The yesterday’s plan involved my riding Raudi in lesson last night. This didn’t happen. Pete had to get his schoolwork done, so he bowed out. We instead went for a trail ride up and down the bench. It turned out to be exceedingly slippery. This was a bit unnerving for me.

However, Raudi, my steady eddy riding horse, remained calm and sure footed for the entire ride. I cannot believe that I’m now calling her my steady eddy riding horse, a title that exclusively used to belonged to Tinni and Signy. But this is what she has become. Unreal. Sometimes I get to regretting the fact that I knew so little about horse training when I got her. And I still think that she would have been an even better riding horse in the hands of someone more knowledgeable about such things. Having been that someone with more experience would have done by her sooner, yes, this is what I have often thought. However,

we have come a long ways together, and I do feel good about this.

We went up Pete’s trail and down the bench trail. On the bottom part of our ride, on what we call the ATV trail, Tinni slipped and Pete half fell/half slipped off his back. Tinni leapt up, and before Pete could grab him, took off in the direction of home, with Hrimmi, the pony horse on his heels. The dogs also followed. From my vantage point, Raudi’s back, they all looked like they were having a fine time. Raudi danced around some, for quite obviously, she wanted in on the action.

I dismounted and walked a bit, thinking that perhaps she’d also slip on the rutted trail. She instead picked her way carefully along, and at the first creek she stopped to take a long drink of water. Once across, we came to the non-rutted horse trail, and there I got back on her. She remained calm, pricking her ears forward when she heard the gang returning. Pete (who wasn’t hurt) said that Ryder did really well, she even laid down and waited when he finally was able to grab the errant horses.

We continued on, down the mud pond embankment – Raudi taking the lead and me repeatedly saying to Pete “look, look, look at how well she’s doing!” Then we got back on our lower trail. I ended the ride by going on ahead and letting Raudi canter on what I call Raudi’s Racetrack.

It was a wonderful ride – a good decision on Pete’s part to forego the lesson and instead go for a ride. This attests to the importance of being flexible. If I’d insisted that he must take me to lesson, we would not have had this experience, which was one that further affirmed that our horses are the best trail riding horses in Alaska. This is a claim that I will stick to, until it’s proven otherwise.

Next: 262. October 2, 2014: Riding June Bug Carter aka Blind Moon Chitlin