  We describe a compact, robust and versatile system for studying magnetic
dynamics in a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate. Condensates of 87 Rb are
produced by all-optical evaporation in a 1560 nm optical dipole trap, using a
non-standard loading sequence that employs an auxiliary 1529 nm beam for
partial compensation of the strong differential light shift induced by the
dipole trap itself. We use near-resonance Faraday rotation probing to
non-destructively track the condensate magnetization, and demonstrate
few-Larmor-cycle tracking with no detectable degradation of the spin
polarization. In the ferromagnetic F = 1 ground state, we observe magnetic T1
and T2$^*$ coherence times limited only by the several-second residence time of
the atoms in the trap.
