Sue Emery - Equine Sports Therapy Scotland

16/01/2025

Starting to get a few messages gently asking when I’ll be back working, so thought an update in order!

Very much enjoying getting to grips with motherhood and building strength and fitness back up again (regulars will remember the various issues I had to deal with)

On track to be back treating *regulars* from March, will be in touch mid to end February to get diary sorted.

I won’t have as much flexibility with appointments and there will be a slight price increase but hopefully it’ll work for everyone.

Please don’t hesitate to message with any questions meantime, always happy to advise where I can.

Sue x

17/12/2024

Highly recommend!

😁🐎📘 Physio Fun for the Healthy Happy Horse - the perfect book for your 'horsey' friends and family!

🌟 £10 plus postage.👌

🤩 Be inspired! More than 30 tips and exercises to help keep your horse or pony in tip top condition.

What's inside?
🐴 Horse management
🐴 Pole work
🐴 Schooling and ground work
🐴 Hacking hacks

✅ Easy to read
✅ Step by step illustrations (🖌 designed and illustrated by Amy-Dee Creative )
✅ Collated in a handy flip book to save you from scrolling through social media feeds for exercises!

👉 DM me via Facebook or Instagram to order yours.

15/10/2024

“The horse just has a little arthritis in his left hock, it doesn’t seem to bother him too much, he just gets a bit stiff!”

Horses are great compensators, and they will create alternative locomotive patterns to continue movement.

So, say this little bit of osteoarthritis causes a reduced range of motion of the tarsal (hock) joint. In an attempt to maintain stride length and hide this dysfunction to potential predators (because you never know when a lion could be waiting around the corner... or a flapping plastic bag!), the tarsal joint is rotated medially (inwards) during the swing phase of the stride. This results in asymmetrical & medial weight bearing through the digit. This places additional stress through medial hamstring muscles, resulting in muscle tension and trigger points. And this is all something that is potentially going on in the affected hindlimb.

A hip hike/drop can occur at corresponding phases of the stride, placing the sacroiliac joint under stress, resulting in paraspinal and asymmetrical gluteal tone/pain.

Decreased impulsion from the left hindlimb leads to increased weight bearing through the right forelimb diagonal. This can create tension and hypertrophy to the right pectoral muscles and related fascial planes.

The spiral of compensation could continue on further, affecting cervical muscles that become hypertonic as a result of weight shifting, digit shape and size, TMJ pain, head tiling, hyoid dysfunction, asymmetric tail holding...

Often it can be the case where I see a horse that is a chronic stage of compensation and it can be difficult to find the true cause especially when the horse may appear just overall “stiff”.

I liken the rehabilitation of chronic cases to peeling the layers off an onion; one layer at a time and piece by piece to unravel and rewind the compensation spiral. It is important to identify and manage the root cause, rather than just accepting it🐴

14/10/2024

A difficult but important topic.

2 friends made this decision for their horses last month and as hard as it was for them, it was just so kind and brave. I wish more people saw it this way ❤️

Euthanasia of Older Horses

Now that the summer is well and truly come to close, now might be the time to consider your golden oldies, and their needs over the winter months.

Older horses will struggle more with the cold, and lack of goodness in the grass, and as a result, will struggle to thrive in the winter months.

Euthanasia is a very emotive subject, and making the decision to end your horse’s life is a very personal one. We always help our clients to make the decision at the right time for the individual circumstances. It is a privilege to work with our owners to make the process as smooth as possible.

Remember, a week too early, is always better than an hour too late.

☎️ 01738259427
📧 [email protected]

30/09/2024

For those that use hot water bottles to relax tight muscles…. This could be a game changer!

👀 Spotted in Dunelm

If you know you know!

24/09/2024

Great service to have in Moray

18/09/2024

These workshops are well worth doing!

Courses run for farriers and owners by Sarah Logie FWCF

17/08/2024

Lovely to treat one of my own today! Lucky boy is just preparing to move from the best loan home to one equally as great ❤️

Nothing better than a well mannered, versatile Highland Pony 💙

06/08/2024

Good luck to young people across Scotland receiving their exam results today!

The DYW campaign aims to show that every career path is different and unique.

I hope you receive what you wanted but whatever the result, today does not define your future, and results are not necessarily the key to unlocking future success.

02/08/2024

📆 Upcoming availability:

📍 Tues 13 Aug (1 space)
📍 Fri 16 Aug and surrounding areas
📍 Mon 20 Aug
📍 Tues 27 Aug (2 spaces)

As always, if you don’t see dates on here that work for you, message and I’ll see what I can do.

Animal Health Professions Register - AHPR registered.

🐴 Equine Sports Massage, Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation
🐶 Canine Sports Massage

25/07/2024

🗓️ A few spaces left next week:

📍Tuesday 30 July
📍Wednesday 31 July

💬 Message to book.

Animal Health Professions Register - AHPR registered Equine Physiotherapist and Sports Massage Therapist

🐾 Canine massage available also.

24/07/2024

My feed is full of people defending this woman this morning. The most common line being ‘if this was a horse welfare concern then why wait 4 years to report’ and the biggest concern being Charlotte having to withdraw from the Olympics.

