Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-31507215-20170710234637/@comment-32325302-20170713113054

Under a system like this, you'd definitely need to offer the option of "Train" for players to use on their horses. "Train" could be used, as you've said, to accustom a horse to fearful things (it would be awesome if it would also enable a horse to fight). I think a corollary to it would be a "Loyalty" option: regular love from the owner, done with pats and feeding treats like apples, carrots, and/or sugar, would form a bond between horse and rider. The Loyalty rating would also affect whether or not a horse/pony will bolt: think of Samwise and Bill the pony: Bill faced a lot of scary things because he loved Sam; it took the Watcher in the Water at Moria to overcome Bill's loyalty and make him flee in terror... too, Sam wasn't holding onto Bill at that point, but it's pretty clear in the book that the Watcher was just too big of a terror for Bill to face, even with his love for Sam.

So, Train would grant Bravery through training aimed specifically to inure a horse to scary foes; Loyalty would grant Bravery through the owner treating the horse well (treats, pats, etc.). Both could be combined to raise a horse's bravery even higher.

Side note: given that a rider's health gets subsumed into the horse's health (which is why horse armor is important), it would make sense too if horses could be trained to fight. Perhaps one could equip a horse with Battle Horseshoes, which would grant a random chance that the horse would paw or kick in a fight, doing damage to the enemy in front of you---and the odds it will do so go up, if you've Trained your horse.This could be further affected by material used for the Battle Horseshoes, perhaps using 3 grades: iron, faction steel, mithril (or some such system, doesn't have to be those three materials).