Horses

Horses are work animals. People use them for a great number of tasks. The adventurer can take advantage of this by buying a horse to quicken travel. Riding shortens the time needed for traveling enormously.

Horses stayed the same in all installments in which they appear, but didn't appear in the Underworlds or Ultima VIII. In Ultima III they could be found roaming the wilds of lost Ambrosia, but were tricky to tame for riding -- requiring either powerful magic or hard-to-locate items. However, in Ultima IX, all horses are dead and hanged (one is even enclosed into a iceberg) and the culprit is a woman named Cleo found in the Prison of Wrong. The reason for all the dead horses was essentially an in-joke, as time constraints and technical limitations made horseback riding impossible in the game.

Ultima V is the only game that really describes differences between breeds of Britannian horses. While all horses look the same in the game, several NPCs, usually those who work in stables identify various types: plough horses, mountain horses, steppes horses, and Valorian steeds which are prized as warhorses.

Notable examples

 * Smith the Horse is maybe the most famous example of a horse that can be encountered. When else can you meet a talking horse? Smith lives in the northeastern corner of Iolo's hut, near Yew, and usually gives clues that are useless because they were important for the previous Ultima game. Smith appears in Ultima IV, V, VI, VII, VII Part Two and Martian Dreams. He is mentioned in Ultima IX, but can't be found and is most likely dead like all other horses.

Trivia

 * When the C64 port of Ultima VI was created, the limits of the system proved quite challenging to Origin, so they had to axe a few things. Therefore, horses vanished to eliminate horseriding. They added the excuse that the gargoyles had eaten all the horses (with exception of Smith).
 * A similar excuse for the lack of horses in the NES port for Ultima V was given, this time claiming it was hungry people!
 * Likewise, since technical limitations prevented horse riding to be implemented in Ultima IX, it was decided to have all the horses dead as an easter egg, with many carcass to be found lying or hanging around. Their supposed murderer, Cleo, can be found in the Prison of Wrong.