Calm Healthy Horses UK

25/03/2025

PB are putting so much into making this a really special and exciting event which I am very proud to be part of. Alyson is even asking what I will be talking about !!!

So right now I'm doing my best to figure out what questions people are asking and how I can best make my input useful and informative.

There is so much to cover but what matters most to everyone who joins us is my priority.

So can you help me here, Please comment with any burning questions, areas of interest that you would like to raise and don't be afraid to raise any controversial challenges.

I will respond directly to any questions now and then apply your thoughts and comments to my slot on the big day.

Hope you can help 🙏🙂

Open Day Q&A

With tickets selling reasonably quickly, I wanted to take the opportunity to answer some of your most commonly asked questions.

> 𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝗵𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸𝘀 𝗯𝗲 𝗼𝗻?

Georgie Harrison of Hoof Matters, our resident ISNHCP practitioner, will be going into topics such as Laminitis, pathologies, barefoot transitioning, and the direct affect that diet, movement and trim have on the health of the hooves. This will all be covered from a natural horse care perspective and the desire to understand the root cause of our horse's hoof health.

Sue Dawson of Calm Healthy Horses UK, our go-to nutritionist, specialises in grass affected issues and will be discussing what a grass affected horse can look like and the role that diet has on the entire body, including why grass is a common culprit of many equine conditions and health concerns. Sue will also cover the importance of meeting our horse's vitamin and mineral requirements.

Alyson Sharpe of PB Paddock Paradise Livery will be diving into all things paddock paradise track systems, rehabilitation cases and success stories achieved on track and the must-know information that accompanies a successful, well functioning track system.

More information to be announced...

> 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗴𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁 Jaime Jackson 𝗯𝗲 𝗵𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸 𝘁𝗼𝗼?

Jaime will be attending for a book signing where you will have the opportunity to speak to him about his work, ask questions and connect. This is a rare opportunity, one that doesn't come around very often and we are honoured to have him attend on the day. However, he will not be giving a talk.

> 𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗻 𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗱?

Unfortunately no. Our ridden yard policy is strictly no person under the age of 16 and this translates over to our open day too. This is due to safety reasons, having large herds and catering to horses with behavioural issues.

> 𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝗜 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝘆 𝗱𝗼𝗴?

Again, we have a no dog policy on our ridden yard and at our open day events.

> 𝗗𝗼 𝗜 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗮𝘀𝗵?

On the day, you will have the opportunity to purchase food, products from stalls and enter the raffle. We will be accepting both card and cash.

> 𝗗𝗼 𝗜 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝘆?

Our open days are designed to be a whole day experience, with timed talks, demonstrations and tours of the tracks held throughout the day. You don't have to attend for the entire day, but you will miss out on parts of the day that largely contribute to the experience.

> 𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝗜 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵?

There will be a delicious pizza van (tried and tested!) on the day to buy from. However, if you wish to bring your own lunch with you, you are welcome to. Please note, lunch is not included with your ticket.

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If you have any more questions, please feel free to comment below or send us a message!

For more information about the day, please visit - www.pb-paddockparadiselivery.com/event-details/annual-open-day-pb-paddock-paradise-livery

24/03/2025

Spring is here and so is the grass

While the dry, cool weather has kept growth steady (rather than explosive), many horses are starting to struggle with the fresh green growth. For every owner celebrating the end of winter, there’s another bracing the spring grass fallout:
⚠️ Footiness
⚠️ Headshaking
⚠️ Laminitis
⚠️ Spookiness and tension

In our experience it’s not just the sugar in grass that causes trouble — mineral imbalances are often a real culprit. Fast-growing grass can contain excess potassium and nitrogen, which block absorption of important minerals like magnesium and calcium. This disrupts your horses nerve, muscle, and gut function — even when sugar levels are low. We always advocate
For very sensitive horses:
➤ Establish grass-free turnout with hay as the base forage.
➤ Add GrazeEzy + Alleviate C at full support levels to restore mineral balance.

For less sensitive horses:
➤ Reduce grass exposure during risk periods (e.g. warm, wet sunny and cloudyspells) and continue to make hay available.
➤ Supplement with maintenance levels of GrazeEzy + Alleviate C.
These CHH formulations provide bioavailable minerals and cofactors that can buffer the effects of inappropriate grass to support your horse to remain calm, sound and healthy.

A high-fibre hay diet with a quality bucket feed bringing balanced vitamins, minerals, with supplementary protein and fats as we always suggest can bring so many benefits.

