F E AT U R E
the ex-racehorse was suffering from
Healing comes naturally
chronically infected wounds on three legs and had been on antibiotics and bute since April. Of greatest concern was the wound on his near hind leg. The infection had travelled up his leg and blown out above the hock leaving bone and ligament exposed. “To my mind this was clearly a resistant
A practising equine herbalist for 25 years, VICTORIA FERGUSON has been instrumental in the healing of many injured and sick horses – but few needed her help quite as badly as Aussie Bob.
staph infection and I decided to treat it as such,” says Victoria, “so I recommended herbs which have been proven to defeat infections caused by the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus in humans. I’ve used these herbs successfully in horses previously, as well as raw honey, which is also very
V
useful for this type of infection.”
ictoria Ferguson nearly didn’t
During their conversation, Victoria gave
answer her phone when it
Bryan detailed instructions for the herbal
rang one afternoon in June.
protocol she believed Bob needed
It was, after all, a Sunday, and the call was from an unknown number.
so urgently. “This involved cleansing
Fortunately however, she did pick up.
Calendula flowers before packing them
the wounds with a wash made from
The call was from South Australian
with raw honey. The flowers could be
Bryan Littlely of the Rise Relief Centre
fresh or dried. Bryan enthusiastically
near Victor Harbor, where off-the-track
embraced the routine and spent a lot
racehorses are rehabilitated before
of time raiding gardens in the area to
being rehomed. Given the urgency
gather the flowers!” laughs Victoria.
of the situation, one of Victoria’s
Fortunately, Bryan found his first batch
clients, who also happened to be
of Calendula flowers at a florists, which,
a friend of Bryan’s, suggested that
says Victoria, really blew her away.
he should get in touch with her.
“I’ve never seen fresh Calendula in
Victoria, who holds a Diploma in Herbal
a flower shop. We agreed this was
Medicine, has been an advocate and
serendipitous, a very encouraging sign!”
practitioner of herbal medicine for horses for over 20 years. Based in Tenterfield NSW, she studied with the renowned Australian herbalist Dorothy Hall during the late 1990s, and is the author of two bestselling books - The Practical Horse Herbal and The Complete Horse Herbal. But back to Bryan, who was in a terrible predicament with his Thoroughbred horse Aussie Bob. “Bryan had been advised by his vet to put Aussie Bob down the next day, but Bryan didn’t want to do that. The horse was a tough battler and he hadn’t given up. He was 68 | H O R S E V I B E S N O V / D E C 2 0 2 0
I’ve never seen fresh Calendula in a flower shop. We agreed this was serendipitous, a very encouraging sign!
But Aussie Bob also desperately needed a herbal mixture specially formulated for him by Victoria. Luckily, one of Victoria’s Adelaide-based colleagues kindly agreed to dispense the prescription. There was no time to waste and Bryan happily made the long drive to Adelaide and back to pick up the remedy. And that’s when the magic began. Within a few days, Bryan called Victoria
also the Rise Relief Centre’s founding horse and had a special place in the Littlely family’s hearts,” Victoria explains. After sustaining multiple leg injuries,
to let her know that the wound on Aussie Bob’s near hind leg, the one that was the cause for most concern, was looking cleaner and had begun to improve - and that very gradually,
