The Gauntlet is dented.

So, I tried a new trick of my own today.  After lungeing the Krame and then mounting up, I walked him around a bit & the one time I pushed with my seat & did a couple baby kics to go trot, Kramer threw his head up (not dramatically, but there was a moment of resistance that with him can become a statement quite quickly).  I turned him abruptly so he didn't get a chance to do anything & I quietly rode over to where Martha & Donna were both sitting on the bench.  I asked Martha if she would hand me the 3' dressage whip, she said "Happily!".  Now, properly armed & extremely dangerous, I proceeded to nicely ask Kramer to trot off.  He said "no" in only the way he can. That's when he felt what it's like to be smacked on the rear by an invisible force.  And lo and behold, off we went.  I rode with the whip our entire ride and used it for reinforcement only a couple other times.  At the end of our ride, I did several transisitions upward and downward & he did very well.
Donna had a clinician from Dallas at Wildwood for several women to take a lesson from.  He was there last month too.  Nice fellow.  Anyway, while he was waiting for Donna to mount up, he apparantly was watching Kramer and mentioned twice as I went by what a nice mover he was.  It was great that it only took just a few mins into our ride that Kramer was going as nice as he did yesterday after 45 minutes!

I didn't ride more than 30 minutes today & then played around with shwmnshp.  Afterwards did a bit of mane pulling. NOT his favorite thing, but you know what?  About 5 or so minutes in doing the mane pulling the way Lynn Palm suggested, he really relaxed and only shook his neck a couple of times. The mane that Kramer shortened by eating grass through the rails is growing in nicely.   Now for some butt pictures:

I feel that he's filled out behind since this treatment.  Martha noticed yesterday (w/o prompting) that he looked bigger behind.  In that he has a bigger behind, lol!