To be fair, I don't know in detail how the code works.. so this could be dumb, if so my apologies.
I think this might help the problem that animals have with hitting hearthlings when they are on horseback, as well as making it easier for the hearthling to hit back. It would nerf bows against horses but hopefully thats not too much of an issue, since people probably block horses in to fight them anyway :p
edit: this isn't a radical suggestion, just a bandaid until stuff can possibly be fixed more sensibly.