Young Writers Society

In a lot of fantasy novels, the main character has never ridden a horse before. Then they ride everyday all day for a week. I'm here to tell you that there would be some serious (SERIOUS) discomfort. If you have any questions about what its like to ride a horse, what muscles are sore once you've ridden a horse, how long horses can gallop without tiring, etc, feel free to ask them here!

Hey @ehobby1465! Thank you SO MUCH for offering your expertise because I have a lot of questions. I've never ridden a horse in my life and embarrassingly all my characters do.

In my novel, all my characters are experienced riders so I don't so much have an issue with that, but if you are experienced, do you still get sore after riding? After how long? I'm sure you get dusty, do you get sweaty as well?

How long can a horse go at a normal pace? Also what is the normal pace, like a trot? I don't even know!

Finally, one of my characters, Nathaniel, wears full plate armour all the time. He's weird like that and everyone makes fun of it. I don't expect you to necessarily know this as it's not in the repertoire of modern people who ride horses, but I assume that armour adds a lot of extra weight and tires horses more quickly? Do you have any idea how long that might be?

Ok here we go!

So here are some basics on horses gaits/speeds for a healthy young horse with a rider

Walk- about 4 mph, can be sustained for 10+ hours
Trot- about 8 mph, can be sustained for 6ish hours
Canter- about 14 mph, can be sustained for 3ish hours
Gallop- about 20 mph, can be sustained for an hour

If your riders are walking, they won't be sore. Trotting will cause soreness in experienced riders after long periods of time, especially mid thigh where there is a buckle that digs into your muscle. Posting trot (where a rider moves up and down with the rhythm of the horse) is the most common, and you will get a bit sweaty. Sitting trot, where you ride out the bumpiness, is much harder, you will be much sorer, and much sweatier. Cantering is easier on the rider, but harder on the horse. You probably won't get sweaty until hour 2, but you will still have sore spots where buckles dig into your thighs. Gallop is fairly uncomfortable for the rider, basically you stand up in your stirrups until it is over. The longest time I've galloped would have to be about 20 minutes, and I was sweaty and out of breath.

Finally, the plate armour. A quick google shows that it can be up to 100 lbs, so I'm just going to base my thoughts on that. You would need a larger breed of horse (this is why they had war horses) to even manage that. Smaller horses would not be able to sustain anything faster than a walk. Draft horses (the huge Budweiser ones) would be more suited for the task, but I would guess they'd only be able to sustain a canter for about an hour and a gallop for maybe fifteen minutes. However, another issue arises. Horses are super skittish, so Nathaniel would not be able to just pick any old horse and rid it. The horses at my barn freak if they see tin foil, so I'm really not sure how a suit of armor would go over. He would need a specially trained horse.

If there is anything I wasn't clear on, please let me know!

Wow thanks that's amazing! He only rides his own horse which is a big war-horse type I guess and is well trained so I think that probably makes sense - but hey maybe he scares the other horses in the stable with his shininess something I never thought about.

Thank you so much for your help! <3

I hope you don't mind a little more information, @ehobby1465!

@StellaThomas Some horses do have a type of gait known as ambling. I'm not sure how long it can be sustained for, but it can be sustained for longer than a trot, is more comfortable, and is about the same speed as a trot (from what I understand? Some look faster/slower when you watch videos, and depending on the type of ambling. Tölt, found in Icelandic horses, is a variable speed, for example).

Historically, people loved the ambling gait. If you're writing a period piece, you might end up having them use that type of stride. I know when I was researching horse breeds for my novel, I very specifically took an ambling gait horse because of its historical use. (You can find a list here)

Also just an aside— English saddles vs Western saddles. They are two totally different beasts so you might want to specify that. Western saddles are much, much larger and are more like a seat than anything else. Not sure when or how they developed, though, so my point might be moot in a historical setting. But saddle types do change over time.

Not at all, thank you so much!