Hmmm... I was hoping that would piece everything together for you. You seem to have investigated enough to answer your own questions in the other regards. The only things I think you were missing were the "facing in combat" issue (which I never found a need to do, the horse fought just fine whether I was mounted on it or not - with adequate training for mount and rider of course.) My paladin was over 60th when horses were originally released, and my new paladin hasn't reached there yet (I'm trying to keep track this time through) so I can't answer exactly when you get "mount" skills. Might be paladin only and thus not on the usual websites, but I thought it was fairly early 20-30th... Signal horse <charge> and <attack> used to be obtained through the bond from what I remember... and if you can find anything out there, there was a group for the "Elanthian Equestrian Enthusiast Society" at one time that had everything for everyone listed. Spending hours and hours typing "pat horse", "rub horse", "hug horse" etc, and you can't groom every RL hour as needed if you use barding so it got old in a hurry for me this time around.

Olwydd (http://www.olwydd.org/), The wolf den (http://arcanewolf.com/) and Crossroads (http://dr.warcry.com/) all have horse sections to one extent or another as well as I recall.

Sorry I can't be more help.
Cheers.