Actually, I was impressed that he settled down and worked well for me after that. We've been doing a little side passing along the fence line and as of yesterday it finally started to click with him that he should soften to the bit. It's a work in progress, but he's getting it!
Zeus decided today was a "You can't be serious!" sort of day. He challenged me on everything I asked him to do. L., remember on Sunday, how I was surprised at how well he backed when I first asked him? None of that today! Today was all about defiance.
Today when I asked him to back, he planted his feet like a donkey, then when I kept the pressure on, he started to rear. This is not uncommon when teaching young horses to back up, so I wasn't worried about it. The key is to ignore the rearing behavior and keep asking for the back up.
Again, when I went to lunge him, he tried to ignore me and I really had to increase the pressure to convince him to cooperate. After several repetitions of maintaining or increasing pressure with both the lunge and the back up, he finally started to figure out, that, "Yes, I was serious!" We ended on a good note. I anticipate that tomorrow should go a little better now that he's had his chance to test me.