In March of this year our 4-H club held a clinic all about horses. During that clinic we had an equine massage therapist come and share with everyone. During the visit he used our horse Addy as one of his demonstration horses. Addy seemed to like the massage and definitely reacted to it in a positive way. However since he was a demo the therapist only worked on one side.

About a month later the therapist was at a local feed store and I went and watched his demo there. During the 4-H horse clinic I was working and only got to watch part of his time. I really enjoyed getting to see his entire presentation. I talked with the therapist and knew I would have to have him out to do a whole massage on Addy.

Before the massage began the therapist did an initial exam. He touched, rubbed and palpated most of Addy’s body. I watched as his skin tensed up and he struck out and even tried to bite the gentleman. He was very sore and uncomfortable. I was just glad that soon he would be feeling better.

Here are a few pictures from his visit yesterday. (I appearently have not sufficiently learned to upload pictures. Hopefully there will be pictures sooner versus later. :-( )

When the therapist found sore spots Addy let him know. This is one area where he struck out and tried to stomp the gentleman.

But he also let him know when he found relief due to the massage.

Addy leaned into this “pressure point”

Given all the hours of pleasure that Addy has given me over the last 3 years and specifically over the last 7 months he deserves an hour and a half of massage. I would have both our horses massaged every month if I could.

This weekend we will go to a local 4-H show and hopefully all the girls from the 4-H club will have a great time and see their hard work pay off.