Since Persephone sometimes conjures up Avrak to ride these days, I was thinking about horse mods again. I haven't used any in a long time, not since I tried to make Neith a horse archer. That didn't work out too well. I still have Convenient Horses ver 4.4, and another mod that stops horses from fast traveling with you (so that bandit horse you stole for a one time ride doesn't follow you around all of Skyrim for the rest of your life).

Are there any other better horse riding mods out there these days? I wasn't thinking of texture or mesh replacers, unless there is a souped up texture for Avrak out there. Mainly just the nuts and bolts of riding, and being able to do things like pick alchemy and item from the saddle, talk to people, cast spells, that sort of thing.

OTOH, this is probably a good place to post links for even new textures. That way other folks looking for horse mods can have one-stop shopping.

I've found CH to be the best all around mod for me. I note that you already have it. It does have provisions to harvest/loot/talk from the saddle. As well as provisions to adjust the horse's AI and speed. Some functions are advertised not to work with summoned horses, but I'm not sure how much of a problem that might be.

You might get a kick to know that if you are using CH and have Serana along (and follower horse riding enabled), she will summon a fire version of Arvak and use that. And she will get quite snitty with you if you complain about her flaming horse of bones!

Although I prefer the OB mechanics of horse movement - that allow you to look all around while riding, I have gotten used to using the mouse to steer and having to stop to look around.

So my top two complaints with Skyhorse mechanics are:
- Horses cannot back up! Pretty darn important for an archer. It would be so nice for Buffy to slowly back up Superian as she shoots rather than having to turn and, thereby, lose the ability to fire.
- No (vanilla) summoning from the saddle - not even on self spells like bound weapons. Mods can fix that of course.

There is a way you can turn and look sideways, and keep moving forward. It works both mounted and on foot. Just use the A or D key to turn one way - with the W key pushed down to continue forward as well. At the same time move the mouse in the opposite direction. The end result is you keep moving in the straight line, but wind up spinning the camera to one side or the other.

I found I am having a glitch with fighting while mounted. Using Convenient Horses or vanilla. Persephone can draw her sword while mounted, but she cannot attack with it. She just sticks her sword out to one side, and no matter how I click, she never actually swings it, and never touches anyone. I did some hunting online, and found some people who claimed to have fixed it. But one supposedly from an extended colors mod that I don't use, and another was from a hair mod that I don't have.

I knew about the 'slide to counter turn' combo of keyboard and mouse but find that very cumbersome. I've pretty much gotten used to things now. One advantage Sky has over OB here is that in OB you could only look up to 90 degrees left or right while riding - even stopped. In Sky at least if you stop, you can look 360 degrees around you.

Heh, can't help with melee - either on foot or from the saddle. Buffy doesn't touch the stuff.

That said, Buffy's followers, when mounted, do fine with melee and are quite helpful in fact - thanks to CH. Even little Brelyna will draw her ebony dagger and rail away on foes from the saddle, giving Buffy and Superian a bit of breathing room to bring that mighty mystic bow to bear.

I’m watching this new horse mod: Aeonbarr – A Unique and Summonable Horse - CH Friendly

It seems to come from a well respected modder and is built from the ground up to complement Convenient Horses. Looks like it has some nice features including summon/unsummon anywhere and some additional looks (beyond vanilla) and tack (beyond CH).

That looks very cool. I am downloading it now.