There is a BIG difference in riding a horse vs and ATV!!

One - horses are animals that were naturally here before we were. You can take them where it is not legal to take an ATV. I know a lot of horsemen, and they are some of the hardest hunting people I know. They use them to get back in even farther than the hardest hiker could even imagine to go. Horses do not make nearly the noise, nor do they pollute nearly as much as ATV's do. And you are not just riding around on your horse looking for game, and magically sneak up on it without being spotted. You get to an area, often times leaving the horse at camp and walking around camp during the hunt, and then using the horse to carry 300lbs of elk meat out instead of trying to get it all on your back, or worse yet, only being able to take a few cuts at a time, and by the time you get to the kill site for the rest of the animal, its all gone, eaten by either a bear or cougar. Horses can make or break a hunt, especially if you hunt solo many (10, maybe 15? more?) miles back into wilderness, and like to take more than what a minimalist would call comfortable. You can ride the horse in the 10 miles or whatever with a comfortable amount of gear, more than you could easily do on your back in one trip, then set camp, leave the horse in camp during the day, hunt, get your animal, bone it out, and walk out with camp and animal on the horse in one trip, rather than making two or more trips to do it on your back.

An ATV??? It gets you from point A to point B on a road a little quicker than walking