Thanks so much for the good wishes! Am keeping my fingers crossed for the poor Tig-Man; God knows what he’s done THIS time. I had him out in a pen yesterday, going over him inch-by-inch, and as I’m bending down looking at the NEW, good-sized splint on the same hind leg as his old hock fracture – which is NOT the leg I think he’s lame on – I about come up under his stomach with a “WHAT THE HECK IS THAT??” as I see all this NEW swelling in the other hind ankle (the leg my butt says he’s off on). SIGH.
I so swear that that has NOT been there until just now. He has been funny about my picking out that hoof and putting on his hind boot, but I just ignored it as a “baby thing.” The swelling is mainly on the back of his leg, running from about mid-cannon to his ankle, and he really doesn’t want me to touch it. He still isn’t horribly, obviously lame, but I know he is not traveling right.
Visions of a pulled suspensory (been there, done that as a weanling screwing around – but that was a front leg) or another fracture dance through my head. Anyway, we’ll know tomorrow.
Now, as for Sam…
He is this BIG, black (with just the tiniest of stars) tank. He’s probably about 16.2 and has the build of a … tank. He will never win a beauty contest (he has a rather prominent nosebone, alas) but he has just the biggest, kindest eye and seems so very sweet. He really wants a Mom … and as my very British mum-in-law said, hopefully he’s smart enough to know that his “butt has landed in the butter” on that score. 
We did our first El Ranchito ride yesterday. He was so very, very good … not even QHSM trimming her roses by the ring rail (envision huge shears lopping off overgrown bushes with the resulting detritus being flung every which way) and Grumpy Old Dad using a shovel to pound down the clipped-off branches into a trash can (at one point sending a trash can flying) caused him to do more than come to a slow, head-up halt to take it all in. Beezer was thinking to herself, this one may be a keeper. 
He is, however, a truck to ride. Which is fine, because weirdly enough, I LIKE those kind of horses; they’re probably the kind I ride best. (Conversely, Merry HATES that kind of horse … two more opposites than Sam and Ham cannot be found!) And what little he knows is the WRONG little … so we’re going back to the very basics, though he does, thankfully, know to move off your leg. In one session, though, I saw/felt improvement in his sitting and posting trot. But canter … well, let’s just say I felt a little like I was riding Bucephalus and for some reason the theme from “Ivanhoe” kept running through my head. I think we need to work on that. 
I see trees of green, red roses too. I watch 'em bloom for me and for you. And I think to myself … what a wonderful world. Yes, what a wonderful world." – Louie Armstrong.
Then he got in trouble for galloping off after an oxer. So next I had 4 or 5 lovely trips… “our peak”. Next I got pissy horse, who sucked back behind the bit on the long approach to the oxer. And finally, the, “I’m tired and bored, so I’ll just slop over the panel like a wet towel.” Ah, the joys of Hammie.
