I’ve been getting my western trail gelding ready for extreme cowboy races. I do a lot of trail on him, and some gymkhana, so I figured it would be the best of both worlds. He can do ever part of the races, including jumping over barrels. However, I am having a little bit of issues getting him to listen to me when coming into the jump. I started with lunging him over it, and he did awesome, he actually jumps pretty well for a fat little quarter horse. It’s when I’m on him than it’s hard to keep him listening to me instead of trying to do his own thing. Given, he clears it with room to spare, it’s just not the nicest ride because he seems to crave the jump and speeds up and takes off from a long spot, even when I tried him on a smaller cross rail instead of the barrels.. Any suggestions?

This was from the day I was lunging him. I think he was doing pretty well. Feel free to judge him.