From a lot of Westerns and Western-derived works, we have the popular image of cowboys hitching their horses on a horse station outside as they head into a saloon or hotel for activities.
However, recent encounters with Western media (especially actual video games like Red Dead) have made me thinking - isn't that a terribly unsafe way to keep your horse, especially if your horse is an expensive breed? Isn't riding a thoroughbred similar to driving a Porsche, and if combined with an expensive saddle and riding gear, really tempting to greedy eyes?
So I'm curious - how were horses, and their associated items (saddlebags, its contents, the saddle itself and tack etc) kept safe during those times? If there's a watchman, is it enough? Are there any forms of guarantee or insurance? Exactly how much of a loss would the loss of a favourite horse and its gear be?
Any and all info would be appreciated.
The horse is a key aspect of the popularized image of the Wild West, but ownership was far from universal. One of the things one realizes after reading a lot of primary sources about the West was how few people ever owned a horse. Horses were tools, and most people didn't need one even if they enjoyed the benefits of horses throughout their lives.
After participating in nearly three decades of archaeology in the Virginia City National Historic Landmark District, I was struck by how few horse-related items our teams found. (See my book on the Virginia City's material culture, published in 2012.)
The one site that did, in fact, have a lot of horse-related artifacts was a stable, and here is the answer to your question, but first, some context.
The horse is ubiquitous in Westerns because it captures the image of the freedom and open spaces of the West. To get from here to there, one certainly was in need of a horse, and like your analogy of a sportscar, what better way is there than to capture the essence of being young and in the West than riding fast across the open countryside.
It is true enough that to get "from here to there" the horse was often essential, but it is not true that everyone owned a horse. People relied on mass transit - stagecoaches, omnibuses, and when available, trains - to travel. It was rare to find anyone riding their own horse - or to use their own horse with a carriage/wagon to travel long distances. People on the outskirts of towns - ranchers, etc. might ride their own horse into town, but these people were rare: the West has always been one of the most urban regions of North American.
For very small towns, one might ride into town and "park" a horse or wagon wherever one might. This is the equivalent of the definition of a small town someone once told me that you knew you were a local when you stopped you car and left it running to run into the post office. In a small town, the threat of theft is less because everyone recognizes your horse and everyone knows everyone.
In a town of any size, one would take a horse to a "parking garage" - a stable, where the horse would be properly watered, fed and perhaps groomed and relieved of its saddle. It would have been madness to leave a horse on the side of a thoroughfare: the streets were often congested with transports, teamsters, and others passing. It simply would not have been a good idea.