The general consensus seems to be that until the development of gunpowder, horse archer based armies are superior to any other type, mainly thanks to their ability to inflict casualties from a distance and withdraw at will. Significant mounted archery traditions emerged in a diverse range of peoples and geographies from the Eurasian steppes to Persia and Japan. However, to my knowledge Western Europe never utilized horse archery to a significant degree and instead stuck with heavy and light melee cavalry. Why did the warrior class of medieval Europe not adopt horse archery? They had a tradition of highly trained mounted warriors, and were familiar with horse archery and its devastating effects thanks to encounters with the Huns, Mongols, and Persians. Did Europe's geography make horse archery unfavorable? Perhaps specific features of war in Europe such as the level of fortification or reliance on peasant levies made them less effective or difficult to introduce? Could there have been a sort of cultural blind spot to using mounted archers thanks to the legacy of Greece and Rome's infantry based armies? Or perhaps my initial premise is wrong and horse archer based armies are not as formidable as I have been lead to believe?