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excellent seat. Maybe she’ll share some of her secrets with you.”
    “Would you, Lisa?” Jasmine enthused. “That would be great! I could really use some help on that.”
    “I’d be happy to help you,” Lisa said, her confidencelifted by her friend’s praise. She smiled gratefully at Carole.
    Max was finishing up the assignments. “Okay, that should take care of it.”
    Carole looked around, confused. Max must have made some kind of mistake: She didn’t have a partner, but everyone else seemed to. Crestfallen, she realized she was the only rider left.
    Lisa must have seen the disappointment on her face. “Hey, Max, what about Carole? She didn’t get a partner.”
    “Don’t worry, Lisa, I have something special in mind for her.”
    That immediately got everyone’s attention. Especially Carole’s.
    He walked over and put a hand on Starlight’s neck, stroking the animal gently. The horse turned to snuffle him affectionately. “I want you all to think of the person you’re paired with as your Pony Partner. As our most experienced and accomplished rider, Carole is going to be
everyone’s
Pony Partner. That means as you work with your partners, the two of us will be available to help you with any problems or questions you may have.”
    Carole felt herself swell with pride. The fact that Max had such confidence in her skill and knowledge was a real pat on the back.
    “Let’s get to work,” he ordered.
    With that, the pairs all headed in different directions. Lisa gave Carole a grin and a big thumbs-up. Jasmine mimicked the gesture.
    Stevie rode up with Corey in tow. “Poor May,” she said, shaking her head sadly.
    Carole had been caught up in her thoughts and didn’t follow. “What’s wrong with May?”
    Stevie directed a mournful gaze toward the eight-year-old rider sitting on her shaggy yellow pony, Macaroni. “Notice who she got paired up with?”
    “Veronica,” Lisa said with sympathy. “They say if you do a bad thing in a previous life, you have to pay for it in this one.”
    “Are you saying that May was a tyrant in her last incarnation?” laughed Carole.
    Corey and Jasmine appeared a little confused by the conversation, but the other three girls had to laugh. May, whose father was a professional trainer, was one of the most talented of the young riders. She could be a bit bossy at times, but she definitely didn’t deserve Veronica for a Pony Partner.
    “Well, someone had to get Veronica,” said Stevie. “Maybe Carole, our second in command, can keep a special eye on her.”
    “I think I might just do that,” said Carole. “Goodluck, you two.” They all parted company to begin their lessons.
    The rest of the morning passed in a flurry of activity. Lisa set up a series of evenly spaced ground poles, demonstrating to Jasmine the technique of riding over them without using stirrups. The exercise was designed to enhance balance and encourage an independent seat in the rider. “Remember, Jasmine, stirrups are just an aid,” she tutored. “Useful, absolutely, but a really good rider should be so balanced in the saddle that she can jump a fence without using them.”
    Carole strode up to the fence and watched Jasmine work. “How’s she doing?”
    Lisa made a so-so motion with her hand, without taking her eyes off her charge. “Try to keep your calves even with the saddle girth,” she shouted to Jasmine.
    “This work will really pay off when she starts working over raised cavalletti,” Carole said knowingly. “It was a good choice of exercise for her, Lisa.”
    As Carole moved off to help someone else, Lisa smiled with pleasure, then turned her attention back to Jasmine.
    I N ONE OF the pastures, Stevie was using her knowledge of dressage to help Corey work on her leg cues.The two girls had just finished doing serpentines in tandem at the trot. Having drawn to a halt, Stevie was trying to explain the next part of the exercise to her Pony Partner. “It’s really easy for a rider to