Bought this for my (just) 3 year old at Christmas. She is heavily into role play and dressing up, so this was just the ticket. It is easy for her to handle and 'ride', as an average-sized child, and she especially loves the sound effects, operated by buttons in each ear (neighing on one side, clip-clopping hoof noises on the other).
There is a battery compartment accesses through a velcro-ed slit by the mane, with the obligatory screwdriver-requiring cover (philips); easy to access and change batteries. The wheel at the base works fine, and (so far) has not damaged floors.
The mane is black and not white as pictured, and is still beautiful. The fabric is soft and strokable, although the mane is (realistically) quite coarse. Lovely item for the imaginative youngster (ours now gets fed daily; fortunately only with pretend apples so far).