Like I understand that the apologists are trying really hard to make the Book of Mormon not completely crumble but why the hell would they mean Tarpirs or that sheep actually meant Turkeys???

Well, what else can they do? They know full well that Joseph knew very little about ancient America. How can they save something that at this point is clearly impossible to save.

DNA and American Archaeology have pretty much finished off Joseph's fictional creation. With it's history in shreds, all that's left is a book of bible quotations.

I know but do the apologists have ANY good reason as to why they would were down horses?

I, quite frankly, don't know as they have any acceptable reason for what they do. I could never be that intellectually dishonest. They have to be blind, stupid or feel that "lying for the Lard" will someday be rewarded.

They wouldn't, if there were any Nephites.
The apologist spin on "horses" contradicts reports of how the BoM was "translated," with Smith reading the English text from his magic rock in his hat, and the magically appearing text not going away until it was written down exactly as shown to him.
So either "god" who was doing the magic rock writing didn't know a horse from a tapir, or the "translation" didn't go as the reports claimed.
Or, of course, it's all made up.

My vote is for option #3.

Also played down is all the wonderful interplay between mighty prophet of ghawd Spencer "don't call me Spence!" Kimball and the Navajo Lamanites he saw turning white! "Here is proof!" he would say!

Because Jehovah made the Nephites use code words for certain items in order to test OUR faith. For example, horses are not really horses, steel is not really steel, Cumorah is not really Cumorah, compasses are not really compasses, swords are not really swords, "translate" is not the same as "translate", ad nauseum. You have to be like Tapir Dan and read the BofM with your spiritual eyes, and you too can find the hidden code words!

That's about it as far as BOM vocabulary is concerned. And then there's the logic and the syntax. The logic tells you that God commands and God punishes, both in unreasonable ways. The repetitive syntax lulls you into carnal security, leading you to believe that the book is true.

Every time I see the pig-like tapirs at the zoo, I think of the BOM and giggle.