Horses greet Lehi’s band of weary travelers immediately upon their arrival in the Western Hemisphere (1 Nephi 18:25), and are then mentioned thirteen additional times in the Book of Mormon: 2 Nephi 12:7; 15:28. Enos 1:21. Alma 18:9, 10, 12; 20:6. 3 Nephi 3:22; 4:4; 6:1; 21:14. Ether 9:19.

Just as Joseph Smith did in the Book of Mormon …

“Serious scholars in the early nineteenth century knew that … horses had all been imported to America [via Columbus], but most others were unaware of this. For example, the Reverend Solomon Spaulding placed horses in his romance novel of the pre-Columbian Indians of North America.”

Dan Vogel, Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1986), 46.