Humans have no place treating horses like this. That’s all I have to say.

13/07/2024

SOMETIMES.... IGNORE THE NAME!! 🧐

Sometimes an unlikely product name might be just what your horse could benefit from. For example:

✅ Spillers Gro N Win: a stud balancer that is also excellent for muscle-wasted horses during rehab after injury/illness due to its high good quality protein content and elevated vitamins and minerals. Also useful to balance long-soaked hay where protein requirements are elevated e.g. PPID, and for horses with myopathies who need elevated good quality protein

✅ Bailey's Ease & Excel, Saracen's ReLeve and Dodson & Horrell ERS Cubes are all feeds for working horses needing a low starch diet for tying up/gastric ulcers, but all are relatively low starch medium energy compounds that are ideal for weight gain in any horse in light work. Their low starch content make them especially useful for fizzy, reactive horses.

✅ Dengie Alfa-A Oil: not just for working horses! Feed 1-2kg overnight (dampened) with the normal haynet to 'upgrade' nutritionally-poor forage

It's what's in the bag that your horse's body responds to, not what's on the bag

What examples do you have of feeds you've used with success, which are not an obvious choice?

🐴🍏🧐🤔

12/07/2024

Sound advice.

I too did this religiously as a pony-clubber, but times have definitely moved on!

Yesterday I posted about how pulling legs forward when girthed can, on some horses, cause excess skin to be pulled through and cause rubs at the girth area.
And I happened to attend a fitting where this very thing had happened, so I made a little video for y’all. Scroll down the page to see them, if you missed it. Cos it’s pretty cool, even if I say so myself.

Which brings us to:
𝙎𝙃𝙊𝙐𝙇𝘿 𝙒𝙀 𝘽𝙀 𝙋𝙐𝙇𝙇𝙄𝙉𝙂/𝙎𝙏𝙍𝙀𝙏𝘾𝙃𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙁𝙊𝙍𝙀𝙇𝙄𝙈𝘽𝙎 𝘼𝙁𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝙂𝙄𝙍𝙏𝙃𝙄𝙉𝙂?

I know that I was always taught to do this at Pony Club, but… I was a little twerp then and also thought I was the height of sophistication with a RED Cottage Craft girth… and let’s face it, we have come a LONG way since then. Thankfully. *cringes at the memories*

There are lots of reasons that we don't need to stretch out their front legs anymore. Here are a few...

1. We now know that cold muscles shouldn't be 'passively' stretched. They are much more likely to sustain injury if stretched when cold.

“𝘊𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘸 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘣𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘪𝘯𝘫𝘶𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘮. 𝘕𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘤𝘩 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘴.”
(𝙂𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙃𝙞𝙜𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙨, 𝙃𝙤𝙧𝙨𝙚𝙨 𝙄𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙚 𝙊𝙪𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙂𝙤𝙙𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙃𝙤𝙧𝙨𝙚 𝘼𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙤𝙢𝙮).

2. Girths have come a realllly long way since I yearned for a red crunchy girth. They have a broader surface area, they’re better shaped… and they often have an element of stretch/elasticity to them. They don’t dig into the horse’s soft tissue so much… and many are designed anatomically.

3. It can pull excess skin (and in some cases enlarged veins in the region) through to get trapped between girth and elbow (see yesterday’s video). This can cause rubs, chafing or discomfort.

So…. What can you do instead?

1. Speak to your saddle fitter and ask if you are using the most perfect girth for your horse.

2. Don’t do your girth up super tight straight away, do it gradually. And walk them to the arena/mounting block with it a hole or two looser. This allows their forelimbs to move naturally.

3. Check regularly for rubs. Look at photos of you riding, where is your girth sitting? Is it giving your horse enough space at their elbow?

4. Make sure your girth is CLEAN and NOT CRACKED. Make sure the material is smooth and edge-free. Replace your girth as soon as it gets cracked or non-smooth edges.

5. Check your girth is the correct length. Short girths should be as long as possible without interfering with the saddle. If this means the buckles get in the way, try a different type of girth. Long girths should end up in hole three or four of your saddle when horse is worked in and girth is done up correctly.

6. Avoid girths that crumple up, girths should have substance to them. To hold their shape and distribute the pressure as evenly as possible.

7. Not so relevant to this topic but PLEASE people, please stop doing your girths up so darn tight! Do your girth as tight as you’d want someone to do your bra up… I’ll do another post about this.

STILL WANT TO PULL YOUR HORSE’S LEG FORWARD?
Fine, I’m not the boss of you. You do you.
But… think about WHY you want to do it…

Let’s not just do things because we ‘always have’… let’s do things that are best for our horse. We owe it to them to always be looking for different ways to make them happy.

Over and out. *kisses*

Quote above by Horses Inside Out - Gillian Higgins

09/07/2024

05/07/2024

Annual renewal complete ✅

I think it’s so important to be part of a register, showing commitment to continued professional development and professional standards.

More info about AHPR can be found here: https://www.ahpr.org.uk

30/06/2024

⭐️ Can’t recommend this product enough - so many success stories from clients using it ⭐️