My wife’s OTTB mare, Lady, did not like traveling off site, at the suggestion of a friend a young female goat was purchased as a companion animal. Lady’s reaction - she nearly killed the goat trying to get close to it - eventually moderated and the two became inseparable such that trips away became doable if not routine. Our recommendation would be to get a Pygmy Goat as they’re easier to handle and get a female so you’re not bothered by the smell & pee that Billy goats produce.
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There are two basic kinds of dwarfy goats, the ‘dairy’ one, which is called Nigerian Dwarf, and the ‘meat’ one, which is called African Pygmy. The Pygmies are stocky and really stubby (they are only pets here, and not that common), the Nigies are very popular and easy to find, come in a range of sizes. Grade or mongrel goats (aka 'brush goats") are also often considerably smaller than purebred show goats which are often selected for tallness or bulk.
Buck goats are always to be avoided for not just smell, but luckily wethered (gelded) males are the cheapest kind of goat. No smell.
In all cases get a goat with a calm temperament which has been trained to lead.
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15 to 18 Years is average … unless a coyote or other predator intervenes
Around here I was told most goats are now being sold to the increased local Middle Eastern population
Many, many moons ago, like in the early 90s, we went to look at a Pony Club mare who came with/traveled to events with her pet sheep…very cool horse, but my sister preferred chill and she was a spicy red mare.
I personally like goats, and mine seem to coexist with the horses. They like to follow when I drive around our place. The only beef I have with them is the time they climbed a snow bank and went trit-trotting over the arena roof when the kids were riding…
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This video of my goat should be required viewing for anyone considering getting a goat. For something that’s barely 2ft tall, it is amazing how loudly she BELLOWS when she’s mad. What makes her mad, you ask? Horses out of immediate sight, even for a second. Some invisible planets out of alignment. The wind blowing from SSE instead of ESE as she prefers. Who knows, just about anything can set Piipa off. Sweetest goat ever, loves to get scritches, but holy cow she tries my patience some days.
While our horses and goats get along very well and seem to enjoy each other’s company, neither horse would be comforted (enough) by the goats, if the other horse were gone. I mean, if that’s all the horse had, I’m sure they’d get used to it. But no, goats are not at all an immediate substitute.
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You know…most folks who live around here, when i ask them, say they’ve never eaten lamb. I suspect the number would decrease further if i asked them about goat meat. I love both actually. Icelandic sheep meat is so mild you have to have some of the fat in order to taste ‘sheep’. We’ve had mature Icelandic ram meat and it is as mild as any commercial lamb. I like mutton and strong flavor. Same with goat meat.
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For some reason, when I was a very small child, my parents had a sheep. Just one, I think, a young one. We had a very sweet, quiet, old, semi retired horse at the time also on the farm. That horse used that sheep as furry hoof packing. Struck it with front feet, and killed it when it came into his paddock. That was the end of keeping a sheep near horses for us! The bloody and broken body was removed and buried by my parents, I only heard about it later.
Oh man…that’s awful!!! One of my mules killed a lamb once. The mustangs are really good with other species. Chickens, sheep, llamas, cattle… They’re pretty much: Live and Let Live
It’s common for goat breeders to time their kiddings to produce butcher size kids at ethnic holidays which involve eating a lamb or kid. Depends on what ethnicity is around you. Goat is the world’s most popular meat, except in US/Canada and western Europe. When I lived in California I sold a lot of my extra kids (the wethers) to Mexican-Americans and once to a guy from Chile.
We have had halal folks interested in our sheep …esp since we are an organic (not 100% or certified btw) farm and do not maim or mark our animals (no tail docking on sheep, nor tatoo or tags). But we have not ever sold one. To anyone actually. If they’re born here, they stay here.
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@EssexFells, I admit it, I am laughing out loud, at work, at your goat and her opinion about whatever it was in her life that was less than perfectly how she wanted it at that moment.
