Horses when you don't allow yourself to use fast travel and you have Convenient Horses installed are actually very useful. Much faster than I can sprint and they can carry an awful lot of items around meaning less time I have to spend trecking back to town to restock on supplies and sell of unneeded items. I'm currently on Solesteim and I miss my horse a great deal if only for the pack mule feature. Teldryn is undoubtedly getting rather annoyed with me by now for all the times I've asked him to carry something.

I rode one once from a random encounter. It was okay, but I haven't used one since.

The map is not big enough for a nice ride, I prefer to travel solo

This. Horses are not good for much else.

I do use. Note that mounted combat was added in the game with 1.6 patch, so there's no need to get off your horse for a fight. Of course being on horse changes the combat a bit: it gives you a great advantage in fight and you wont get any finishers on it.

On some characters, I use them. Specially low level mages, they sprint much faster than the mage can run and with no carriage in Winterhold, I don't feel as tempted to fast travel, when using a horse. Bummer you can't use magic on horseback.

With HF even my warriors will buy the horse, as long as you didn't ride the horse away from home ( and not take it back) fast traveling doesn't cause them to come to you. Lydia got stuck on one of my characters and he fast traveled in place to "un-stick" her, horse didn't come to them.

I prefer being on foot and running. With lots of stamina, The Lady Stone, Respite, Wind Walker.

Never use them, having to dismount to fight is a pain in the neck. My characters jog everywhere and never use fast travel.

Yep, I use AV, too. It's greyt for so many of the creatures in the game - you can even have a pink mammoth...if you want one.

You haven't been paying attention then. Patch 1.6 added mounted combat in the game. That happened just before the release of Dawnguard.

If you have Convenient Horses, you can take your horse(s) to Solstheim. I always do.

Oh I know, but I'm RPing that it couldn't fit on the boat.

Heh, in reality I know I could call it with the horn but I'm just doing my first playthru of Dragonborn and I'm trying to play it the way Bethesda designed it, and having a horse to sprint all over such a fairly small island with thousands of units of carry weight space for random loot seems like it doesn't make much sense in that spirit. I'll be back on the mainland soon enough, the poor horse is still probably sitting on the docks at Windhelm freezing it's you know what off.

No horses or fast travel. I'm sprinterborn

I was hoping that bethesda would make the horses a little more viable this time around, but they didn't IMO. Don't get me wrong the animations and behaviors of the horses has definitely improved, but unfortunately I've been spoiled by red dead redemption's horses, even though it's obvious bethesda had to deal with more variables due to its unique open world. I hope in the next iteration they smooth out some of the horses' clunkier mechanics. I do have to say that the leap from oblivion to skyrim was exponential I just hope they continue the trend, and make horses feel more like companions than accessories.

I used to in my first characters (looks at avatar...) but I've stopped. This thread might inspire me to try again on my current character who does not fast travel.

The only horse I really use is Arvak, and that's with my Dunmer vampire. I treat it as a form of fast travel.

Summon Arvak > Mount > Travel to desired location > Dismount > Arvak disappears.

My Ranger and Paladin have to find the closes settlement with a carriage (all hold capitals thanks to a mod).

Speaking of carriages, shouldn't they be willing to take you to your Hearthfire home once you purchase carriage service of your own?

Can't loot dead bodies though

That's true, but I can't think about anyone looting every body. The bigger flaw is that there aren't mounted finishers.

I mostly play stealthy characters. And i prefer to sneak & stalk my way around the map to catch people or creatures by surprise as you never know whats around the next bush, ditch or pile of rocks. I might occasionally steal a horse if i'm in a rush to get somewhere or buy one. If the mood takes me i'll use one, depends what frame of mind i'm in at any given moment.

Other characters...mages, hybrids or warriors. I'm more likely to consistently use them .

It works badly though. At least for me. I prefer fighting on foot.

does anyone remember the horse from "Shadow Of the Colossus". Very old game, but DAMN those animations for the horse were ahead of its time. the way its head lead when turning and everything, it felt so natural.

also, the way you could stand and jump off your horse was nifty...

crosses fingers for next TES game*

Actually yes they can! When I first started I took huge shortcuts just by bashing the jump button over and over until I reached the top of a mountain, not sure if it works for all of them.

As for me, nope, don't use horses, I prefer walking.

As for mounted combat? That felt...so awkward.

Yes! All the yeses! The horse actually felt natural on it's movement. *sighs happily and grabs his Shadow of Colossus disk and starts up his ps2* I even got the HD version of it on the ps3.