Beautiful Violet Works on the Flat!
I'm writing this entry on Sunday, August 12th, on the last day that my herd and I got to ride with Kelsey before she left for Law School. We had such a good summer. One of the smartest things I did this summer was put both Renny and Violet into training. Violet just excelled from the very first lesson. I told Kelsey that I wished she would help her with softness and maybe working toward lead changes and she jumped on and got lead changes the very first 15 minutes. It was amazing! So, I got over-confident and thought maybe I could jump the box, since both Renny and Violet jumped the box with Kelsey with no problems. And so on a beautiful Friday morning, we tried. But it didn't work. I tried like 4-5 times and Violet would give a powerful but careful refusal, rolling to a halt with her head held high or carefully moving around the jump. She was clearly trying to refuse without unseating me. She was being so good in her badness.
And that's when I learned how much Violet takes care of me. She literally knew I wasn't ready and so was refusing to take care of me, and managed to refuse without hurting me. I don't have that many arrows in my arsenal, so couldn't figure out how to make her jump that box. Kelsey got on and made her do it. And so, she's been jumping true and straight and well to everything I've put her toward so far, just because of her good and honest heart and not so much because of any particular skill or talent on my part.
And so I learned yet again just how wonderful and kind and sensible and honest and decent my hunter mare is. She's a treasure! I learned a good and wonderful lesson from my failure!