This summer I hit a small bump in confidence about Renny. Seeing him becoming so fabulous and wonderful and agile and talented made me feel like I wasn't able to keep up with him or help him. But Kelsey and Stacey got me over that bump and I know that they, along with Janet and Jill, will help me to become a better rider for my better pony. He and I are having fun just working alone. We're practicing cantering figure 8s and making simple lead changes. And we're happy to pop over cross rails. I have a feeling that when the time is right, I will be able to do bigger things with my little guy.
As for Violet, she and I are happily bubbling along together becoming a better team. She likes her new dressage equipment and we are working hard with Janet. And our jumping is getting better now that I've moved my stirrups up a full hole. In my private lesson with Stacey this past week (I'm writing on Sunday, July 31st), she and I were very good at riding a bounce, a curve, and bending lens and even over an oxer. We jumped the oxer nice and big.
Then on Thursday, our favorite lesson of the week, Violet was a super star. She had to canter a diagonal to a cross rail then follow a half-circle through a bounce and over a cross-rail and turn it into a serpentine to catch an outside line turn into a cross rail again and take a bending line to a vertical and then take a bending line over a vertical to an over. And Violet did it big and bold and loose and forward while catching all of her leads. She was amazing. I just loved her to pieces.
And then today in a jumping lesson with Jill Jewett, Violet again was a hard-working thoroughbred girl over ground poles, cross rails, and a four cavaletti bounce. She was just making turns, being supple, going downward and upward with ease, changing direction, riding past gates closely. She brought her best hunter self to the task and we got praised for how far we had come. We are working on being a nice hunter team. And I have to say, Violet really takes pride in being a good hunter dressage horse. She really really wants to hold up her end of Team Tenderness. Actually, I can say that about both Renny and Violet. They both bring their best selves to their team work!