Can I lead my mount/animal companion on foot during combat?

Question

If my mount/animal companion has reins attached to them which I am holding, and I am on foot, how do I move and bring my mount with me?

I can imagine it involves one or more of the following:

• Dragging a grappled creature (if you consider a mount grappled when you have control of their reigns, but this only covers unwilling creatures)
• Using an object/improvising an action (the object in question would be a bit and bridle, I suppose, but there's no rules and it's not the same as reins?)
• Animal Handling check (but it's not clear if this would require an action on top of movement)

But I don't see any rules there or elsewhere that clarify how to lead my mount on foot in combat.

Answer 1

Your horse must use its action to Ready its movement, then move on your turn (or vice versa).

This is the only way to get the two of you moving in sync. One of you uses Ready to move when the other moves, and the other moves.

If you're looking for Horse Simulator 1492, D&D maybe just isn't the right game.

Let's face it, the mounted combat rules for D&D 5e aren't good. They are unintuitive and restrictive. If mounted combat is something you're really looking for, maybe you should look elsewhere. I'm not aware of any other games with great mounted combat rules, but there are lots of games that do other things better than D&D, so there's probably one for this.