Trimming, treatment and trotting

The horses had their feet trimmed on saturday and they're doing really well.  Remy also had a bodywork session from Gareths partner Lesley. He was pretty much ok, but a little sensitive on his wither, which was a worry, especially as we have just had the saddle fitter who assures me that his saddle now is a near perfect fit. He reacted very sharply when she stretched his shoulder - an exercise which opens up the wither apparently. She was surprised at his reaction but when she rechecked his wither, the sensitivity had gone, so we're hoping the manipulation has eased an old niggle. Anyway we'll need to keep an eye on things, especially the saddle, I'd like to think as it's been fitted properly it's not going to him any problems.  I've been doing some stretching exercises with him, so now I need to make sure that I keep up with them and really try to loosen those shoulders.
After a warm up today, I worked on trot transitions, from reinback to get his back end in gear and also tried some in shoulder fore, keeping his inside shoulder up, especially on the right rein as he wants to drop it into the transition. It was his right shoulder that he reacted to, so perhaps he has some tightness in there.
It seems like a very slow process getting the trot anything like balanced. I can ask from reinback and we get more umph, we get a few strides in decent balance, but then he/we cant handle it and he tenses. Or I can ask for a soft transition, shoulder fore off a small circle, keeping his inside shoulder up and stepping under with his inside hind, and we get a much softer trot, but no umph. My feeling is that I need to do both, go with what feels right.  It's hard this trying to ride with light hands, never restricting, never pulling back!! As Philippe Karl says 'I'm not the guy with high hands, I'm just the guy who's trying to ride without pulling'.