The start of Rifle's training

Above is a picture of my friend Barbara riding Rifle in a Western saddle on the trail. Rifle and I have done many things together over the winter. We started out working at Ricochet Ridge Ranch where I rode him on a riding vacation with about 20 other people on horses. He started out a little nervous in that big of a group and would prance while we walked along. He quieted down quickly with the use of half halts and my seat. By the end of the week he was confident riding in a big group and we had a lovely canter down the beach with about 10 other guests. He was one of the few horses in the group calmly cantering along with little rein contact. He was happy to be in the front and content to be in the back. This winter I started his training in Dressage and he is currently showing training level and training first level. With about 30 days of solid Dressage he would be showing first. He has great athletic ability and very even movement. He could easily go second or higher. We then progressed on to Jumping. Now I am not much of a jumper so we have mainly stuck with small jumps. He is great fun out on the cross country course flying over logs. He stays quite calm and is willing to walk, trot or canter over depending on what you tell him. His balance comes in handy canting up and down the hills into jumps. An educated guess would say his previous arena training had been western. He easily puts his head down during the canter and will start to collect underneath himself. He has a rough canter halt transition and with then canter on from a standstill. He neck reins in the arena and on the trail and will smoothly back up collected. We have just started to work in the arena with barrels and he will continue in training till sold.