Let your horse enjoy the season — without the grass drama. 💚

The photos below are from the middle of my track and show how much the grass has sprung into lusher, actively growing green over just the past 10 days.

25/02/2025

I love OTTB's. They are such versatile horses with great brains and are so athletic. Unfortunately racing life tends to start with nutrition that is polar opposite to the simple bucket and hay based diet that CHH feel best reflects the horses natural diet. Here is a wonderful story about how changing those dietary principles enabled Dora to shine in her post racing career. Many thanks to Lisa for sharing her and Dora's story.

Dora is a 16.1 ex racer. She raced on the flat, over hurdles and chased. Dora retired late 2023 because she had tied up a few times. She had been generally tight and difficult throughout her racing career seemingly didn’t enjoy this job anymore. Before retiring Dora had two wind operations and had been steroid injected from head to hoof to try to combat her issues.

Dora came to me in February 2024. She arrived safely but was a little sweaty and wound up. She had been in a small barn with no turnout for three months prior to moving. With us she was quarantined for 2 weeks with 10 mins out in the arena. Dora naturally was quite exuberant during the first 10 minutes turnout but then tied up. This is when her issues started to emerge, and we started our journey with CHH.

I have owned horses (including one I bred) that tied up in the past, so I was aware of diet/management/exercise routines to manage this issue. But with Dora my usual tactics were not up to the job. A friend of mine pointed me in the direction of CHH so I started feeding the simple bucket Sue recommends; Premium MVA a little beet, micronised linseed, and salt alongside unlimited late cut hay. We then saw Dora gradually improve over the following weeks.

Next, I had my physio give Dora a treatment. I cannot list every spasm or area of tightness she found, let’s put it this way, from Dora’s head to tail there wasn’t many areas that weren’t rock solid. Dora’s neck, glutes, hamstrings, and SI were all of concern. My physio recommended I get some steroid injections asap suggesting her SI as a starting point.

I listened but did not completely agree. I felt confident with the exercise program and feeding/management regime I had planned I could fix Dora’s issues without medical intervention. I started to turn Dora out into a small grass paddock for an hour per day hoping to build up to a couple of hours by March. After just a few days she started showing symptoms of stringhalt. I started researching and came across posts and research referring to PSH (pasture-associated stringhalt). I took her straight off the pasture and put her back in the sand turnout with stabling overnight. From then on, her only forage was late cut hay. Within 48 hours the stringhalt disappeared unless she was asked to back up. I would not have believed this if I had not have witnessed it myself. At this point I introduced GrazeEzy. Dora was kept off the pasture for a couple of weeks then we tried pasture turnout again but It was a disaster!

A huge down pour came out of nowhere while she was out just for a couple of hours. The next morning, she was hobbling as though she was so sore in all four hooves and tight through her whole body. Again, I took her off all pasture, gave her some Bute and within 36 hours she was completely sound again. Alarm bells were ringing telling me this horse cannot cope with and pasture turnout. This was when Alleviate C was added at higher levels for a week then dropped to 50g as maintenance. Since then I have figured out that when we have a very dry spell Dora can cope with an hour or two on grass but if the weather is wet and the temperatures are fluctuating, we have problems. For now, Dora is kept in her sand turnout and stable with exercise every day, even if it’s only 10 mins walking in hand, movement is key.

Over the following months we built up Dora’s fitness, out hacking, in the school, and lots of in hand and pole work. In June we did our first walk and trot dressage test. Wow, we came home with 2 red rosettes and scores in the low 70%’s. We had some fantastic feedback from the judge - I was over the moon! From these foundations we carried on building fitness, schooling, pole work, hacking. Dora went from strength to strength. Next another great dressage outing coming home with a red and an 80% score. Another month passed another dressage outing with 2 more reds with mid 70% scores. Dora is scoring consistent 8 for “paces, freedom and regularity”.

Suddenly we had a setback. In September Dora had a freak accident in the turnout. She fractured her splint bone and had a deep lesion around her fetlock. I was gutted. After a week in equine hospital, general anaesthetic, tendon flush, clean out, drain put in and being sutured up she came home for her 16 weeks of recovery and rehab.

During this time Dora’s condition had dropped off slightly and her gut became unsettled. She was still her polite self but very grumpy and agitated when I was trying to touch/groom her. I spoke to Sue at CHH again and she advised to put Dora on a course of Alleviate Gold with Shipshape which I did. The Gold was to help balance her gut after the stress and medication she had been prescribed and the Shipshape provided essential amino acids (quality protein) to help build her muscle and topline as she came back into work. This strategy worked wonders for Dora, and I soon had my relaxed, happy horse again.

