Stable Of Hope Rescue & Rehab

16/04/2025

Over winter we had the pleasure of trialling Jelka Group new mud mat design, called the STEP MAT.

I decided to go all out and properly do the test and laid them in our worst mud affected area, fondly known as "the bog".

This is the lowest part of the track and takes the longest to dry out after winter as it's right next to a pond.

Suffice to say they've done the job and now this area is passable all year round - I just need to extend it! The top pic is last winter without the mats, bottom pic is the winter just gone with the mats laid. Game changer!!

To prep I added some fresh soil down on top of the area when it was dry in late summer, then stamped the mats down to bed them into it. That's it! No stone or sand.

Unlike the top clean mats they have holes in them for drainage and are much more rigid so less likely to sink or tear when re-lifting.

I'd recommended the step mat for really wet and boggy areas, and the top clean for everywhere else! (Top clean are still my personal favourite, especially for use around the feeders, but the STEP mats will be my go to for really wet sections).

They're designed to be super non-slip, and our barefoot horses navigate them at all speeds with no issues. I'll pop a picture of the non-slip grip in the comments.

🐣Jelka are offering free delivery over Easter!

‼️ Don't forget our discount code AVL5 for 5% off any mud mats!

🔗https://jelka.co.uk/shop/hit-step-mat-22899?search=Step&order=name+asc
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16/04/2025

The difference 1 trim can do

From under run heels and a tiny surface area

To heels brought back under the limb giving the surface area the hoof was meant to have

Also note the natural arch of the foot at the quarters, this wasn’t cut or rasped in, it naturally appears when the hoof is trimmed correctly down to the hard sole plane

16/04/2025

Why Another Peer-Reviewed Paper Won’t Save the Horse

We’re told, time and time again, that peer-reviewed research is the gold standard - the answer to all the problems in hoof care. That if we really want to be taken seriously, we need to get our case studies published.

But let’s be honest: peer-reviewed research hasn’t got us anywhere near understanding the real cause of “laminitis” aka rotation and pe*******on.

In fact, it’s one of the main reasons we’ve gone so far off track.

The push to peer-review what we do is a distraction. It’s a trap. It’s meant to undermine us.

The truth is, the answer isn’t buried in another paper that will be ignored by those who need it most.

The answers are already in front of us - in the hooves of horses, in their stories, and in the thousands of photos and x-rays that prove what’s actually happening.

And it’s not rotation caused by “laminitis” as they’ve defined it. It’s damage from chronic, misguided hoof care. Plain and simple.

But imagine being the hoof care professional with a hundred “laminitic” cases on your books over the years - only to realise they were caused by your trimming.

Imagine being the vet who’s euthanised hundreds of horses for rotation, only to learn that their hooves could’ve been rehabbed, and those horses saved.

That kind of truth threatens careers, egos, reputations.

We won’t get peer-reviewed- we’ll get shut down - the system is already trying to cancel us.

So no, don’t expect change from the top. Don’t expect vets, farriers, or academics to lead the revolution. They have too much to lose.

Anyone can go online right now and read the current peer-reviewed research on “laminitis.” The SADP theory is still being pushed.

But it doesn’t take much to see it was built on massive assumptions, blinkered observations, and scientific negligence.

They looked in the wrong direction from day one - chasing blood flow, toxins, systemic responses, MMP enzymes - while ignoring the obvious: the hoof capsule, the person trimming it, and the distortion patterns caused by imbalanced hoof care.

They used lab animals - horses with completely different hoof shapes, trimmed to no consistent natural standard, and nothing even close to Mother Nature’s constants.

They left out the single biggest variable - the hoof care itself.

Go look, it’s glaring by its omission.

Any first-year science student is taught the basics: observe everything, minimize variables, and don’t let bias skew your data.

But the laminitis researchers threw that rulebook out. Their studies were never about the whole horse.

Never about the hoof capsule. Never about real life.

And certainly never about the hoof care professional.

Their hands were the biggest variable of all - and they weren’t peer-reviewed.

And now? Millions of horses are dead. Many more still suffering. Owners devastated. All based on flawed, incomplete science.

And who exactly is going to peer-review our research that damns the entire equine hoof care industry? That calls out decades of professional failure? No one.

That’s why the real revolution isn’t going to be peer-reviewed. It’s going to be people-powered.

From the bottom up. And it’s coming already.

We’ve been led by “experts” who never tracked outcomes, never took before-and-after photos, never followed cases over time. Just theories, assumptions, and guesswork dressed up as science.

