Secondary Profession. You can now learn to ride ground mounts, fast ground mounts, flying mounts, or fast flying mounts from your riding trainer or ride at the highest possible speed on your flying mount. You'll need to find a riding trainer for your race and then purchase a mount.
Riding is a secondary profession in which characters may learn to ride mounts, which provide movement speed bonuses and, when applicable, the ability to fly or swim underwater. Every mount has a minimum skill level required for riding(With a few exeptions). As of Patch 4.0.1, increasing riding skill grants further increases to movement speed. All ground mounts increase movement speed by 60/100% (Apprentice/Journeyman) and all flying mounts increase ground movement speed by 100% and flying movement speed by 150/280/310% (Expert/Artisan/Master).
More detail on the requirements for each mount can be found on the mounts page.
The following table lists the skill levels available and the cost to train each skill. Due to the high cost of training, the price with discount is also listed in the table. The only discounts available are faction discounts, which vary depending on where you train in the riding skill:
[Apprentice] and [Journeyman riding] are discounted based on your standing with whatever race you buy them from. All playable races have trainers.
Be aware that there are some trainers who give no discounts at all.
Note that only the trainer of your race will teach you riding skill until you become exalted with another race/faction.
Also, note that the prices listed for the mount itself refer to the basic mounts available to each race, usually purchasable from a vendor near the riding trainer. Special, reputation reward, or vanity mounts may cost more or require special currency to purchase. To save space, faction discounts on the mounts themselves are not included in the table.
Worgen (playable) receive the 75 skill when they reach level 20 via the racial skill Running Wild. A visit to a trainer is not needed.
Death Knights receive the 150 skill at character creation (level 55); they learn to summon an Acherus Deathcharger, a swift land mount, as a quest in the Acherus starting zone.
Druids receive the 225 skill (if they already have 150) with [Flight Form] at level 60.
Paladins receive the 75 skill as part of buying their level 20 mount spell from their trainer. At level 60 they can complete the Charger quest chain which rewards the Journeyman riding skill (and a Feat of Strength). (Training the Charger at level 40 does not provide Journeyman riding skill.)
Warlocks also receive the 75 skill as part of buying their level 20 mount spell from their trainer. At level 60 they can complete a quest to learn their Dreadsteed summon and get Journeyman riding skill (and a Feat of Strength). (Like paladins, training to summon the fast mount at level 40 does not reward the riding skill.)
Before Patch 4.0.1, several other mounts existed that could fly at 310% speed with Artisan flying. Any character that owned one of these before Patch 4.0.1 automatically learned Master Riding Skill at no cost, making all other flying mounts 310% speed.
Note that like all professions (although Riding is not technically a profession), all lower ranked skill levels must be learned before training further (e.g. Expert skill is required to train Artisan skill).
This is a summary of the class mounts. Associated quests for the paladin and warlock mounts, while obsolete in the sense that they are no longer required, have not been removed from the game.
Various levels (apprentice, expert, etc.) of riding skill may not appear in the list of trainable skills in the trainer's window unless Available is checked in the Filter list.
As of release, you cannot fly in starting zones for Blood elf and Draenei. This is apparently intended.[2]
Characters that already had a 310% mount pre-4.0.1 are given this skill free of charge. All other characters must purchase Master Flying to receive 310% flight speed.
Changed the faction discounts for the riding skill vendors in Honor Hold and Thrallmar to use Stormwind and Orgrimmar faction, respectively. This is because newly-arrived 60s in Outland are unlikely to have any Honor Hold or Thrallmar rep.[1]
The cast time for summoning any ground mount is now 1.5 seconds, down from 3 seconds.
Apprentice Riding (Skill 75): Can now be learned at level 20 for 4. Mail will be sent to players who reach level 20 directing them to the riding trainer.
Journeyman Riding (Skill 150): Can now be learned at level 40 for 50. Mail will be sent to players who reach level 40 directing them back to the riding trainer.
Expert Riding (Skill 225): Can now be learned at level 60 for 600 from trainers in Honor Hold or Thrallmar. Faction discounts now apply (Honor Hold for Alliance; Thrallmar for Horde). Flight speed at this skill level has been increased to +150% of run speed, up from +60%.
In order to further equalize the number of purchasable mounts available to each race, a new 60% speed ground mount has been added for night elves, and a new 100% speed ground mount has been added for the undead.
Flying over Dalaran and Wintergrasp is now possible so long as players keep a healthy distance above the ground.
For 1,000 level 80 Main characters can purchase the Heirloom[Tome of Cold Weather Flight] and give it to their alts level 68+ that have a flying skill of 225+ (not 150 as previously stated) to learn Cold Weather Flying.
/Patch 3.0.2 (14-Oct-2008):[Cold Weather Flying] added at level 77 at a cost of 1,000. Patch 2.4.3 (2008-07-15): The level requirement for Apprentice Riding was lowered from 40 to 30. It also reduces the cost from 90 to 35, and its respective reputation discounts. /Patch 2.0.1 (05-Dec-2006): PvP rankings also no longer grant the player an additional 10% discount Before TBC, the cost of Journeyman riding was 900, so the total cost of getting an epic mount was the same as before. It has since been reduced to 600 to make it easier to buy Expert riding skill. Patch 1.12.1 (26-Sep-2006): The cost structure and functionality of Riding and Mounts was changed. Prior to that patch, Riding was an ability rather than a secondary Profession, and had only one rank. Each faction had its own riding skill (tiger riding, horse riding, mechanostrider piloting, ram riding) and the cost was 20, available at level 40. Exalted reputation was required to learn cross-faction riding skill, but mounts were Bind on Use and purchasable by anyone for 80. This meant that characters who were PvP rank 3 or higher could pass on the 10% discount directly to other characters by buying the mount for them. This is no longer possible because all mounts are now Bind on Pickup, and the majority of the cost is built into the riding skill training (which is no longer faction-specific) rather than the cost of the mount.