Stella Zhang - Chartered Physiotherapist

25/12/2025

Wishing all my clients and followers a happy Christmas 🎄🎅

23/12/2025

❄️ What do you in winter to support your horse’s body?

We’re at that time of year where fields are waterlogged and horses are spending more time in their stable than out in the field.

Whilst daily turnout is gold standard, not every yard is able to accommodate this so it’s important to understand that more time in the stable means less natural movement and therefore stiffer joints, loss of muscle mass and general deconditioning.

So here are some tips to look after your horse’s body this winter:

🚶‍♂️ Take the pressure off riding and focus on 10-15 mins of daily in-hand walking or groundwork to maintain muscle mass and joint range of motion
🏃‍♀️‍➡️ Longer warm ups before ridden work to mobilize the joints and increase circulation to working muscles
🍀 Vary where you put your hay and water in the stable to encourage your horse to move in all directions
🌾 Allow your horse to eat hay from the ground to mimic grazing postures and lengthen the spine
💆‍♀️ Take your time grooming to increase local soft tissue circulation and identify any areas of tension or pain
🧘‍♀️ Daily physiotherapy exercises (provided your horse is warm!)
👩‍⚕️ Keep on top of your physiotherapy treatments!

Photo of Babe enjoying her snow day 🥶

10/12/2025

Small moments like these make me love my job 🥹🌈

08/12/2025

Always remember to treat the horse, and not the scan!

*** Why we must stop looking for the perfect horse ***

From an orthopaedic point of view, no horse is perfect. We must stop thinking that if we look hard enough, we’ll find the perfect horse. He/she doesn’t exist. All that happens is that we miss out on the “not so perfect” horse that actually would have been the perfect horse.

If we look hard enough, especially with our X-ray machines, we can find something wrong with every single horse. We will find some kind of change in a joint of most horses over the age of six or seven. Before anyone starts, that’s not because they have been started too young. I spend some of my spare time looking at the radiographs provided publicly for auctions, and I can always find something wrong. These are often unbacked 3 year olds.

I have posted before that X-ray changes often don’t correlate with pain, or even future pain/lameness.

In my opinion, X-rays should be used to plan what help the horse *may* require in the future, and not to write a perfectly sound horse off. And for the record, I’d never medicate the joint of a sound horse, based on radiographic changes alone.

I often hear people say that they’ve had 5 horses fail a vetting, and that the “perfect” horse must be out there. Actually, you’ve probably just missed that perfect horse. Obviously a horse that is lame at PPE (the vetting) is an absolute no. But a horse with some hock arthritis, or some close DSPs (“kissing spines”) that is currently out competing and has an uninterrupted competition record, may well have been your perfect horse.

I bought Johnnie as a 9 year old with significant hock arthritis. I took a chance, as his X-rays were very bad. He went on to be the most exceptional Event horse I have ever sat on, going from Novice to Advanced in two seasons, and then subsequently popping around 4*s like they were 90cm. His back X-rays were just as bad. He was the perfect horse.

X-rays are useful, but we must be incredibly careful with their interpretation. We must also be incredibly cautious when deciding if a horse’s behaviour is due to that pathology found on the X-ray, or whether it is just a sharp, fit horse. I am a vet, so will always question if a certain behaviour is due to pain, but I am also a horsewoman, so I don’t agree that every buck, rear, spook and nap is due to pain.

Photo of the not-so-perfect, yet absolutely perfect, Johnnie.

02/12/2025

Food for thought. Too often I see horses on “regular joint maintenance injections” without owners being fully aware of the consequences. If your horse is needing regular injections to function, are we really doing the right thing by them?

Two recent papers in the EVE Journal were punlished on the effects of corticosteroid injection sin joints. They were meta-analysis, meaning they took information from over 600 papers about this topic into account. This means the outcome of a meta-analysis is more reliable as an "overall opinion of scientists" than a single paper. Both papers show clearly that 1 injection in a joint (when needed, because acute joint inflammation is present) might be beneficial, but that more than 1 injection in the same joint will cause cartilage damage and degeneration of the joint. Think about that when you do "regular joint maintainance" or inject multiple joints without a clear indication.

Your vet should know this information!

21/11/2025

The best end to the season 💫

Super excited to be in Vegas for the final F1 Academy race 🏁

I will be on leave for the rest of the month and back to work from the start of December

If you would like a December or January appointment please leave me a message and I will get back to you 🌟

19/11/2025

As Natalie says empty stomachs = problems!! Not just ulcers and colic but the stress of this can lead to a myriad of musculoskeletal issues that can affect ridden performance.

With every horse I see I ask what their daily routine including diet is as this can be a key contributing factor to their pain.

30/10/2025

A lovely summary on the connection between lower leg muscle function and rider performance during leg aids

28/10/2025

Swapping out UK weather for 30 degrees 😎

I will be out of office for the rest of the week 🏎️

I have very limited appointments for the rest of the year so if you would like to book an appointment for you or your horse please get in touch!

15/10/2025

I have such a soft spot for OTTBs 🥹

Sid and Orla are loving their post-racing careers and having some maintenance treatment 🏇

11/10/2025

Truth 🙌

30/09/2025

NO HOOF, NO HORSE 👠

One thing I will always assess in my clients is their feet. Biomechanically, if the feet are not balanced then there will be secondary consequences higher up the chain with muscular imbalance, asymmetrical joint loading and pain.

The simple way I do this is to measure the hoof-pastern axis (HPA) with my trusty iPhone. I look for an axis that falls within a normal range, as well as symmetry between right and left limbs.

When I first met Arthur I noticed that he was unable to stand square, and had an left hind pelvic asymmetry. This was ultimately caused by an asymmetrical HPA where the left hind was broken back significantly and causing him to overload his right hindlimb. Imagine wearing a stiletto on one of your feet for the day and tell me how uncomfortable and unbalanced you would feel!!

By working with his farriers we have been able to balance his feet and as a result ensure there is equal hindlimb loading - just look at the difference in muscle development in the second photo 💪

For more information about how we can help you and your horse please get in touch!