And still, they double down - same story, different paper.

Meanwhile, horses are still dying. Still suffering.

Change won’t come from journals. It’ll come when owners stop handing over their horses’ hooves to people who don’t understand them.

When owners start asking the right questions. When they say no more.

Not one more trim that causes rotation.

Not one more pe*******on euthanasia that could’ve been prevented.

Not one more lie about “laminitis”.

This isn’t us copping-out from doing peer-reviewed research. It’s a rejection of bad science - science that ignored critical variables, buried outcomes, and never asked the right questions.

We’re not anti-science. We’re pro better science. The kind that respects real horses, real data, and real recovery.

The world won’t change because of another peer-reviewed paper - especially not one that gets quietly shelved by the very system it threatens.

This revolution isn’t going to be published.

It’s going to be lived, seen, and led by those who’ve had enough.

And it starts at the hoof. With the educated owner looking on, protecting it.

Not reading a peer-reviewed paper.

HM.

11/04/2025

Accountability ≠ Bullying

A Statement from The Phoenix Way & Hoofing Marvellous

Over the last 18 months, our team has been the target of a sustained and malicious campaign - mockery, slander, and coordinated harassment across Facebook, in the public eye and behind the scenes on private messages and beyond.

We’ve been called liars, laymen, “c*nts,” idiots, dangerous, nasty, spewing misinformation - and worse.

Our work has been ridiculed, misrepresented, and farmed for entertainment.

Our founder - along with her family - has endured relentless personal abuse.

This isn’t a misunderstanding.
This is a strategy.

It’s classic DARVO in its purest form:
Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim and Offender.

The same person who incited a great deal of this hate:

• Endorsed merchandise calling our founder the c-word - maliciously printed on hoodies, T-shirts, and keyrings

• Shared and celebrated burning chicken images to mock our work

• Used phoenixes doused with water to symbolically “extinguish” us

• Mocked us on public well known forums, misrepresented our cases, and routinely encouraged her followers to pile on…

Now claims she’s the one being bullied.

And here’s what’s hardest to comprehend:

She seems to genuinely believe it. And so do her followers.

But make no mistake - she hasn’t forgotten what she’s done.

She’s just rewriting the past to suit her current narrative.

Because owning it would require facing her cruelty, her hypocrisy, and the impact of what she helped create.

She’s emotionally invested in being the misunderstood hero - and the moment you stop allowing that fantasy, you become the villain in her story.

We see the pattern. And we’re not playing that game anymore.

We’ve spent over 20 years in this field, rehabbing complex cases, supporting owners through real-world transformation, and documenting every stage of the journey.

She has never done a single full rehab.
She is not qualified to teach hoof care.
And she consistently fails to recognise the damage in front of her - even on her own horse.

Yet every week, without fail, she posts something to detract from our work. She devotes hours to misrepresenting methods she doesn’t understand, mocking outcomes she’s never achieved, and encouraging others to do the same.

And now, because we’ve finally drawn a boundary - because we’ve said this isn’t okay - she clutches at victimhood.

She talks about her family. Her son. Her mental health.

Where was that compassion when we were being called names across her page?

When her followers bought T-shirts out of hate?

When she stood by while others publicly degraded our work?

⸻

Let’s be clear:

We do not call people names.
We do not make jokes about violence or set fire to someone’s reputation for sport.

We speak from evidence, not ego.

We back every claim with real-world data, documented rehab, and the lived success of horses who would otherwise have been euthanised.

This is not bullying.
This is clarity.
This is protection - for horses, for truth, and for the owners who deserve better.

So if someone feels distressed now, it’s not because we’ve said something cruel.

It’s because for the first time, we’ve said:

No more.

HM.

10/04/2025

So why a track system? Why not just turn out onto grass?

It may shock you to hear this because it goes against everything you may have been taught about horses growing up. If you ask a child what a horse eats, they’ll say ‘grass’. While this is somewhat true, more often than not, today’s grass is not actually suitable for horses.

If we go back to what the wild horse is designed to eat, you will find that this typically consisted of medium – long, stalky, brown, hay-like grass. The lush, thick, green grass in the UK, and in many other countries with similar climates, is just too high in sugar and starch for horses. This is largely due to farmers sowing rye and clover on the majority of pasture for their livestock, which has now overtaken many of our native grass species. Farmers promote these high sugar and starch content grasslands to help grow their cattle for beef and yield better milk in dairy cows, but as we don’t want to eat or milk our horses, this just leads to a number of health problems.

