She certainly has been hit with it, I would assume, and FWIW, so has Lightning, and any other horse who moves away from it. Horses don't learn to lunge having never had the whip or the end of the line, or whatever you are using, touch them. They don't learn to respect it because of anything inate about whips, if they didn't know it can reach them and it hurts, they wouldn't learn to move when it moves. Most horses don't fear the whip as an inatimate object, they fear it only when you apply it... It's your body language with it that they might fear, not the object sitting on the ground. Some who have been overly whipped fear it too much and it can be a distraction. It's a balance. Actually hitting them with it is fairly rare with a fairly responsive horse. It shouldn't be used on a confused horse who doesn't know what to do, but rather used to enforce a command when the horse is lazily ignoring a ~known~ command to trot or canter from the walk, for example.
You are, of course, right about that. When I said hit, I meant overly whipped. I do recognize the difference.
BTW, I do realize that there will be conflicting advice, and I appreciate all of it. I will consider and learn from all of it.