Working with a new horse

hey guys so today was an interesting/cool day, but overall it was fun! So I woke up this morning and we headed over to my new "client's" house so I could help him work with his horse, he has a 4 year old gelding named Copper who has only ever had 30 days of training as a 2 1/2- 3 year old, and has had virtually nothing done with him from that time to now, so he has developed a few bad habits to say the least I havn't seen them all but from what I got with working with him, he is VERY pushy, he loves to try to shove you over, he about got me on my butt by shoving me over a few times, but he decided that wasn't a good idea when shoving me over got his face bopped away from me....... he tried to kick out a few times but nothing I couldn't handle I did lunging for respect stage 1 with him and got him from trying to run you over to working nicely turning when asked and it all went pretty well, when I incorporated the owner it was a little harder, he is considerably smaller than me (but our legs are the same length lol) and build wise, and this horse has pushed him and his family around for at least 3 years now, so it was a little harder for him and he had some mishaps with that but it eventually got a little better, and his mom bugged us about riding him, so we went over and tacked him up, and he (saddly) rides without a helmet..... first he hopped up and the horse did okay, we had done a little flexing on the ground, and that helped him in the saddle, I explained to him one rein stops and practiced them, he did that for a bit and said I would have hopped on, but I didn't have my helmet with me, he said that he had one in the trailer, but only used it because it was required for when they had ridden at shows, so i went into their trailer and found it, and turns out he has the same helmet as I do, a size smaller but it still fit, PS its a troxel inaped (idk how to spell it very well) and they are good helmets :) and I hopped up on Copper, he was very fussy going to the left so we did lots of left side one rein stops and turning, and I mind you we did this all at the walk, first time on a new horse that had only had an hr or so of good ground work in its 4 year life I wasn't about to put myself at risk.... but we went from him having to pull quite hard on the rein to a considerably lower pressure turning to the left, and to the right was okay to start out with, and by the end all I really had to do was jiggle the rein and I was slowly starting to add in leg ques, and he was doing very good, he started getting a little fussy, so I did some flexing and he FINALLY had a good flex to the left and we stopped on that, I put my leg over and laid on my belly on the saddle and rubbed him down a bit, after that his owner cooled him out and put him away, after that we talked about what I had worked on him with, and we made plans for the rest of the summer (kinda) we worked out what days would be best for all of us, and we are even planing on taking him with us to Brushy (kid and horse) we would have the owner/kid work with Chuck so he could get better at handling a horse with the method so he could learn what he needs to do, and I work with Copper and help him learn what he is sopose to do and even the playing field, because green + green = black and blue.... right now his dad had to go on a short deployment for a few weeks he only had a few days to pack and he normally helps the kid work with him, but from what I heard does the wrong thing by trying to work with him, then the dad gets frustrated when the horse does the wrong thing and puts him away, they have even gone as far as to using a chain. So I hope the kid will follow through with this and see it just takes time and if the only person who works with the horse is me, the horse will never get any better for them.... it was interesting because on the side of the road on the way there, there was (saddly) a dead faun on the side of the road, but I had leaned over to look out the window to see it better and as we drove a bald eagle had started to dive for it, but stopped when we came by in the truck, I was so amazed by it (im a nature freak) but it was so cool!!!