Re: OOC: Conversation 3
Well, I put in a house rule that all PC horses would have the EFFECTIVE benefit of Combat Riding in terms of being a Trained Mount based on the Mounted Combat rules on p 224. I did this specifically so we could have mounted combat without every PC's horse bucking him out of the saddle after the first weapon report.
That doesn't mean they get all the tricks associated with full Combat Riding training as per the Handle Animal skill on p79. In order to get the six tricks that come with that full training, the full training must be applied. Thus, PCs who did train their mounts (hello, Senor Domingo), still had tangible benefits to applying the Combat Riding training.
Separate tricks may be learned through the normal process described in the Animal Handling skill. See the "The Trigger Rule" sidebar on p78.