Originally Posted by Drysc

This change was implemented after the latest revision of the patch notes was made available for inclusion into the 1.12.1 patch binary. It will be documented in a future revision however.

There will be effectively two riding skill levels, apprentice and journeyman. The cost for the riding skill will be significantly higher than it previously was, however this is offset by a drastically lower cost for the actual mount.

For current players with mounts there will be a seamless transition to the new system. You will continue to have your mount; you will continue to be able to use it, etc. What this change does for players who don't yet have a mount or an epic mount is take the emphasis off of the mount itself, and put it on the riding skill. This helps give players access to more variety without requiring a large monetary investment if they, for instance, just want to pick a different colored horse.

Originally Posted by Tseric

Basically what we are doing is merging the types of riding trainers. Rather than having an Undead, Orc, Troll and Tauren mount riding trainer, they are being grouped under one banner. You will train the riding skill like purchasing another tier in a profession. Apprentice for the first available mounts, Journeyman for epic mounts.

It bears most of the cost onto the riding skill, so all mounts themselves are more available.

Summary:

-Mounts will be cheaper
-Indiviual race riding skills (tiger riding, horse riding, etc) will be merged into one blanket skill with ranks.

• Apprentice -> level 40 mount
• Journeyman -> Level 60 mount

* Who wants to wager a Master -> level 70 is added for flying mounts later in BC? This change removes the need for people to train a new riding skill for each type of flying mount if there are multiples of them.
-Players with Epic mounts will already have the Journeyman skill learned (maybe all 60s will get this boost).