You can ride horses. You just need as many horses as you have people in order for you to notice a difference in speed. You'll only go as fast as your slowest person/horse/cow/atv.
Not a big fan of this game at all. I did end up getting the badges and card. The ads for the other game, bugs with different spells, not grabbing some guys...I guess it was alright to kill a little bit of time though.
vtecno_geek, simply start your guys in the back and then add more to the front once the back ones get built up. Then the front ones will build up also.