Saddled him up, and provided a nice warm up. I decided adjusting circle size would keep the warmup interesting enough. He was a bit less stiff and not so argumentative in warmups.
Thinking back to bad Chewie days when he gave me the same nonsense, I got on Ransom, and did a LOT of walk. Circle in, circle out, leg yields, come & go at the walk, and continued this until he started reacting easy to any direction change or gait adjustment. This took nearly fifteen minutes, which was better than I've had in the past.
When I asked for trot, again, I had to do a LOT of transitions, and a lot of changes in direction before I finally had his attention. He was much like Tuesday's lesson, but not as bad. Anytime he got it "right", relaxing his head, and rounding up, turning when I asked on a subtle cue, I let him walk a few.
I did about two full laps around the arena in trot each direction. I realized that when Ransom gets the full arena, he's happier, and more relaxed. Maybe a chiro issue, making the circles stiff. Not sure, because he'll duck in right if I'd let him. Something to type out and ponder for the day.
Total work about an hour. We finished up on the buckle (and still on contact, he was stretched down so long & low) walking all over the arena. Ransom knew he did better by the cookie supply he earned at ride's end.
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