Its done now.
I had more contact with my instructor over the weekend, and she really felt it was a very bad prognosis, especially in terms of Murphy’s discomfort. The spavin in his hind legs had not yet fused, according to the vet it was at a rather painful stage of inflammation. That was why the inflammation in the front legs just kept worsening over the last 5-6 weeks, even with the rest from riding and just hand-walking that was done. He basically couldn’t relieve them enough with his hind legs being at that stage.
It was perhaps not impossible, looking at what I have been told and what I have read over this last week. But it wasn’t certain that it could work out either, and I guess one would want better odds to put a horse through that amount of discomfort and a lengthy rehabilitation process.
My main regret is that I couldn’t give him a few years in a quiet little stable, away from the riding school. He had probably been kept mostly outdoors before he came to Sweden from Ireland (and apparently he came here as a stallion too, at 5 or so) and at first he really disliked being indoors. He settled in with time, but he was always insecure about having lots of people around him when he was indoors. If you came in early in the day, though, as I did for private lessons, he was so much more relaxed and eager to socialize.
He’ll be sorely missed, not just by me. He wasn’t a favourite for a lot of people (which just made me identify more with him), but he was a very safe, solid and dependable horse for the less experienced riders and amazingly willing to work when he liked how you rode him.