Five months on Dora is fully recovered, back in work and getting up-to full fitness. She is completely sound and working very working well. At her most recent physio appointment she was soft and supple. She is completely even in her backing up strides and there no need for any steroid injections anywhere! My physio was amazed.

Dora is currently fed on equal amounts of beet and copra, 150g of black sunflower seeds, 300g of micronised linseed, 80g Premium MVA, 60g GrazeEzy, 50g Alleviate C, plus 100g salt. Our hay is a little green and earlier cut than is ideal for Dora, so I’m monitoring her supplements and behaviour very closely. Having learned to manage Dora I can now easily adjust the levels of GrazeEzy and Alleviate C to suit her needs.

I cannot thank Sue at CHH enough for her continued support throughout the last year. We would not be where we are now and looking forward to seeing what 2025 will bring for us. Dora’s story could have been quite different, she may not even have been with us if it wasn’t for CHH. Only a handful of friends know her true story and how many grass affected issues we have struggled to manage. Most just see the great little Calm Healthy Horse that she is now when we have been out and about in their company. I hope our story can help many others out there who are struggling with the same issues we have managed to overcome.

The first photo is Dora on arrival and the second is today feb 26th 2025. Lovely comments from the Judge on Lisa and Dora's winning partnership.

07/02/2025

As the availability of track livery increases I get more and more lovely messages like this one. Helping clients make sustainable changes to improve their own and their horses long term health and well being is what I love most about my work at CHH

Dear Sue,

You so kindly helped me when my mare came down with very bad laminitis. Thank you so much. She eventually went to a yard with a track system to rehabilitate. She has been there a year and is now well - which is so wonderful. As a result, we have built a track system at home which is part hardcore, part soil that has been turned to mud and is grass free. There will be three horses on the track so the chances of grass growing will be limited. But I do realise (thanks to all your brilliant information) the danger of stressed short grass poking up if we are not careful. She is coming home very soon so I am planning on feeding her the chaff, micro linseed, MVA and of course plain table salt that you suggest. Lucky she is not a fussy eater and she eats this well. I have sourced some great hay that should be very suitable for sensitive types. She is barefoot and her trimmer thinks her feet are looking great.

I am so happy that she is coming home.
Thank you so much,

With best wishes

23/12/2024

Happy Christmas everyone !!! 😂😊🙃

There once was a horse who wore glasses,
Whose riders would land on their arses
He was heard to exclaim
‘I won’t take the blame’
It’s to do with those bloody green grasses

Merry Christmas from the entire CHH team…

*CHH Cathy Dee is responsible for this Limerick and image

03/06/2024

An exciting venture by Maddie Sharpe of PB Paddock Paradise Track Livery. Follow the links and take a look 🤓 Its a quarterly publication focusing on TRACKS ! I have committed to writing something for each edition about my track, my horses and my experiences. Through this publication Im seeking to share how the Track / Paddock Paradise system has helped me and my horses to be calm and healthy. At CHH we advocate the Track System as we have been using it for our own horses, in NZ and UK for over 10 years. Our approach to diet and management fits very well with the whole ethos - we do get that its not always possible for many people and part of our mission is to help make this system more accessible and available to everyone. My Mini Track is an example of what you can do on a livery, in a small space with basic investment. Enjoy 😁

✨️ Featured in Issue 2 ✨️

Sue Dawson of Calm Healthy Horses UK is back from Issue 1 put things straight - competition horses can live on tracks, even mini ones.

Sue shares her journey with horse Glen, from traditional to track, learning and changing along the way.

Issue 2 out now - www.happytrackinmagazine.com/shop

21/05/2024

Wow – living the dream, talented but difficult horse out of racing doing his very best while living out 24/7 on a mud track, hay, simple bucket of vits mins etc and yes barefoot. A picture tells a thousand words as they say. I have a special interest in this horse and rider. Her mum is a very good friend and I have helped to prepare and ridden him, so I know what he is like. Anyway, for those who think that CHH is for problem horses who don’t get out there and do their thing here is an example of a serious competition horse who otherwise might not be in this world. Looking forward to their next event in June

19/05/2024

Brilliant post here - please read it. Also to be clear - this post is not saying short grass is good, rather it is pointing out a very common misunderstanding. When you understand the problem you have a better chance of finding the right solution ! 🙂

28/03/2024

It's easy to underestimate the importance of feeding quality vits, mins and amino acids on a regular basis. When money was short these were the first things I dropped before I woke up to this simple fact. This is a really informative post from people who have years of experience with many horses debunking the idea that a hay only diet is sufficient to fully meet your horses nutritional needs. Discussion and comments welcome 😀.

