About Karen Bilham
EMMETT Technique Practitioner at Reset Muscle Maintenance
“Hello, is that the horse chiropractor?”
Is what I usually hear on the other end of the phone.
You may want a horse physio, equine chiropractor, horse bodyworker or any other similar term I often hear.
But what’s important are the results I get. The horses I help. The performances I improve.
The EMMETT Practitioner
The one who will treat your horse and instantly make him feel great, move better, and be able to perform at his best.
Or, who will treat you, his rider, and improve your own balance and suppleness so the two of you can strengthen an already wonderful partnership.
Imagine if you could improve your horse’s performance and happiness with one gentle touch?
Or if you could get relief for your aching shoulder and stiff hip in one gentle, non-invasive treatment?
Not just a massage
I provide something much more, something that can’t be put into words, only felt.
I have been fully immersed in the horse world from a young age, and before training to become an EMMETT practitioner, I’ve had over 40 years experience with horses.
From riding racehorses to preparing yearlings, I’ve been involved in all aspects of the racing world. From working for Melbourne Cup-winning trainers to preparing yearlings to head up the major sales, I’ve done it all.
I am also a firm believer in ‘no foot, no horse’ and worked for a while as a hoof trimmer, a rewarding but demanding career. The aches and pains I suffered from working with horses were my catalyst to finding an effective treatment to provide me with relief without being painful or manipulative, which I can’t tolerate.
I’m like the horse in that respect. They don’t want to endure painful prodding or poking either, and the EMMETT technique respects this. It gets under the horse’s ‘fight or flight’ response, and instead allows the horse’s neuromuscular pathways (or body and brain connection to you and me) to do the work, while he stays happily relaxed. A game-changer!
Horses First
My career path working with horses started at about the age of 12 when I used to ride beach work for a local trainer. I started working properly in the industry at age 16, working for trainer Gary Lee based at Mornington racecourse, and that was the start of many happy years of racehorse and yearling work. I studied Horse Management at Melbourne University and worked for top trainers and studs in Victoria and in the New South Wales Hunter Valley region. These wonderful experiences have stayed with me forever and I knew I had found my passion.
It was when I was 24 and working at a stud with yearlings that I got injured, leading one up from the paddock. It was so bad the doctor told me it was time to get an office job, as my leg wouldn’t cope with a physical job in the foreseeable future.
Cue a 20-year period in my life where horses weren’t part of my day job. I changed tack completely, working most of that period for a local Law firm. But I never gave up my dream of working with horses, and finally left the Law firm to work with horses again.
The tough nature of the work both in the field and the office led me to look for treatment for the chronic pain I was waking up with every morning, and traditional therapies were just not working for me.
That was when, whilst teaching equestrian vaulting, a friend told me about a technique she had seen used on the para-riders at the World Equestrian Games. A gentle, non-invasive bodywork treatment which could be carried out with the rider sitting down or on the horse and provided an instant improvement in increasing the rider’s range of motion and reducing their pain.
Humans Too
Interest piqued, I found there was an EMMETT 4 Horses Course about to start locally, and as it mentioned it taught human moves as part of the course, I was sold. I started the course and was instantly hooked! I couldn’t believe such a light, simple touch on various points of the body could bring about such change in mood or movement, such relief from pain or discomfort, and all without necessitating long periods of rest or recovery.
The more I discovered, the more I wanted to learn it all, and started the Human course the following year. I trained to EMMETT Professional Level 1 for people and horses which enables me to not only treat clients but to also teach others the EMMETT technique. I am an appointed tutor of EMM-Tech; a one-day course for people, and EMMETT 4 Horses short course; a one-day course for horse owners to learn to maintain their own horses.
Sedate, not irritate!
The treatment is so gentle and non-invasive, that all horses accept it and most love it. It works in a clever way; when an EMMETT point is activated, it sends messages to the horse’s brain telling the muscles to relax and return to normal, just like hitting the reset button! Horses generally switch off and relax completely, instead of getting grumpy and restless, being prodded and poked. As would we all!
I’d love to help your horse, and indeed you, to feel the amazing benefits of this treatment, and I offer services and packages for horses, their riders, racehorses, and yearlings.
I am confident you will love the amazing benefits and feeling that a treatment using the EMMETT Technique will bring, and I KNOW your horse will.
