Horse Peak Gelatin Official Website › Choosing A Formula
Choosing A FormulaChoosing A Men's Vitality Supplement
Seven checks separate a formula from a decoration, and most labels fail the first.
Are the amounts printed? Is the plant part named? Does each amount reach its trial dose? Is there an ingredient line? Do the badges name a verifier? Is the refund route real? Are the nutrient rows inside their ceilings? Horse Peak Gelatin scores three, one and three.
A method you can carry to any label, and one product scored against it in public.
The seven checks
Seven questions, in the order they are worth asking. Three minutes a bottle.
1. Is an amount printed against every active?
A proprietary blend gives one combined weight for a list of names, which makes every individual amount unknowable. If any row lacks its own figure, nothing else on the panel can be assessed and the rest of this scorecard is unusable.
2. Is the plant part and the binomial named?
Root and leaf from one plant are two different raw materials with two different chemistries, and the research for one rarely transfers to the other. A binomial in brackets after the common name is the mark of a label that has been proofread.
3. Does each botanical amount reach what its own trials used?
This is the check that separates a formula from a decoration, and it is the one most labels fail. Look up the trial dose, then read the panel. Micrograms against a milligram literature is the commonest failure in the category.
4. Is there an Other Ingredients line?
Every finished product has one: the capsule shell, the gelling agent, the sweetener, the colour. On a gummy it describes most of what you are chewing, and its absence makes every allergen and dietary badge on the pack uncheckable.
5. Do the badges name a verifier?
A seal is a graphic. What gives it force is the organisation standing behind it. GMP certified by whom, tested by which laboratory, formulated by which named clinician: a badge that answers none of those is a claim rather than a certificate.
6. Is there a refund route with a person behind it?
A window with a telephone number, a stated length, opened bottles included and a published processing time. A guarantee whose claim route is a form nobody answers is not a refund route.
7. Are the nutrient rows inside their upper intake levels?
Vitamins and minerals have published ceilings; botanicals mostly do not. Check the nutrient rows against them, and check them against everything else in the cupboard, because vitamin D in particular travels inside products that do not advertise it.
The seven checks applied to Horse Peak Gelatin
The product this website sells, scored against its own guide.
| Check | Result | The detail |
|---|---|---|
| 1. An amount against every active | Pass | Eleven rows, eleven figures, no proprietary blend anywhere on the panel |
| 2. Plant part and binomial named | Partial | Named for fenugreek, maca and Epimedium. The Tribulus row prints fenugreek's binomial, which is one of four printing errors on the panel |
| 3. Botanical amounts reach the trial doses | Fail | Four rows at 100 micrograms against trials running 600 mg to 3,000 mg. Working the 10:1 ratio back puts about a milligram of raw herb behind each |
| 4. An Other Ingredients line | Fail | Absent from the artwork. On a product named Gelatin that leaves the gelling agent and its animal source unstated |
| 5. Badges name a verifier | Fail | Eight of the ten name nobody. GMP names no auditor, doctor formulated names no clinician, and the vegetarian badge cannot be squared with the product name |
| 6. A refund route with a person behind it | Pass | 60 days from the date of purchase, opened bottles included, claimed by telephone. Two published processing times disagree, so plan around the longer |
| 7. Nutrient rows inside their ceilings | Pass | Vitamin D3 at 84 per cent of the adult upper intake level and boron at 35 per cent. Both inside, and the vitamin D figure needs adding to anything else you take |
Three passes, one partial, three outright failures. Without the failures in it, a scorecard published by the seller would not be worth the space.
The three rows it fails, in detail
Check three fails hardest and fails honestly. Four of the six actives are at 100 micrograms of a 10:1 extract, which works back to roughly a milligram of raw herb apiece, against trials that ran 600 mg of fenugreek and 1,500 to 3,000 mg of maca. No arithmetic makes those two columns meet, and the panel deserves credit for printing the figures that let anybody do the sum.
Check four fails on an absence with a specific consequence. The artwork carries no other-ingredients statement, so the gelling agent is unstated on a product whose name is Gelatin, and three badges on the pack cannot be checked against anything. Species-specific assays exist, so this is a question a maker could answer in a line.
Check five fails on the badge wall. Ten marks, eight of which name no verifying body, one of which identifies no clinician, and one of which the product name pulls against. The tenth is a refund policy, which is a commercial term rather than a quality mark.
The partial on check two is a printing error rather than a substitution: the Tribulus row carries fenugreek's binomial where Tribulus terrestris L. belongs. Calling it a pass would be generous in a way this page is trying not to be, and calling it a failure would overstate what a typesetting slip means.
The three rows it passes, and why they matter
Every amount is printed
This is the check that makes the other six possible. A panel with a proprietary blend on it cannot be scored at all, and a great deal of this category ships one. Printing the figures that expose check three is a choice worth acknowledging.
The refund route is real
60 days from purchase, opened bottles included, claimed by telephone with an order ID. Four of the five questions worth asking of a guarantee are answered well here; the fifth is two published processing times that disagree.
The nutrient rows are inside their ceilings
Vitamin D3 at 3,360 IU is 84 per cent of the adult upper intake level and boron at 7 mg is 35 per cent of its own. Both are supplemental doses rather than token ones, and both leave the arithmetic visible.
