OK I never bothered to buy a horse, you get like 2 for free so the need to buy 1 never really struck me as necessary. But I figured why not give it a try before I get Shadowmere? So I went and bought a white horse from Anvil, I noticed he kept turning to walk away but after closing a Oblivion Gate he just disappeared. The game still said I owned 1 horse so he was still alive, but when going to Anvil he was no where to be seen.

I went about my way waiting for him to respond, but then the game said I owned 0 horses meaning he had died. My question is, what happened? I mean he kept trying to walk off even before I went into the gate, do horses you buy always automatically walk back home when you jump off or was it just something random?

I am never wasting money on horses again, 5000 gold (right?) wasted and I only had him for 2 mins!!!!! What causes a horse to suddenly go off and return where you bought them? Again do they always do that or did I just have bad luck? Be annoying that for each horse you buy you gotta ride endlessly otherwise they'll skip town on you as soon as you looked away.

I suggest you install the mod "Rideable Packponies" by Emma. Then go to Chorrol and buy one of the 6 ponies available. They will carry lots of stuff for you, you can ride them if you like, they love carrots, and they are very cute. You can summon them, even inside dungeons.

They are not supposed to walk away like that unless you leave them somewhere for days, then they travel back to their stables.

When it still said you owned a horse you could have fast-traveled anywhere and he would have showed up.

Most of the horses seem to be pretty loyal though I have noticed that the Cheydinhal black horse tends to wander off more often than others.

I use a small mod called "Dude Where's My Horse" which adds a quest entry that puts a quest marker on the horse when you make that the active quest. I use it to find the horse more often when I forgot where I parked him when I come out of a ruin.

There are also occasions when your horse is standing outside a different gate when the city has more than one gate.

Otherwise, just fast travel once or twice and the horse will show up with you at your destination, like mirocu suggested.

If your horse is still alive, the stable who sold it to you will not have any for sale. If they have another one for sale, it means your horse died.

In my games, they have always had a tendency to wander off if left standing outside a coral. I got in the habit of waiting a moment to see if they start moving and then mount and unmount. That seems to stop them from wandering. The Unicorn will always start to wander back to it's glade unless fenced in. If you own more than one horse, the one you are not riding will try to wander back to it's home stable.They often end up getting killed while wandering around. Bandits and creatures tend to attack horses because they are seen as the weakest opponent.

Horses take a little work to maintain but they are one of my favorite aspects of the game.

I was riding the paint horse you get in the mainquest but it wasn't labeled as "owned" the one I bought was the only horse the game counted as owning.

Did you talk to Jauffre about "Assistance?" The free horse is glitched. It will occasionally not register as owned by the player unless they ask *both* Jauffre and Prior Maborel about Assistance.

I asked---not sure, though I thought Jauffre only mentions the horse if you never asked Maborel? Could this glitch be why my white horse wandered off after just 2 mins? Having Shadowmere she walks too but she never wanders off, she just moves a few paces and waits.