In Oblivion, horses had two gates...walk and run, in Skyrim (they are supposed to be making horses feel like horses, not vehicles) what if the horses had all four of the original gaits, walk, trot, canter, and gallop? What if you could back your horse rear, which would startle NPCs, and can we even have horses in cities? All these would be great!

There's problems with Mounted Combat:

Archery is balanced by movement speed. Mounted Combat would trivialize it

Dual Hands system also makes it difficult. Lets say you had a Sword in Right, Shield in Left. If an opponent was attacking your left, your sword arm would be on the opposite side, limiting attacks.

What about casts? Would self casts affect the horse or player, or both?
Would it be easy to accidently hit the horse with a touch/target/aoe spell?

^By the by, it would be extremely difficult to fight while riding on a horse if at least one hand isn't controlling the reigns. I'm not saying it can't happen, but it's difficult to control the horse. Not to mention maintaining balance when a powerful force blows against your shield. Unless you're not moving. I suppose it would be a neat effect to lose control when in combat.

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@OP

1. Don't care, because I'll be either sneaking, walking, or running with my character anyways. The same applies with the horse if you can have mounted combat.
2. Why not?
3. Of course I do. Give me a reason to own a horse. This would add much needed convenience. (By that I mean compared to simply not spending your hard earned money on a horse and simply fast travel)

Regarding not being able to hit an enemy whose on your unarmed side, that's what adds tactics to mounted combat, if you run or rather gallop in without thinking, you could end up with your opponent on your unarmed side where they could then slaughter you or your horse with you unable to attack. You have to run(gallop) on the correct side of the enemy to make sure you hit them.

I hope that in Skyrim, you don't have to wait an hour for the horse to turn.

That would balance it out alot, and also the price of horses would be a good balancer. AND IT GIVES HORSE ARMOUR A REASON TO EXIST

lol yeah.

try playing mount and blade

you can use bow on horse back there and it's gr8

EDIT:
and about balance and hitting
if in RL medival time that statement above would be true they wouldn't use horses in wars

they've been using horses for archery too while moving so it's not impossible you just need experience

same as child needs to learn to walk on 2 legs and it takes time to at least balance and he can't even fight

Don't give me wrong, I'd love the idea of Mounted Combat. But I think it would detract far too much developer time and it would only be useful outside, and likely only outside of cities, when one isn't fast travelling by one form or another.

:shrug:

it'd be really nice to have my horse in a city

Shouldn't we get gaits too? If horses get 4, shouldn't our character also be able to...I dunno, choose walk, skip, jog, run, sprint or something?

Actually, Archery isn't balanced by movement speed in a way Mounted Combat would trivialize. Archery's balanced by:
Very small angle of tolerance to hit a target. A melee warrior has ~45^o, while an archer's can be reduced to a handful of minutes of a degree, depending on distance.
It's difficult enough to hit a fast-moving target when you are standing still. It's even harder when you are on a fast-moving, constantly shaking platform (Such as a galloping horse). So, you still take a massive accuracy hit when fighting from a mounted platform.

And for the dual-hands thing... So what? Position is important in combat. Either attack with what options you have (It helps to look at the target. Can't hit someone to my left if I'm looking right, mounted or not), or steer around to get them on your left. I hate to parrot it, but if Mount&Blade can handle it, Skyrim should be able to do it even better. It's also not that hard to look over...

As far as spells: Self-casts should affect Self, not Horse. It should be possible to cast spells on the horse with Touch spells. And the horse should be as vulnerable to target/aoe spells as you are. Just control where the camera's facing (Just like nonmounted combat) and it should all be obvious, and not an issue.

And anyone trying to fight on a horse using anything more than their knees to guide it needs to go back to Horsies 101 class.

Mounted combat is balanced by the price of the horse, area you have to maneuver, and the fact that even on a horse, there's a chance your foe is twice your height.