Training/Riding Patterns?

Hello everyone,

Red has been going wonderfully and I've been working mainly on his loping and transitions. My intent is to teach him to work more off of his hind end so that he can carry a slow consistant pace. He's had almost a year off while I went back to school but the time off seemed to have matured him because he no longer throws his temper tantrums that he used to. This is where he'd buck and jump and run sideways or whatever else he could think of to avoid having to work on the circle, I was working with a trainer at the time. This rattled my already shaky confidence which also probably contributed to our time off.

I'm just looking for some ideas on what to include or work on during our rides. I usually lunge him with a bridle with the reins passed through under his chest and tied over his back. This has done wonders for softening him up and rounding his back up. I lunge anywhere between 10-20 minutes focusing on a lot of transitions (walk-trot-lope and walk-lope). After lunging I usually ride fr about 20-30 minutes where we repeat our transitions on a 20 M circle. I haven't started his walk-lope transition under saddle yet only because I want him to be able to do it on the lunge line without me on his back, plus I'm also still a little nervous loping him (from his previous temper tantrums and my many many falls on other horses, all who happened to be cantering/loping). However, I find myself getting bored so I would expect Red to be bored too. I feel like I'm running out of training patterns. I've just started doing rollbacks wtih him at the jog, so it has made things a little more interesting. I just don't want to be doing the same thing over and over every single ride. Any ideas?

Pics should be coming shortly. They're just hard to take when you always ride alone.

Does he know how to yield his front and hind end? Side pass? Spin? Leg yield? Cow literally lives up to his name and used to be quite dead to my aids, I started working on yielding his hind end with using the fence then eventually turned into side passing. It really helped him get off my leg more. I noticed you said you tie him up, I tie cow too when he used to have hissy fits (also cold backed, went on advice of a clinician) which I also noticed softened him up, except for the walk it ruined it for us haha.

Do you ride with shorter reins? I just started loping my horse this weekend, and well not going to lie little nervous knowing his past (one buck and your off no matter what, plus my coach had a broken ankle from him but separate occasion) but by sticking your hand down on his neck and just letting him go his speed till he relaxes is probably best thing we've done yet.. His head was naturally long and low and just WOW, what a jog I got from him didn't need to figit at all afterwards. If lope is what you need to work on my advice is just do it! :) have someone on the ground if your worried and helps with the support when They let you know it's ok he looks awesome keep it going.