Hi,

I just started the game a while ago, and I figured I'm not able to find my horse anymore. When Fast Traveling to any city, I no longer get the message which tells me the horse is in the City stable. It was the Free Hourse you get from brother-I-can't-recall-his-name

Is it safe to say his dead? I don't remember it being killed, and I don't want to pay 500 gold (for the cheapest horse) only to find later on the horse is back in the stable.

And a side note (I prefer not to open a single new topic just for this question) - I stashed my stuff in Chorol Fighter Guild house (in a chest) and I was reading somewhere it's fine. However, I noticed today all my things are gone
I bought a house in-game today to have a play to stash my items. I guess that it's save it my house now and won't be gone again?

One thing i can tell you is that he didnt go back to the stables, he might of died without you knowing

If you put things into chests that you don’t own, you will loose them. Containers that are in a house that you bought are safe and will not eat your possessions. My early characters just dropped their keepable stuff on the floor in one of the guild halls or shops - upstairs in the Chorrol FG tower where no one ever goes is best. Everything but food is safe. Everything else will be there forever unless someone walks through it and kicks it through the floor. Don’t know about your horse, I don’t do them. Talk to Buffy about that.

Containers in a house that you own are safe. Others are hit and miss and tmar is right in that you generally should assume they are unsafe. There are a good number of safe containers around though. Here is some more info on that - http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Safe_Containers#Safe_Containers

If your horse was killed it is gone of course. If you, after taking possession of the prior's paint horse mounted another horse, then the paint assumed you didn't want it and wandered back to the priory (maybe getting killed along the way). To verify if the paint is gone for good, fast travel to the priory where you originally got the horse. If it does not join you on arrival or is not there waiting for you, then it is gone for good.

This happens with any mount in the game. On PC, you can prevent this with the console as follows;