After Thursday with Chewie, and not wanting every day I'm on him to be a fear-overcoming issue, I put on his surcingle, side reins, and took him to the round pen, helmet affixed.
Side rein lunge for 35 minutes. Lots of transitions, and lots and lots of trot work. He fought the rein pressure quite a bit. When it was clear I had his attention and his focus... I took off the surcingle.
Clipped the helmet under my chin, and jumped on bareback. Lots of walk to halt transitions on breath alone. A few back-ups when I felt like he was daydreaming and not listening to my little aids. Ended the "work" moseying around the round pen, and I focused on feeling his back & shoulder muscles push me around.
Knowing Romeo had a few days off, I grabbed him, and prepared for a little rodeo gallop. Walk, trot, figure 8 reining warmups, and a few rollbacks at walk & trot. We picked up canter, and he was on the right-lead, headed left. He does that when he's not warmed up, I'm learning. We cantered and cantered and cantered and cantered. His head started to drop, and he started to slow down. I let him stop & walk a while, catch his breath, then right back at canter. Three good solid canter sets, and he was paying attention. I did a few more rollbacks, laughed at Chewie watching us intently across the fenceline, and cooldown was a walk down the dirt road. Total work about 45 minutes.
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