Best of Intentions

After having a couple good rides last Thursday and Friday just asking McKenna to go forward and relax I gave the mare the weekend off.  My mom was flying in and we were having a girls weekend in the city.  Our equine massage therapist was going to be out Sunday so I had scheduled a massage for McKenna. I got a message Sunday night that the mare was a wild child and when I got to the barn Monday McKenna was covered in dried sweat.  She was also extremely back sore; so bad I could barley brush her.

Enjoy these cute pic from the Oregon Zoo as I have no new pony pics

Our massage therapist has been having massage classes for the past 4-5 months at our barn and I've been learning how to do my own massage.  The past few classes have turned more towards Mediterranean Horsemanship which I'm not sure I completely understand or want to learn.  Basically as I see it, it's another form of natural horsemanship that focuses on free movement, in hand work, and connecting with the horse. A lot of it is very much opposite of what I've been taught. I see how a lot of it could be helpful, but again, I'm not super convinced and it's very hard for me to wrap my head around it. But to each their own.

Here kitty kitty

In the past, when we've worked on our horses in the massage class (it's all ground work and learning the different massage techniques) I've been the only one working with McKenna.  Our MT feels (and I agree) that because she's a young, hot, OTTB mare she's a little too advanced for the others in the class.  I was under the assumption that by scheduling McKenna for a massage this weekend that our MT would be working on her alone, that she wouldn't be used in the class unless the MT was demonstrating something.  My mistake.  Apparently McKenna was used for some "communication with wands" with one of the other students.

In the email the MT sent me today, she said the McKenna and the other student S ended up having some great moments and that she was really proud of them.  She said they worked for an hour and a half, and that when McKenna was done, she was DONE. There was one brief line about how in the massage part of it that the mare's hips felt better, but her back and barrel weren't "she she would have wanted them".  Yeah, no shit.  If I can't even brush my horse's back, there's a problem. 

We might have also gone to the Garth Brooks concert.  Trying really hard to take this motto to heart

I haven't replied to the MT yet, because I don't know if I can without losing it.  I'm pissed that my horse was used in training without me there and without my permission and that it caused her to be even more sore than she was before. I'm also not happy that I paid for a professional massage when in fact I got a "training session" by someone I don't know super well and a horse with a super sore back. I would have been ok if the MT had demonstrated with her, but having someone I don't know, and have never seen work a horse, practice on her is not ok.  I'll take the blame by not explicitly stating that to the MT, but I would have thought she knew that.  There's very few people I trust to work with McKenna and that list jut got shorter.  If it had been Phoenix or Buddy?  Not a problem; they're both super well trained and can't really be screwed up too much.  But not with my green bean of a mare.