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[PCOVERS]

Later I cantered up a lot of hills with him too.

This is what I want to do. I have some small inclines on the trail ride out from the ranch, but is is sooooo hot and humid now in Florida, even by 8:30am, that I may have to wait for that unusually cooler day to do it.

[PCOVERS]

I had the opportunity this past weekend on the trail to test him with another rider. My guy is not yet very comfortable to be out alone and I knew if my friend kicked up into a canter that was faster than his fastest gait he would be faced with a decision. Sure enough, he tried to keep up at a break neck Largo, but the other horse was much bigger and his stride was faster. My paso made the switch to a canter (more like a gallup actually) and within 20-30 yards settled into a reasonably smooth, though short stroked canter. He expended more energy than he needed to and was tired from the experiment. A little later, I decided to head back alone, an opportunity to work with him on his confidence of being alone. On the way back, I let him move from his Largo into a canter again and he did it willingly. And this second time, it was smoother than the first.

Now that we got that first time out of the way. I will step back and decide the best way to go forward with additional canter efforts.

[KysaSD]

Sounds awesome!

[zipeddodah]

This is basically what I did with my racking horse. I tried various ways to set him up so he would choose to canter. It seemed like nothing I tried was working until one day, out on the trail he offered a nice little canter up a hill. That was the beginning and we built on that with round pen work and lots of hills. With him, at least, it seemed like once he figured out he was permitted to canter under saddle he was more than willing. The rest was getting him more balanced and softer.