I spoke with the vet. I'm going to have to take Caprichosa to Albuquerque for a lameness evaluation. She's not doing well.

I got her from some rather rough circumstances years ago, so this andalusian mare spent the first four years of her life in a filthy 10 x 12 pen and her hooves were pie plates when I got her and had rarely been attended to. About five years ago, she suffered a cracked coronary band. It took us a year and a lot of veterinary work to get her through that. She got hurt really badly a year ago on the same leg, got caught in the fence. This was taken about six weeks after the injury, as she was on the mend.

It's been touch and go on that left hind leg and I think the injury is up in her hip. We had some improvement with what I though was arthritis (the vet's been out several times to see her). She'd loosen up once she got warmed up, and it was seeming like we could work her through the stiffness, although I'd resigned myself to the idea that she wasn't going to be the same. But now we're going backwards. She's been off and kind of depressed. I'm concerned we're not going to make it through the winter with her. She's almost 16.

You tell yourself it's going to be what it's going to be. But sometimes that's not much of a consolation.