I suspect lots of food sharing is going on here.
”his favorite flavor of Gatorade” ! 
If you are going to try to hide them rather than syringe them in, you might have more luck if you dont crush them. My (admittedly piggy) horse would eat them if I put them in a handful of grain and hand fed. Not the most efficient way, but they didnt seem to have a strong taste/smell. I ended up using the Fig Newtons so the feeder could just toss the cookies on his grain.
Pony on Prednisone (super bitter) ate them tucked into Tim Bits- doughnut holes to our US neighbours!
Dissolve in warm water and use the flavored water squirt kind to flavor. You can get sugar free kinds if you have to be careful in that area. My guy is partial to the orange crush flavor and sweet tea. Otherwise pancake syrup makes everything good.
A few years ago I had to give my very picky horse 15 Sulfa pills twice a day for 2 moths at a a time…sigh!! We found if we put them in a large syringe filled with very hot water mixed with a bit of molasses they’d dissolve nicely …keep shaking so the end doesn’t plug up while they’re dissolving…keep shaking while you walk to horses stall …mixture will cool so it won’t burn and picky horse will gladly slurp said mixture down when you shoot it into his mouth! A total pain in the ass, but compared to the “sniff sniff, I’m not eating this same mixture you’ve added to my beet pulp” it’s totally worth it!
I’m first going to try just crushing pills dry into powder – then divide powder into three or four parts – then mix one part into individual smallish forage based meals (his regular feed), add molasses and some of his favorite crunchy horse treats, and see if he’ll just eat the stuff as @IPEsq and others have suggested. Could be that simple. Key will be to find out how much feed / how many parts of powder per meal makes the bitter taste unnoticeable.
Lots of good ideas - here are a couple more. I’ve found that crushing pills often makes it worse. I think the bitter taste just becomes more pronounced. If your horse can have a small amount of alfalfa, try soaking a 1/4 to 1/2 pound of alfalfa pellets till mush and toss in the pills whole, feed right away before the pills can dissolve. Alfalfa has a fairly strong smell/taste and some will just gobble it right up. My other go to is Gerber’s Plain Baby Oatmeal mixed with a little hot water and some brown sugar. Same with tossing the pills in at the last minute. I usually make this in one of those aluminum pie plates and hand feed. Good luck.
I’ll try that too. You might be right about the crushing aspect – better whole.
One thing that worked for me was sugar free jello powder! My horse liked strawberry but I am sure any fruity flavor (excluding citrus) would work. I used it for putting whole pills in his food and giving oral Banamine. Since you will be making a pill paste you could use my Banamine method:
Mix one heaping teaspoon of powder with about 2 tablespoons of water. I would make a slurry with the pills and the jello mix if you want to feed them crushed.
If you do try them whole, just dump a bunch of the powder (~ 1/2 tablespoon) over grain with the pills dispersed and wet it a little prior to feeding.
I tried applesauce, mashed bananas (he liked them), stuffed in pieces of fruit and hidden in straight molasses, none of it worked!
I just read through a website – company that makes flavorings to mask bad tastes of meds, and apparently salt is a very good masker for bitterness. So I gave it a try – dissolved a traz pill in water along with some sugar, bit of peppermint candy flavor and salt. Then tasted it and couldn’t taste any bitterness at all. Interesting!
Very interesting!! Pro tip!! 
Some fennel seed or fenugreek in your grain might also help.
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:encouragement:Another great tip.
I had a very picky one. With SMZs and other pills, I crushed them, dissolved them in warm water, then added brown sugar to the water to create a thin paste. Added that to the grain and mixed it up. She was always a bit hesitant that first day, but ate them with no issues.
If the Fig Newtons don’t work and you want to go the mash route, use a livestock Drench gun. When one of my horses was getting 60+ pills a day (lyme, and then some other medications) we would soak them in the drench gun with hot water and applesauce/molasses, shake vigorously, and apply. It was way better than dosing with a standard oral syringe since those tend to jam up at inopportune times.
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My food motivated 5 yr old has had Trazodone the night before his two ulcer scopes. Crushed in his favorite cinnamon applesauce - not very effective and he wouldn’t touch applesauce for days afterwards. But two pills inserted whole into a German Horse Muffin (super sticky) and he snarfed all 10 right down. From now on that is my go-to method for pills (plus they work like a charm to get him to march right on to the trailer)
hopefully you’ve found something that works but when I had to give 75 pills 2x a day (SMZs for drafty) I finally did get our local compounding guy to compound them and wow! Comes in a paste like banamine but so yummy that I could give without a halter! He thought it was terrific! Could put in food or stick in his mouth. Definitely not cheap but sooooo easy. Prior to that I did have luck crushing, warm water with brown sugar, then a little yogurt and the dosing syringe but had to do it in two doses (the volume is unwieldy) so very pleased with compounding!
Compounding is a real possibility – there’s a veterinary pharmacy not too far from me.
The German Muffins sound fabulous too!
The drenching gun is quite a gadget – sounds better than cloggy syringe.
On the topic of German Muffins - I bought a bag thinking they would be well received. Two of my three would not eat them. Even when left in their feed tub. These are horses that typically eat treats well, this treat was a fail. All my friend’s horses thought they were fine things, so it was not a bad bag or something. They look and smell like the horses should love them. Two weird mares…
I suggest you test them on your horse before splurging for the big bag, that is all.
Recently, I watched my friend give her horse a lot of medication (similar to using the drench gun) using a clear 3/4 inch tube. She bought a three foot long length of the tubing at a home center store like Lowe’s or Home Depot.
She mixed the pills with water and molasses to be thin enough to pour. She then loaded the tube by pouring the mixture into it, opened her horse’s mouth, shoved the tube way back into his mouth and then blew the medication into his mouth with hers on the other end of the tube.
I was amazed at how fast she was able to do that and will try it next time one of my horses needs 17 pills twice per day.
