Herbal Remedies

Herbal remedies have been used to treat sick and diseased animals for thousands of years. It is through the use of herbal remedies that Margaret Chadwick, the principal equine therapist at Nature Matters Ltd, became convinced of the healing powers of complementary medicines.

Margaret had been treating her own horses for a number of years when one of her Welsh Mountain ponies, Ellarslea Best Man, became very sick. After an exploratory operation and biopsy the pony was diagnosed with diffuse alimentary lympho sarcoma. The veterinarian advised that nothing could be done and sent the pony home with little hope of recovery. Best Man arrived home looking extremely thin, depressed and with no desire for food.

Margaret was desperate to stimulate the pony’s appetite and collected a bucket of lush grass. To her surprise he refused all the grass but frantically rooted around the bucket for one particular herb, which she later found out to be plantain. For a few days plantain became the pony’s sole diet but after a while he changed his preferences and dandelion became the order of the day. This was not only the start of the healing process for the pony but also the start of a quest for greater knowledge of the identification and medicinal properties of our meadowland and hedgerow herbage. Gradually over a six-month period with a diet rich in a wide variety of these new healing herbs the pony made a full recovery. Ellarslea Best Man better known in the driving world by his stable name 'Hamish' regularly competes in FEI carriage driving competitions and 12 months after his return to health won a bronze medal representing Great Britain at the European Driving Championships. Four years later he went one better and won a silver medal.