Traveling in Red Dead Redemption

The advantage on buying a horse is that you will be able to call that -kind- of horse back even when it dies. Thus, if you buy a nice horse such the Kentucky Saddler, American Standardbred or Hungarian Half-bred you won't need to break them again to use them.

By the way, once you buy a horse it won't automatically come to you .. you must open your inventory and use the item you bought representing the horse... then, the horse you were using will go away and the 'item' horse will come to you. This item representing the horse has unlimited uses.

I had trouble with dueling too. Perhaps try shooting where your crosshair lights up red. Also wait until dead-eye automatically engages and it tells you to draw. (?)

You can also try disarming the guy by shooting him in the hand. Some people, usually story related, cannot be disarmed, as such aiming for the hand will only get you killed instead, which can be frustrating.

Rockstar discussed it a little here, hopefully this is helpful: http://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/5991/rockstar_game_tips_dueling_like_a_pro_in_red_dead_redemption.article