An intense relativistic electron beam injected into dense gas characteristically propagates in a self‐pinched mode but is susceptible to the resistive hose instability. This convective instability typically leads to large amplitude beam motion and the disruption of propagation. Theory and computation suggest that, although resistive hose cannot be completely suppressed, its convective growth can be reduced by varying the average betatron oscillation frequency from head to tail in the beam pulse. We report here on experiments designed to implement this variation by tailoring the beam emittance using an ion‐focused regime ‘‘conditioning’’ cell. Conditioning effectiveness is assessed by using measured beam quantities to evaluate a detuning parameter &eegr;(t). This information is correlated with beam propagation measurements to determine the optimum conditioning for resistive hose suppression.