You might find my answer on a related question of use.

The following is the initial response, but there is more in the thread:

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.

Hi there - we're happy to approve your question related to your creative project, and we are happy for people to answer. However, we should warn you that many flairs have become reluctant to answer questions for aspiring novelists and the like, based on past experience: some people working on creative projects have a tendency to try to pump historians for trivia while ignoring the bigger points they were making, while others have a tendency to argue with historians when the historical reality does not line up with what's needed for a particular scene or characterization. Please respect the answers of people who have generously given you their time, even if it's not always what you want to hear.

Additionally, as amazing as our flair panel is, we should also point out that /r/AskHistorians is not a professional historical consultation service. If you're asking a question here because you need vital research for a future commercial product such as a historical novel, you may be better off engaging a historical consultant at a fair hourly rate to answer these questions for you. We don't know what the going rate for consultancy work would be in your locality, but it may be worth looking into that if you have in-depth or highly plot-reliant questions for this project. Some /r/AskHistorians flairs could be receptive to working as a consultant in this way. However, if you wish for a flair here to do this work for you, you will need to organize this with them yourselves.

For more general advice about doing research to inform a creative project, please check out our Monday Methods post on the subject.