Finish Line Horse Products
Joint, gastric, electrolyte and respiratory formulas made in their own lab and plant
🇺🇸 American Manufacturing
Our assessment
Company details
Where Finish Line Horse Products products are made
This is the part most supplement brands cannot say: “Raw materials are quarantined on arrival and can only be used in manufacturing after approval, per the procedure in Finish Line’s NASC BMP manual (National Animal Supplement Council: Best Manufacturing Practices manual).” Incoming shipments are inspected against the company’s own standards. Finish Line has been “a charter member of the National Animal Supplement Council since its inception.”
“The lab is headed by our chemist who has over 35 years experience as an analytical chemist and formulator. He has been associated with Finish Line since the early 1980’s,” and “The variety of instruments you will find in our lab is a testament to the procedures our team has in place.” Long-term development projects “can last up to two years” — a timescale only available to a company that owns the bench.
“The 6-digit lot number tells you the date of manufacture. The 1st 2 digits are the month of the year, digits 3 and 4 are the day of the month, Digit 5 is the year truncated, and the 6th digit is the batch of the day.” The company also explains its formulation choices in manufacturing terms — it makes its fly spray as a concentrate because “ALL essential oil based horse sprays slowly lose potency due to loss of volatile components.”
American Manufacturing, and the reason is worth stating precisely. What is well documented is that Finish Line manufactures: its own facility, its own lab and chemist, quarantined raw materials under a written NASC Best Manufacturing Practices manual, per-batch release and dated lot codes — all first-party, and all in the first person. What is not documented is a catalogue-wide origin claim. Only Muscle Tone carries an explicit “Product of the USA” line; U-7 Gastric Aid, Total Control, Air Power, the Original Premium Poultice and MSM say nothing about origin, and the company never publishes a sentence reading “manufactured in Bensenville, Illinois” — Bensenville is simply the only address it publishes. Raw materials are described as inspected on arrival, not as domestic. One further caution for readers: “one of the best selling poultices in the USA” is a market-share claim, not an origin claim.
The story
The manufacturing began in 1975, and the first product is still in the catalogue: “Original Premium Poultice was Finish Line’s first product developed when the company was founded in 1975.” But the company dates its horse history much further back — “our history with horses started over 100 years ago,” and “Passion remains at the core of who we are, it’s in our DNA and has been for four generations.”
The generations are documented rather than implied. Great-grandfather John Edward Howe “rode with Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders in the Oklahoma territory,” responsible for Roosevelt’s horses; the family “purchased their first horse, Tangerine” in 1929. Grandfather John Casper Howe “started out as a jockey at Sportsman’s Park in Illinois at just 13 years old,” “won over 500 races” and “trained horses for nearly 50 years.” The product JC’s X-Tie Up is named for him.
Founder John R. Howe earned his trainer’s licence in 1973 and sold the early products himself, visiting “race barns every morning to sell his made-from-scratch poultices and remedies” before they reached tack shops in Chicago and racetracks nationally. The company now lists “over 43 products,” sold deliberately through dealers rather than direct: “we strongly urge customers to buy our products from their local dealer.”
Why they matter
In a category where most brands are a label on somebody else’s blend, Finish Line publishes the machinery of actually making things: a named chemist with thirty-five years at the bench, two-year formulation projects, raw-material quarantine, and per-batch release. That is verifiable process detail rather than a patriotic graphic, and it is rarer than it should be.
Because equine supplements are not pre-approved by the FDA — the company says so itself — the buyer’s only real protection is the manufacturer’s own discipline. A charter NASC member operating a written Best Manufacturing Practices manual with dated lot codes is the demonstrable version of that, and its U-7 formula carries an independent randomised, double-blind veterinary study, which is unusual in this aisle.
It is also an American manufacturer that deliberately keeps US retailers in the chain. Refusing to sell direct and pushing customers to “their local dealer or one of the national catalogs that carry us” keeps tack shops and feed stores in business — a second order of domestic economic effect beyond the plant itself.
Shop Finish Line Horse Products products
Joint, gastric, electrolyte, vitamin, muscle and respiratory supplements, plus poultices, liniments and shampoos.
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Finish Line Horse Products questions
Is Finish Line made in the USA?
Finish Line manufactures at its own facility, states that it guarantees “every batch that leaves our facility,” and develops its products “at our headquarters” — and the only address it publishes is Bensenville, Illinois. One product, Muscle Tone, is explicitly labelled “Product of the USA” on its product page. The company does not publish a catalogue-wide Made-in-USA claim, and several of its best-known products — U-7 Gastric Aid, Total Control, Air Power, the Original Premium Poultice and MSM — carry no origin statement at all. That is why we label it American Manufacturing and do not extend the Muscle Tone sentence to anything else.
Where is Finish Line based?
Bensenville, Illinois. The company publishes “PO Box 1000 Bensenville, Illinois 60106” in the footer of every page, with a toll-free line at 800-762-4242. No street address is published on its own site, so this profile does not give one.
When was Finish Line founded?
1975. “The Finish Line tradition for manufacturing quality equine health care products officially began in 1975, however, our history with horses started over 100 years ago.” Its first product, the Original Premium Poultice, dates from that founding year and is still sold. The family’s horse history runs four generations, back to founder John R. Howe’s great-grandfather riding with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders.
How can I tell how old a Finish Line product is?
Every package carries a six-digit lot code that encodes the manufacturing date: the first two digits are the month, the third and fourth the day, the fifth the truncated year and the sixth the batch of that day. The company recommends a two-year shelf life from the date of manufacture — a direct consequence of its in-house batch manufacturing and its own quality-control records.