“My horse is obese, my horse is spooky, my horse is naughty, my horse is footsore and can’t cope without shoes, my horse has laminitis etc ” more often than not, all of these things stem from one thing…the grass.

Pair that with unsuitable management such as stables, limited movement and social isolation, it’s no wonder we have horses with so many health and behavioural problems!

That being said, some horses can tolerate grass, and the majority of horses can tolerate a short amount of time on correctly managed meadow grasses; a track system also enables you to do just this. By keeping your horses on a track, this allows the centre of your track system to remain as undamaged and healthy grassland.

Turning out into a paddock as opposed to a track system also drastically reduces the amount of movement for the horse. According to Dr Nicola Pursey horses kept in traditional livery yards have been shown to walk only 1.1 km/day (Hampson B.A et al 2010), compared to feral horses who have been shown to walk 8.1–28.3 km/day (Hampson B.A et al 2010). Novel grazing systems, such as a track-based system, have been shown to significantly increase the distance horses walk during the day (Hampson B.A et al 2013), resulting in improvements in body condition and overall health (Gordon, M.E. et al 2009).

By creating a track, placing water at one end and hay spread out around the rest of it, the horse has to travel to desired resources, resulting in increased movement.

In summary, I believe that the key to happy and healthy horses is simply ensuring they have the basic three ‘F’s, as devised by Equine Behaviourist Lauren Fraser MSc, CHBC - Clinical Animal Behaviourist:
The Three F’s

Freedom (Free choice): Both physically and mentally. The freedom to have movement and to make their own decisions eg go in the shelter or stay outside, sleep, eat or play etc and not be micromanaged.

Forage: Access to constant supply of species appropriate and safe forage (low sugar/starch hays).

Friends: As a highly social animal that needs companionship from other horses and is designed to live in a herd.

I believe that the easiest way to safely meet these three F’s, in a domesticated environment for all types of horses, is to set-up a Track System!

‘A [track system] will encourage movement even on small acreages. It allows horses to live more closely to the manner nature intended, moving freely 24/7 and eating in a more natural way by having constant access to the right kinds of food placed strategically throughout their track.’ (Willis, n.d)

📖Extract from my book 'Horse Track Systems: A Guide to a Healthier Horse in Body and Mind' by Amy Dell. Chapter 1, page 4.
Buy to continue reading:
🌍Worldwide orders: https://amzn.to/3Xs8qkE
🇬🇧UK orders (signed copy): https://bit.ly/3Q7pjQ1

Picture of Pepper the ex race horse having some grazing time on our carefully managed track middles.

10/04/2025

10/04/2025

09/04/2025

09/04/2025

09/04/2025

The Real Cause of P3 Rotation?

It’s not grass.
It’s not sugar.
It’s not inflammation.

It’s hoof capsule manipulation — the routine, repeated reshaping of the hoof by human hands.

To the esteemed scientists in the white coats, working in labs:

Instead of forcing tubes up horse’s noses , overdosing them on sugar to artificially induce laminitis, subjecting them to invasive, distressing experiments — only to euthanize them in the name of data — we have a simple request.

Show us sequential X-rays, taken over several days, of P3 shifting independently of the hoof capsule without any hoof capsule manipulation.

No pain.
No cruelty.
No invasive procedures.
Just evidence — the kind that genuinely supports your theory.

Sincerely,
The laypeople
(The ones still watching, still questioning, and still waiting for the proof.)

14/11/2024

There you go folks, straight from the ‘horse’s mouth’… the mouths of vets and scientists who have been researching laminitis for decades - yep that’s the advice.

Go google it… it’s right there in black and white.

What it should say is “Horses that have suffered a bout of acute laminitis need to have better hoof care, diet and management. P3 does not move, and stalling horses for weeks and months on end is a welfare issue.”

Shame the research hasn’t got the traditional world any further forward even after millions of dollars have already been spent.

Why? Because they haven’t worked out that the biggest cause of torn and inflamed laminae is terrible, crippling, INCORRECT HOOF CARE… PPT - personal preference trimming.

- toes continually chopped
- heels left to rise
- disrupted hoof growth rates
- manually rotated P3s

What a mountain we have to climb still.

🙄🤦‍♀️



HM.

P.s. learn more about laminitis and how to stop it by joining our free rehab group - The Phoenix Way: Path 2 Hoof Health.