Best. Ride. Ever.

Which, according to the laws of riding, means tonight's ride will be horribly scary which is fine because that means my rides over the weekend will rock!  Good rides follow bad rides follow good rides ...

Did I mention that Sydney and I are going to a schooling show at White Birch Farm on Sunday? Yep. We're arriving on Saturday to have a lesson with Chemaine, my favorite trainer on the coast, and then we're showing at the crack of dawn on Sunday.

We're going to rock these rides; I just know it!

I also forgot to mention that Jen, the show's organizer, asked me to scribe once I am done showing. Squeal! I am really excited about getting the opportunity to finally scribe. Frankly, I've been too chicken to volunteer before as I've never done it, and I don't want to screw someone's test up. Jen has assured me that I won't screw up; that's probably because I'll be scribing for the Intro Tests. Either way, I am pretty excited about sitting in that booth behind C.

But back to Thursday's perfect ride. The neighbor had a crew working in the "scary corner," so I was pretty sure we were going to be schooling some spooks. I walked Sydney down to that end of the arena where he tensed on cue, but with a stern hey! from me, he relaxed completely and never bothered to look their way again.

We jogged around the arena in both directions, picked up a left lead canter at A, did a 20-meter circle and then quietly cantered the whole arena. We did a downward transition followed by a change of direction at the trot. We did several 20-meter circles tracking right and then I cued for the right lead canter. Captain Awesome rolled into it perfectly! We cantered the 20-meter circle and then the whole arena as before. I asked for a downward at P and then came down centerline for a halt and salute.

And that was it. Best. Ride. Ever.

Oh … and then my barn owner came out with a fistful of Redd's Apple Ales for the three of us (Shelly had shown up to groom Bailey). Nothing better than a yummy afternoon drink with the girls in 75 degree weather. Life is very good.

See you on Monday!