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Ha, we had an obnoxious pygmy Billy goat. I would feed my horse on a flattish boulder inside the pasture gate. One day Billy thought he would hop up on the boulder and enjoy some grain. My horse flattened his ears in warning two times - goat looked at him for a moment and continued to help himself to the grain. The third time, Billy was picked up by the scruff and tossed about 10 feet. He bleated and ran from the pasture and never tried sharing Jag’s grain again.
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Consider getting a donkey. Donkeys (at least our two) are easy peasy. They call occasionally if we are late to feed. They are hell on canids - stray dogs and coyotes stand no chance at all with these two on their heels. They accept our pet dogs but give them a hard eye and the dogs give the donkeys a wide, respectful berth.
Ours require virtually no medical care, other than shots and a bit of hoof trimming that we do ourselves. They are funny, sweet, and deep thinkers. They are cheap to purchase and cheap to keep.
We live in the desert and our equines live in a sacrifice area for 10 months of the year, so I can’t speak to them living on pasture. They are easy keepers, for sure, and if you have rich pasturage, that would likely have to be managed somehow.
Ours are wonderful and I prefer them to goats (no offense to the goat folks).
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I have never owned a goat. My goat experiences are limited to:
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A barn where I rode as a teenager had a Billy goat that roamed around. He was known to sneak up behind people and butt them. He also stunk.
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A place where I boarded my horse had 2 goats (a nanny and a wether). They were kept in a paddock by themselves. If you went into the paddock, the boy goat was immediately in your business and in your personal space. He liked to rub his head on people and there were a few times that he ripped peoples’ clothes with his horns. The girl goat was sweet but she was dumb. She was always getting her head stuck in the fence and needing to be rescued.
I have had 2 donkeys over the years and both were way cool. I’m more of a donkey person than a goat person. 
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We had a goat dairy and when a foal needed supplementation or lost it’s dam, some of those goats were trained to hop on a bale and let the foal nurse.
We also loaned such goats to other breeders when they had a foal in need.
Local vets were the ones to tell them to get a goat for their foals.
Some goats and foal got along, many foals were too hard on goats, so were kept across a fence and only had access to them to nurse with someone there.
Also some stables had a goat or two to keep the horses quiet and at times one goat or horse would become very attached and those were kept together, even when hauled to races.
OP, if you get a goat for your horse, if the horse needs company, not all horses alone do, even just a goat across the fence is good company, if it is not safe with the more aggressive horses.
Then you probably need two goats, so they have company.
Many horses do fine alone, but a goat alone is an unhappy goat, sad and lonely.
Goats thrive more than most other critters with others around them, of any species.
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and that is How my neighbor’s herd got to over 25 goats as his two were an intact male and a female…who always had twins, twice a year
The babies are cute but they grow out of that cute stage rapidly
Baby goats are funnier than the best TV. 
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One of mine is obsessed with the four boys who live on the farm, who helped bottle feed her, play with her, etc. When she seems them, she is beside herself, bleating greeting sounds, skipping and leaping. When they leave, she starts pacing and yelling, like Pipa in your video. She screams like her legs are being pulled off.
If she is loose, she follows them back to the house, tries to get in, then stands against the door and looks through the window, crying. I have to drag her away and put her back in her pen.
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I’d suggest a mini. Mini mule, donkey, or horse. My mini mule and my horses all get along really well and they groom each other (which I feel is a showing of how well they like each other). You will be familiar with their care too, and while they certainly can have medical issues just like the big horses, they do seem to have less than the big guys. You will need to muzzle in the summertime if you are anywhere with grass, but that’s not a huge hassle.
There’s two problems with goats. One is that they actually are not as hardy as they appear. They can suffer from a whole range of very expensive problems just like horses can, but with the fun part of it being difficult to find a vet who will treat them.
(I have a friend who just got some thinking they would help her cut down on weed whacking. Well, within a week one got super sick and ended up in goat ICU. Probably cost her more than all the vet bills of her other horses for the year combined). Two is that some horses just really hate goats. So you may just end up with goats you have to keep away from the horse because they will try to kill each other.
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