Found this:

Originally Posted by Sharum
Mount abilities were made, and intended, to be a part of mounted combat. However, the intention was never that mounted combat should be a on/off switch. As with normal (melee) combat, where you gain addition attack directions at level 40 (as an example), we wanted to introduce it to the players gradually; first by allowing you to ride on the very basest of mounts and do basic attacks (swinging your sword, casting some spells, firing your bow) and, at a later point, by giving you better horses (armored vs. normal) and skills that, at least in my head, proves that you're a better rider that can utilize your mount as a weapon.

Unfortunately, due to a bit of internal miscommunication just before launch, the abilities were linked to the incorrect skills. It was fixed internally just after launch, but not patched out straight away. There were many reasons for this, and one of them is that we wanted to address the concerns people had about mounts being too slow and nail down the bug that caused people to be forcibly dismounted way too often. Said patch is "just around the corner" now, and although I cannot give an exact date you should see both the bug-fixes, the "buff(s)" and the "nerf(s)" pretty soon.

In closing I would also like to say that I can understand why some people will be upset about this "nerf", and for this I can only apologize on behalf of both myself and Funcom. We do however think that, for the long run, correcting this mistake and bringing mounted combat more in line with our intial design will be the best solution.