I know Gulmarg decently, I guess, in various seasons. The place to stay -- if you don't have private accomodations -- has been and remains Highland Park. The skiing nowadays I cannot comment about since it's been a while since I'd have even considered that there. There are two main ways to get there, car (rented or otherwise, shared or not) and helicopter from Srinagar. In summer there are also some tour buses that go there from Srinagar and even Jammu but it's better to have full time access to a car and come in from Srinagar. (I'd avoid public buses in Kashmir for a variety of reasons.) Once in Gulmarg, depending on your horse riding skills, hiring a horse or horse and "goda-wallah" is well possible but it's not a standard way to get around "town" except for tourist-type activities on one of the more standard horse tours and is not very popular in winter. I've been hearing that hiring a copter for extreme-type skiing is also now possible, but personally I know no one to have done that there since things started improving.