Lol... Handel, I think a horse at full gallop would break both of its rear legs if it tried to rear to an instantaneous dead stop. And I think a horse that reared just in time before a precipice would actually get carried over the cliff by its sheer momentum. Remember kids, momentum is a vector quantity and is commonly found as p = mass * velocity. Very heavy horse. Go very fast. Very big much momentum. Break leg. Go over cliff. Rearing bad for horsey unless it go slow.
So, yeah. I'm all for having a horse being able to rear when you're at full gallop. But only under the following conditions:
1) The horse must break both of its hind legs, automatically becoming permanently lame when it stops at full gallop.
2) The rider must fall off the horse and land at an odd angle on his/her head, instantly becoming Christopher Reeve.
3) The horse must be carried forward by its momentum for a distance before landing on the ground with its broken legs and Mr. Christopher Reeve crushed pitifully beneath it. If this momentum is great, the fall must cause the collapse of nearby stars, generating black holes.
4) If said black holes are near enough to Earth, Earth must be pulled out of its orbit and be plunged into the singularity of the black hole, at which point your M&B character automatically is torn to pieces in 20 dimensions.
Hardy har har.
Honestly, I'm guilty of using this exploit. When my horse archery skill is low, I just rear up my horse in order to get off accurate shots.
It'd be nice to see the game physics be a little more realistic. Maybe I should start a thread on tweaking the game physics. Or someone else should. Since I've wasted a lot of time when I should be studying.