This is one that really bugs me.

Horses:

The Horses you buy are in fact quite a bit slower than the horses you use to go from city to city, it's really no contest in speed. Therefore using the horse you bought to go city to city or zone to zone you've already been to is actually wasting valuable time. The only benefit to having a horse is to go off-road and find new places, beyond that, if you've been to a place before you're still better off paying the city-horse travel costs.