Version 1.4.0 (version 7) is up.
Each update requires a clean save to avoid problems

Recent release: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=13706&searchtext=, on steam workshop. To enable this mod to function, you will also need my co-release http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=13711&searchtext=. Sorry they are uploaded separately, but it seems the Steam Workshop upload mechanism can only handle one esp at a time. Horses for Followers is also available on http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=11193 . Both esps in one place.

Horses For Followers
+ Better Follower Improvements

Horses for Followers will make new horses available to buy at all five stables. Better Follower Improvements will enable your companion to ride them and follow you. To make them mount their steeds, all you need to do is mount your own and they will follow suit. When combat ensues, they will dismount and engage in combat as normal. The horses are set to avoid combat if possible, unlike the vanilla players horse. Now that you have two horses to pay for, you will appreciate their increased survivability.

The horses will be owned by the "Player faction" or the “Current Follower Faction”, which means that even if you change followers, there is no need to buy a new horse for each one. Hope you enjoy and let me know of any bugs. Use the Bill of Sale menu to switch ownership plans if some followers refuse to mount their horses.

Subscribe, rate and... enjoy!

LATEST UPDATE: Adds ability to switch faction ownership of horses if a companion does not mount.
This is done by reading the Bill of Sale document (Book) which makes a menu appear.
UPDATE: No more horse hunting! Horses will follow the players horse after bolting. (Read Known issues!). Takes advantage of player's Horse Call type mods.
UPDATE: An implementation of Fast Travel + Horses will return to stables if the follower is dismissed
UPDATE: Added a ledger book to all stables. Activate it as an alternative way to buy the followers horse
UPDATE: Riften now also has horses for followers. However, you can only buy them by activating the ledger due to a vanilla quest conflict

Version History
1.4.0 - Adds ability to switch faction ownership to overcome problems with some followers not mounting. This done by reading the Bill of Sale given when buying a new horse.
- Ability to sell horse back to the stables
- Ablity to teleport horse to you in awkard situations.
1.3.0 - Horse will follow the player's horse (inc Shadowmere and Frost) + Horses will not be stealable + Issue with followers returning home [solved] (see Known Issues)
1.2.6 - Last upload, (1.2.5) had files missing. This fixes the problem.
1.2.5 - Fast Travel (with Restrictions) + Horse will return to stables if the follower is dismissed.
(Please read known Issues)
1.2.0 - Adds a ledger (book) to all stables in case all the stable owners die, or their topics become
inaccessable due to other quests taking control of them. Click ledger and buy.
- Riften now has horses for companions. However, you can only buy those horses by activating the
ledger.
1.1.0 - Fixes bug that prevented animals such as dogs from following the player when mounted.
1.0.0 – Initial release.

Known Issues

• Horses will Follow the player's horse IF the players horse is the original since game start. When the players horse die and is respawned at the stables, the AI attached to the followers horse will not find the new horse. This is a limitation in the game itself and nothing can be done. However, when Bethesda fixes a bug with aliases, then this should no longer cause a problem. The feature is in the game but does not seem to be operational. Until Bethesda fixes it, just make sure the player horse you are riding is not a respawned copy. If your horses are respawned at stables it will not work. So basically keep your horse alive by whatever means that suits you. You can set confidence to 0 which would make it bolt and use a horse call mod. Additionally, you can make the horse essential. If you don't like using console commands, there are plenty of mods that can alter the settings of player horses such as Better Horses or Invincible Horses.
  
  
• There is a problem when a few vanilla quests will start that will prevent the quest normally used for followers to stop functioning. When this happens, the follower may not mount their horse for the duration of that quest. This is how the new alias system introduced into skyrim is meant to work and is one of its most powerful features. It's also prevents a few problems. When such quests runs it's because it must so that a particular quest will not break. It is possible to add the features that makes this mod work to those - interfereing - quests. At this time, I don't know all the quest that will do this. If you find this happens to you, you can upload a save and pass me the link, so I can make adjustments. Bare in mind this is an occasional occurance, depending where you are in the game.
  
  
• The follower's horses should no longer display that red "steal" word when you look at them. If a follower refuses to mount, use the Bill of Sale to switch ownership of the horse to one thats compatible to a given follow at a given point in your game.
  
  
• The companion and their horse will now fast travel with the player - and stay mounted if done correctly. However, there are minor restrictions
  - Its best to mount your horse and fast travel before the follower mounts their own horse.
  - If you accidently fast travel when the follower is mounted, just dismount anf they will both come running to your location in moments.
  - If you have more than one companion horse, all horses will teleport with you (This does not apply to the player's horse)
  - Avoid fast travel to inside citys. Fast travel to location near the city instead. Otherwise, the follower's horse will teleport inside the city gates at the moment. If you have done this accidently, then use the Bill of Sale document to teleport the horse to your location.
  
