Oh that was lovely. I feel like the writer, whoever they may turn out to be, really understood horses. The view into the pre-LotR court of Edoras was fascinating too; there's a skill in taking names from genealogies and turning them into real people who help turn their children into the characters we know they will be. (And Shadowfax as Thengel's horse just adds another layer to Theoden's later resentment!)
I feel like the naming was also spot-on here; I've just come from
Withgisl's Tale, where the names stood out as a bit unlikely, but everything here could have come straight from Tolkien or the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles.
hS