Three Ravens is our second track system. We've been here for 10 years and had our previous track for 5 years, so we've been running Track Systems for 15 years. We've been caring for large groups of horses for nearly 30 years.
There is currently a lot of misinformation being posted on social media platforms, 'advising' owners that horses can live and thrive on hay only diets- meaning no supplementation of protein, vits & minerals. If only this were true!!! Think of the money and time we would all save! We tried the 'hay only' diet...not for 15 days, or a month, but for YEARS. Like the majority of people who run tracks, we found out it just doesn't work. Hay and hay quality is such a vast subject, it's not just about the type of grasses, not fertilising, not spraying with chemicals etc, but how and when it's cut and made, it could he argued the whole process is an art form. Not all hay is equal, and I think we all know this by now. Most people now know that vit E is deficient in hay, and horses usually get this from grass- and a deficiency in vit E causes all sorts of problems.
We test hay and have it analysed, and have also previously gone to the expensive lengths of doing blood tests for mineral & vitamin profiling on some horses- which isn't necessary except in exceptional or complex cases- because there is a broad range of what is deemed adequate/safe for each vit/mineral. So how can we tell? The answer is the horses in front of you and their health & symptoms. And I'm not necessarily talking about them being extremely sick, although long term, this can and does happen. Generally speaking, I'm talking about every day issues such as raising youngsters on a Track System with hay only diet, veteran horses on a hay only diet- both of which need extra protein and plenty of it. And then there's the wide range of health symptoms, many of which- like head shaking- are still seen by some as an allergy and can't be fixed by the correct supplements, balancing up with what is missing from hay. We've fixed 2 headshakers, but it would reappear if we stopped supplements- we know because we've tried it. There's a whole plethora of symptoms, both health and behaviour, that start to show up when deficiency is present. Sometimes it takes a few years, just like horses with PSSM2- yes, we're successfully managing those as well. We have every age on our track system from 6 months old to our 25yr old QH, Millie. She's been with us since she was 6 yrs old and we've seen and relieved her of a lot of health issues over those years. We have LONG TERM liveries as well as our own being long term here, and that's what counts- seeing horses thrive in the long term. Millie was one of our horses who suffered the consequences of 'hay only' and dramatically dropped weight and top line, she went from being rock crunching to having extremely poor hoof quality. She had muscle twitching and dangerous behaviour changes. We at the time were strongly advocating hay only, so had to completely do a U turn on our then belief system. You do the best you know, until you know better. We changed things dramatically and started to see fantastic improvements- but not just in Millie, in ALL the other horses, including those who we hadn't realised that there was room for improvement. That was years ago now and we've seen a lot of horses since who improve vastly on a supplemented, hay only diet.
It would be a dream come true if hay only was sufficient, it would save countless hours of work and a lot of money, but it doesn't work in the long run. We want horses to be fit and healthy in their bodies, and calm and happy in mind and spirit.
We're aiming to supplement what they would have access to in a wild diet- which is a broad choice of plants, grasses, trees, bark, legumes, herbs etc. The first pic below is our own Little Wolf, the second is a wild Mustang from the Sand Wash Basin.
Little Wolf has PSSM2, two variants of. We've had him since he was 6 months old and he started displaying pssm2 symptoms age 2yrs old. At the time, we didn't think it was fixable or even manageable. Little Wolf is now almost 7yrs old and is healthy and ridden, and we think he looks amazing too! So yes, we see all the usual EMS/laminitics etc here- but our work and care (like most other experienced track systems) goes way beyond just 'fixing hooves', we are about WHOLE HEALTH, WHOLE HORSE.

Please note- we refuse any sponsorship from all feed & supplement companies, we use what we use because we've seen fantastic results. We do not personally benefit financially or otherwise from any of the products we use.

28/02/2024

Right now most paddocks are either 2 or 4. The result is increasing incidences of laminitis, spooky behaviour, tight muscles, itchy, grumpy, upset gut, headshaking and equine asthma - ie Grass Affected issues !!! Adding more salt plus GrazeEzy, Alleviate Gold and or Alleviate C will help your horse to cope. Please, as your very first response, remove as much green growing grass from their diet as you possibly can. Make their forage good hay 24/7. This message is even more important than usual given the time of year 🙂