The horse arrived to the New World in the 1500s and worked its way north, slowly at first, but after the first Apaches in Texas took to them, the spread very quickly up to the Plains of modern day Canada.
For some reason, somewhere between 1650-1680, no one knows where or how, the small tribe of Comanche took to the horse. In context the settles in the east were fighting bloody and devastating wars against the coastal Indians, losing as often as winning, for their fire arms were primitive and they used pikes and swords as much as guns and canon.
The Comanche took to the horse like few others. Within a generation they had moved south onto the Great Plains, pushing back Indians like the huge Osage tribe, the Apache, Cado and the Towankas. The Comanche spread like a prairie fire south into Texas and New Mexico; their numbers grew, their abilities improved and they soon drove all the souther tribes to the edge of the Plains, some to extinction. The Spainish Empre collapsed in the north due to Comanche raids. The Apaches were driven into the mountains. The Osage collapsed back across the Mississippi. By 1750 the Comanche had carved an empire out of the Great Plains that they would hold for the better part of a century.
Long before they knew white men existed their warfare was insanely brutal, burning people alive, torturing them to death. It was like all war across the Great Plains but with the Comanche it had a particularly brutal flavor.
They were most probably the greatest horsemen the world has ever seen. They learned to ride at age 6-7 and within a few years had to pick up items from the ground while riding. A crucial skill was scooping up wounded comrades from horseback. They are the Indians that slid onto the horse's flank to avoid an enemies weapon, all while holding lance, bow and shield. Their horses were trained to move at the sound of a bow twang. They fought from horse back which few other Plains tribes did.
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