Three passes out of seven is not a recommendation and it is not a dismissal. It is what the scorecard produces on this label, and a reader who runs the same seven checks on the next bottle will find out whether three is good or bad for this aisle.
Most labels in this category fail check one, which ends the exercise at the first question. A panel that prints its figures has agreed to be measured, and that agreement is worth more than any single row on it.
It is also why the three failures above could be written at all. A bottle hiding its botanicals inside a blend would have produced a shorter and much less useful page, and the reader would have learned nothing except that he could not check.
Using the scorecard on a bottle that is not this one
- Do checks one and three first. If there is a proprietary blend, stop. If the botanical amounts are orders of magnitude under their trial doses, you already know what you are buying.
- Do check four in the shop. Turn the bottle over and find the other-ingredients line. Its absence on a gummy is more serious than on a capsule.
- Do check five with your phone. Search the badge and the brand together. A real certification has a certificate behind it with a number on it.
- Do check six before paying. Find the refund window, the claim route and who pays return postage. A guarantee that requires an unopened bottle is decorative.
- Do check seven at home. Line the nutrient rows up against everything else in the cupboard before the first dose rather than after.
None of the seven requires any scientific background. Five of them are questions about whether the label tells you something, and that is the point: a label that answers them is a label written by somebody who expected to be checked.
Run them on Horse Peak Gelatin and you get three, one and three. Run them on the next bottle and you will have a comparison that means something, which is more than any review score can offer you.
One caution about the arithmetic. A scorecard is a tool for comparing labels, not a measure of whether anything works. A bottle could pass all seven and still do nothing for you, because passing check three means the amount matches a trial rather than that the trial found much. The evidence guide is where that second question is dealt with, and it is the longer read for a reason.
Sources for this scorecard
The trial doses, the intake ceilings and the papers behind checks three, four and five.
- Monagas M, Brendler T, Brinckmann J, et al. Understanding plant to extract ratios in botanical extracts. Front Pharmacol. 2022;13:981978. PMID 36249773. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36249773/
- Rao A, Steels E, Inder WJ, et al. Testofen, a specialised Trigonella foenum-graecum seed extract reduces age-related symptoms of androgen decrease, increases testosterone levels and improves sexual function in healthy aging males in a double-blind randomised clinical study. Aging Male. 2016;19(2):134-42. PMID 26791805. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26791805/
- Gonzales GF, Cordova A, Vega K, et al. Effect of Lepidium meyenii (MACA) on sexual desire and its absent relationship with serum testosterone levels in adult healthy men. Andrologia. 2002;34(6):367-72. PMID 12472620. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12472620/
- Kamenov Z, Fileva S, Kalinov K, Jannini EA. Evaluation of the efficacy and safety of Tribulus terrestris in male sexual dysfunction-A prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial. Maturitas. 2017;99:20-26. PMID 28364864. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28364864/
- Niu Y, Lin G, Pan J, et al. Deciphering the myth of icariin and synthetic derivatives in improving erectile function from a molecular biology perspective: a narrative review. Transl Androl Urol. 2022;11(7):1007-1022. PMID 35958901. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35958901/
- Institute of Medicine (US) Committee to Review Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin D and Calcium; Ross AC, Taylor CL, Yaktine AL, Del Valle HB, editors. Tolerable Upper Intake Levels: Calcium and Vitamin D. In: Dietary Reference Intakes for Calcium and Vitamin D. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2011. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK56058/
- Institute of Medicine (US) Panel on Micronutrients. Arsenic, Boron, Nickel, Silicon, and Vanadium. In: Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin A, Vitamin K, Arsenic, Boron, Chromium, Copper, Iodine, Iron, Manganese, Molybdenum, Nickel, Silicon, Vanadium, and Zinc. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2001. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK222322/
- Nikzad J, Shahhosseini S, Tabarzad M, et al. Simultaneous detection of bovine and porcine DNA in pharmaceutical gelatin capsules by duplex PCR assay for Halal authentication. Daru. 2017;25(1):3. PMID 28196517. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28196517/
- Cohen PA, Avula B, Wang YH, Katragunta K, Khan I. Quantity of Melatonin and CBD in Melatonin Gummies Sold in the US. JAMA. 2023;329(16):1401-1402. PMID 37097362. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37097362/
- Tucker J, Fischer T, Upjohn L, Mazzera D, Kumar M. Unapproved Pharmaceutical Ingredients Included in Dietary Supplements Associated With US Food and Drug Administration Warnings. JAMA Netw Open. 2018;1(6):e183337. PMID 30646238. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30646238/
- Using Dietary Supplements Wisely. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, National Institutes of Health. https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/using-dietary-supplements-wisely
Horse Peak Gelatin passes three of its own seven checks
Printed amounts, a real refund route and nutrient rows inside their ceilings, with 60 days from the date of purchase to change your mind.
Two bottles $158 · six bottles $294 · 60-day money-back guarantee
Order Horse Peak Gelatin On The Official WebsiteOne gummy a day · 30 per bottle · lot HOR-26/MY-5544
