1) I don't know much about combining animations. You can have multiple skeletons in the editor, play around with those.
2) using the visibility dot in the hierarchy list. If you have "auto key" turned on, this will become part of your animation.
3) This depends on the runtime you're using. In Unity, there's a skin selection field in the inspector.
4) As much as you feel like! :sun: I just hope we can still help you then. :handshake:
As far as having your hero ride the horse:
• match up their timings
• have a look at "Spine boy" riding the velociraptor in the example files, this should provide you with good info!