TBH I think you're focussing on the wrong things. Whilst these are handy to know, shooting in RAW WB essentially doesn't matter as you can sort that in post later, and 98% of the time Matrix metering will get it near enough and on top of that you have so much flexibility in post with the highlight and shadow recovery that it doesn't matter if you're over/underexposed by a stop to two.
That being said, if I know light isn't going to change much for a range of shots I do sometimes set it to a particular setting so that there is a constant WB between shots. Also if I decide it doesn't quite look right later I can copy and paste the WB settings to the whole lot knowing that they will all look the same.
As for metering, most of the time I will set it to matrix but I do use the others on occasion. For example if I'm shooting subjects that are reasonably central in the frame then I'll use centre weighted, and in dark scenes with bright lights/subjects I'll use highlight weighted metering. For your horse pics I'd use matrix mostly though. You just need to learn for what scenes it might not be best, such as a dark horse against heavy backlight.
But if you really want your images to pop, and also be as sharp as possible learn about light, learn about where to stand so that the light is in the right place and going to illuminate your subject how you want. I know this will not always be possible and you have to stand where you have to stand, but just changing your angle slightly can make a big difference. This is the area that I'm trying to figure out at the moment, exactly how you need the light to fall to make things really pop.
Also composition makes a big difference, and another area where I struggle to get creative. Yes I can take perfectly focussed pics etc but there's nothing special about them. For me now interesting compositions and subjects are far more important than an image being absolutely tack sharp. That's not to say that I want them to be soft, but I'm fed up with sharp boring images.