May As Well Have a Spa Day

I’m not sure about the rest of the country, but it has been hot and HUMID in Kentucky lately. May has been putting in requests for a relocate to the North Pole to work for Santa, but since that just isn’t a reality, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and treat May to a massage and MagnaWave session.

One of the women that boards at my barn is a license masseuse and magnawave technician. It’s been in the back of my mind to sign May up, but I honestly just didn’t feel like shelling out the cash. There really isn’t anything major about May’s way of going that was concerning to me. She didn’t show any signs of back pain or really any pain. Our biggest issue is, and has always been, her shoulders wanting to exit stage right.

Since our tech is a fellow boarder, she is pretty familiar with May, but she still asked me if there are any issues we have. (see above) She explained that she feels like she can get the best read on a horse’s body with her hands with her massage background, but she thinks the combination of magnawave and massage helps create longer lasting results. Sure, sounds great.

How did May feel about it? There was a lot of droopy lip, and by the time she got to the back end with the massage, May was so loose through her body that she just let the massage wave through her body from tail to nose. I was actually surprised at her patience with it. Typically, May has a timer in her head. If you spend more than that amount of time messing with her, she starts to get fussy, especially with how bad the flies were yesterday afternoon.

During the MagnaWave session, though, she just leaned into the massage, let her eyelids float closed, and enjoyed a zen-like pony state.

As for the feedback, overall, I think the tech was pretty impressed. She had some tightness the left side of her neck and her right hip, but none of it was painful enough that working through the stiffness caused any discomfort for May. And the magnawave didn’t show any major reactions either. Again, the left side of her next showed the largest reaction, but it was still pretty minor from what I have seen before. I guess I need to be more diligent about the carrot stretches for that side.

Overall, the jury is still out. I think May enjoyed it, and it was a nice treat for her. The biggest positive, to me, is getting another set of hands/eyes on how my horse’s body is feeling. It obviously doesn’t substitute our yearly wellness check, or any check if I start to feel her being less-than-willing in her work, but it does seems like a nice check in when nothing is obviously wrong. However, I won’t know if it had any positive impact on her way of going until I hop back on Tuesday.

So look for another post with my follow-up thoughts on Wednesday! If anyone in the area is looking to try it, I am happy to recommend the tech from my barn.