Age of Conan Answers from Kalanthes #1

Funcom's official Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures community website has been updated with its first "Answers from Kalanthes" Q&A, which provides answers to some persistent community questions.
In looking at some of the interviews, mounted combat looks very exciting, and would make travel a little nicer, but one question came up for me since where I preordered from gives you a free mount. Can mounts be hurt or killed to the point where you permanently lose them? If so, will it be hard for a player to get hit or knocked off a mount without the mount dying first?

When you get on your horse (or mammoth or rhino or whatever), you and the mount share the same health and stamina pool. That's not to say there won't be bonuses for being on them, but the game will treat the (you) and (the horse) as one unit, so when you get killed or run out of stamina, the horse gets killed or runs out of stamina (though, yes, you can be unhorsed). However, you will not permanently lose them. There may be a penalty for getting your mount killed, but you will not lose them forever.