
SlowFeeding is no longer just about hay lasting longer.
It’s about unlocking the true nature of the horse — their calmness, stamina, kindness, and willingness to work with us.
Because horses aren’t naturally grumpy or aggressive.
If they fight over food, act nervous, or behave badly — something’s wrong.
And that’s what we set out to fix.