Here's a photo from 3 years ago, January 2008, showing my beautiful girl in her brand new black and purple-lined fleece cooler. She likes that cooler -- makes her look beautiful and special. Anyway, I am writing this entry on January 11, 2011 and I have to just repeat how proud I was of her at the schooling show at St. George last October. She'd had a week off because I was in Florida with family. I arrived back on Saturday and the show was Sunday morning. I arrived early on Sunday to take her over the jumps and practice and the jumps were verticals with straw bales beneath them! We'd never jumped straw bales before. She was a little uncertain at first, but once we got over the first one, she never gave them another thought afterwards. We trotted and cantered our jumping courses (because I was super new to the cantering over fences) and we were quiet, relaxed, happy and smooth. And we won our flat classes in equitation and hunter-under-saddle! But the biggest kick for me, by far, was the fact that Violet knew what was going on. I could feel her mental wheels turning, as she sorted out why all the horses were out, all the people were in the stands. She knew that it was all about her and her beautifulness. And when she lined up to get her ribbons, she was happy to receive pats and kisses from Jennifer from the BGSU Equestrian Team. That first show was amazing, as was our first trail ride!