  
• Delayed AI. Sometimes the companion delays getting on / off the horse. This is because the game engine only checks the AI Stack every so often, but it can "potentally" be forced to evaluate the AI by script. Unfortunately, there is no function currently available that detects if the player is on / off his horse available as a script function that works according to the information I received in forums. It works as a condition in the AI stack but not as a script function. However, I will confirm this for myself. In the wicki it is called http://www.creationkit.com/IsRidingHorse.
  
• There are no proper animations for followers on horseback carring a torch as far as I can tell. So if there are any good animation gurus out there... hint hint. For now, I'll look into ways of removing torches when the follower is riding, and give them back when dismounted in a future update. But its a low priority.

Question and Answers

Q1: My follower will not ride the horse I just bought for them. Why not?
A: Make sure the plug-in “BetterFollowerImprovements.esp” is selected as well as
“HorsesForFollowers”. They work together and are separated for development reasons. All it will do is control NPC horse-riding as the mod matures. Its not going to be a general purpose
Follower improvement mod. Those are already available.
A2: Use the Bill of Sale to switch ownership of the horse to another faction and see if that helps.

A2: Sometimes, a currently active quest will occasionally override the main follower routine. Nothing can be done unless those interfereing quest are known to me. Also, see if selecting another quest will help, and let me know the result. Remember I can't test it unless it happens to me. I can go through every quest and every script but that will take forever. Please tell me which quest is currently active in your Journal when this happens.

A3: Another mod could be conflicting with this one. If so, try switching the load order so this mod loads later. This may then cause problems for other mods so you need to judge whats best for your game. Try loading my mod only using a clean save. This means unchecking my mod, make a save, check my mods back in (both plugins).

Q2: My follower / companion is from another mod, will he/she be able to ride these horses?

A1: As for the "Horses For Followers.esp", the companion needs to be a member of the Current Followers Faction. This can be done using the console commands. Select the non-vanilla follower in the console. Type:
AddToFaction CurrentFollowerFaction 1
If you need to remove the non-vanilla companion from the faction, select him/her/it and type:
RemoveFromFaction CurrentFollowerFaction

A2: Its the "BetterFollowerImprovements" that makes the follower ride the horse. If the non-vanilla companion uses the same system as vanilla followers. This means they are controlled by the "DialogueFollower" quest form and they fill the "Follower" alias provided by it. Make sure "BetterFollowerImprovements" loads later by altering the load order.

A3: If the non-vanilla follower is not using the quest form above, you need to add Follow type AI packages that enable riding
to the Companion mod you are using. Or ask the mods creator how to do this.

Q3: The Ostler at Windhelm is dead, and the backup ostler will only sell the player horse. What’s
wrong?

A: There is a clash with a quest involving the ostler’s at Riften stables which causes the new dialogue
to stop working for ALL ostlers. This might be a bug that only Bethesda can fix. Allow Reserved is
supposed to fix it, but it doesn’t. As a workaround, use the Ledger provided at the stables. Not to be confused with the
forgery ledger

All the usual terms and conditions apply.

However, should a version be required for a non-english language version of Skyrim, feel free to make adjustments
and upload, but please credit the author and keep the same title in the description and the main title in your language should be reasonably similar.

This was needed out of the box so its a must have even if it has a few teathing issues at the moment.

Although one large disapointment is no Nexus upload and just Steam .... if you only put it on steam I will be forced to track you down and put a spell on you.

Any chance at all to mirror it elswhere? You would get far more coverage.

Well, in that case... I'd better upload it to nexus then. At least with Nexus I can upload more than one plug-in at the same time. Uploading to Nexus soon.

I have currently 4 stormcloak companions and I'm going to try this today

Hopefully it doesn't conflict with multifollower plugin etc.

Let me know if it does. I suspect only one will ride the horses. The plugin uses the Follower alias on the vanilla quest called FollowerDialogue. So if the multifollower plugin uses that, there might be a plug-in conflict. If there is a conflict, let me know.

Also, let me know if you could see the detailed discription on Steam Workshop (like in my first post here). Many of the comments I got there seem to indicate that it did not upload properly, so users aren't aware of the fast travel issue - or how to work-around it.

If one dismounts then fast travels will the companion & companion horse fast travel with the player?

How does this play with other companion mods.

Please a nexus or TESAlliance download as SW is smelly and not at all a good for modding (objective view while the bugs persist).

For one I could not even open the link to the SW page for companions.

I'm trying to upload to Nexus now, but it keeps on timing out. I tried four times already. Also a 502 Bad Gateway error

If you dismount and fast travel, then your companion will also dismount. The horse would be left behind, but the companion will teleport with you. If you fast travel before she dismounts, she still wouldn't fast travel. The only way - at this time - is to follow the procedure in the post above. Whether I can fix the issue, is hard to tell. In Oblivion this was never an issue.

I haven't any other companion mods, so I'm not sure what will happen. It depends how they are implemented. They would need to fill the Follower alias in the quest form: FollowerDialogue. Failing that, the devoper of those mods would just need to add another follow package with riding enabled, and set the conditions as to which one will run. Also, they need to be in the Current Follower Faction at this time. - just like the vanilla followers and hirelings. All horses are owned by the CurrentFollowerFaction.

