I agree, it looks great.  I think 5 hrs is a little too long for a model like this, because that doesn't include the UV and texturing yet.  But considering you did the horse head polygon by polygon, I could understand why.  I would have used box modeling, or subdivision methods to get there a lot faster, but your results are first-class.

Just think, if you ever decide to model a full chess set, you will already have a really great knight piece ready to go.  Bonus!