Will this work with Better Followers by Utopolyst

Sounds great. Hope you can get it up to Nexus soon.

Looks like I might have the file up on nexus now. It's hard to tell as the Nexus servers keeps timing out or I get a Bad Gateway error. I still need to finish the page and upload pics, readme's, mirrors and whatever else is required. Uploading is harder than making the mod

No idea, as I don't have many mods installed. Let me know if there is a conflict or check the first post above for things you can try. If Better Followers (Utopolyst
) uses a different Alias to mine, then it should be ok.

This mod is really nice; it was weird to have a follower running in heavy armor all the way behind you.
I tried the mod for a short ride and it's working fine. There is one issue though. I have a follower plus a dog follower (both from vanilla skyrim). The problem is that the follower mounts his horse and follows me as expected but the dog stays there the stables (in Markath) and won't follow. If I leave the town on foot - with mod installed- , both followers follow me.

When horse is purchased for the companion, it causes all of the companions to walk away. Anyone else have this issue?

At the moment only I'm getting this mod improved for the vanilla 1 follower per player limit. I'll see what I can do. I think I know why they are walking away so I'll see if I can make some changes. One thing the mod author could do is add a second Player Follow type AI package with the condition IsRidingHorse (targeting the player) to the new follower aliases that he must have implemented. Also try experimenting with load order.

An update is up

Version History

1.2.5 - Fast Travel + Horse will return to stables if the follower is dismissed.
(Please read known Issues)
1.2.0 - Adds a ledger (book) to all stables in case all the stable owners die, or their topics become
inaccessable due to other quests taking control of them. Click ledger and buy.
- Riften now has horses for companions. However, you can only buy those horses by activating the
ledger.
1.1.0 - Fixes Bug that prevented Animals such as dogs from following the player when mounted.
1.0.0 – Initial release.

Good, looks like I'll have to give this a go then.

Thank you much. Your mod will greatly enhance game playing. Don't know why Bethnesda didn't include a horse for the follower in the original game.

Whoops... Looks like I messed up that upload (version 1.2.5). I had an error with the BSA packer in the CK. version 1.2.6 should be ok.

Horses For Followers Version 1.3.0 (revision 5) is now live.

No more searching for that missing horse after its bolted.

Normally, the horse will bolt at the first sign of trouble instead of getting into an unrealistic boxing match. Sometimes this meant you have to go seaching for that horse afterwards.

This version makes the horses track the player's horse after battle - this means no more hunting around for the missing horse after its bolted. Also,
if you have a Horse Calling mod, such as "Better Horses", you can call the player's horse and the followers horse will also respond. So all you need to
do is manage one horse, and the AI does the rest.

If you changed the confidence setting at any time, try resetting the horse back to zero confidence again, to fully appreaciate the advatages of this update.

in the console, select the Followers Horse, type SetAV confidence 0 - or use a mod you nay have to do the same.

SKYRIM NEXUS http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=11193(all in one). STEAM WORKSHOP http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=13706&searchtext= and http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=13711&searchtext=

... enjoy!

Sounds great! Adding now

This is what I really needed, thanks! Now maybe followers won't be such a drag.

This is going in my modlist today!

[EDIT] - So now I just need the "Followers for Horses" new version and it has both the new horses and the NPC riding functionality?

Really like the idea of this mod, but it is not working for me.

I already own a horse in my game. I ask Lydia to follow me and go to the stables outside Whiterun. The NPC there won't sell me a companion horse so I buy it from the ledger. Also if I have the mod installed but do not buy a horse for my companion they still get on my horse for a second and then dismount to follow me on foot.

If I do buy the horse my companion gets on my horse instead of the one I just bought her. The new horse, which is supposed to be for the companion has the Steal label. This is my first time trying this mod. I don't have any other companion or mount mods installed.

Any help? Thanks!

Is there any way you can merge the esp's for the nexus version? If not, it's still a great mod.

I will be merging at some point. For now I need to keep them separate to isolate any bugs. There will be a point when I will have to as somethings I am planning may not work between esp's. Feel free to merge your own copy yourself but the merged one must be called "Horses For Followers", not BetterFollowerImprovements. You will need to do the same for each update.

I replied to your post on the Nexus forums where you said the exactly the same thing. Its likely you bought two player horses by mistake but I gave a fuller answer at Nexus. Your problem does seem a little unique, especially when you say the follower gets on your horse even if you don't. That can never happen, Logical impossibility since the AI to mount a horse depends exclusively on the player being on a horse. So the follower can not get on the player horse if you already on the player horse.

The only time it can happen is if you get on your horse and suddenly get off it again. But they would very quickly get off again. This is caused by AI update speeds on the AI stack, which Bethesda controlled.

That's good to hear, keep up the good work.