Every western movie I’ve ever seen either had a stagecoach with horses galloping all day, or cowboys galloping across the entire western desert.
I doubt whether horses can gallop full speed more than a few miles without stopping, and even less if pulling a stagecoach full of gamblers, bad guys, beautiful women and a hero or two.
Horse people, what is the straight dope?
Horses can’t do a true gallop for very far at all. It is usually somewhere near 1 - 3 miles depending on the size and fitness of the horse. Cantering and, especially trotting, allow them to travel at a fairly fast pace for much longer distances.
Quite so.
Even riders for the equine rapid transit system known as the Pony Express only achieved 10-15 mph, which is a canter, and they changed horses every 10-15 miles.
Earlier this year (around Triple Crown time) a thread inspired by the Kentucky Derby was done about the speed of the thoroughbreds. (I’m too lazy and it’s too late to search.) Remember that these races are from 1 mile to 1 1/2 miles. An informed poster on the board pointed out that late in the race every horse slows down. It’s a matter of which horse(s) is/are slowing down the most that makes the run down the stretch interesting.
I never thought of it that way before but it sounds like good information.
The Tevis Cup (a 100 miles- in 24 hours endurance race) pace is about 7mph, which is a combination of trotting and walking (some over extremely rocky terrain); trotting is the most efficient gait.
There is actually a funny scene in “Hidalgo” - at the start of the race everyone gallops off full tilt whooping and screaming – as soon as they are out of sight of the crowd every rider immediately slows to a sedate trot.
Mark Twain describes a similar, hilarious scene in his book "Roughing It"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roughing_It.
He’s taking the stage coach heading out of St. Louis on his western adventure. The horses take off in all of their speedy glory. As soon as they are out of sight, they unhitch the horses and hook up a bunch of pack mules to the stage coach for the real journey.
I’m fully cognisant of the fact that cowboys didn’t gallop across the entire western desert on a thoroughbred racehorse, and that the terrain isn’t exactly a well prepared turf surface.
That said, the longest flat race in the British racing calendar is the Queen Alexandra Stakes, run at Royal Ascot in June. The trip is 2m 6f, and the event is normally over in about 5 minutes. Therefore the field travels the distance at approximately 33 mph.
The longest race in our calendar is the Grand National, run at Liverpool in April over 4m 4f. The record time for this contest is 8 min 47 sec, achieved on fast ground. Therefore the winner travelled at 31 mph (jumping 30 fences in so doing).
This leads me to wonder what pace a thoroughbred racehorse could maintain over 10-15 miles, a la Pony Express but with superior underfoot conditions.
My gf has horses. The limiting factor on distance galloping tends to be me, however.
Not every horse. Secretariat was known for running faster as the race went on. Proven by the recorded times for some of his races, which show him completing the last furlough in less time than the first ones. But that is clearly an exception, done by a legendarily exceptional horse.
But normal stats are:
Sprint race - 1/8 mile - 11.62 seconds =
Sprint race - 1/4 mile - 20.94 seconds =
Short race - 1/2 mile - 43.99 seconds =
Kentucky Derby - 1.25 miles - 119.40 seconds =
Belmont Stakes - 1.50 miles - 144.00 seconds =
Ascot Gold Cup - 2.5 miles - 255.67 seconds =
Queen Alexandra Stakes -2.75 miles - - 287.15 seconds =
Cantering (Pony Express) - generally 12-15 miles - typically 1 hour = 12-15 mi/hr
Endurance rides (Tevis Cup average) - 8 hr 46 min - 7.3 mi/hr (11.75 km/hr)
Typical hobby Trail ride - 5-15 miles - 1.5 - 4 hours = about 4 mi/hr (6.44 km/hr)
The old Army had march tables for mounted units. Of course they were calculated for decent smooth trails and groups of mounted soldiers moving in formation, generally a company of up to 100 horsemen in a column of four abreast. The tables were:
At a walk - three miles in an hour,
At a trot – Six miles in an hour,
At a gallop (really a collected canter) – nine miles in an hour.
The tables assume a few minutes each hour to let the horses blow and for the riders to dismount and adjust equipment, empty bladders and the like.
The tables also set a standard of 40 miles in an eight hour day with time for a noon feeding and watering. Thus the old song: “It’s forty miles a day / on beans and hay / in the Regular Army-Oh.” You can figure mounted troops moved at a walk most of the time with an occasional period of trotting to stretch the muscles and break to monotony. If you figure a thirty day patrol at 40 miles a day you can see why there was a minimum of galloping to keep from breaking down the horses.
Also, modern endurance rides tend to feature the rider dismounting a running along side the horse and ultra-light weight equipment. Those old army horses were carrying a trooper and all his equipment, rations for the soldier and two or three days of grain for the horse, a load of from 150 to 225 pounds. Cavalry soldiers tended to be small men for a reason.
I had not realised the horse improved his sectional times quarter by quarter in his Derby victory. That’s astonishing.
However, items 4-7 inclusive are not normal statistics. They are race records and, in the case of Secretariat’s Belmont time of 2.24, a world record for the distance.
I normally trail ride two to three times a week. Averaging about 5 mph is what’s most comfortable for both me and my horses. (I like slow!) This includes me getting off and walking a few minutes every hour, if I’m out on an hour+ ride.
I read somewhere that cavalry troops traveled thusly on long trips: In each hour,
Ride, varying between canter and trot for forty minutes.
Troopers dismount and walk beside their horses for ten minutes.
All stop and rest for ten minutes, hopefully where there is some grass for the horses to graze.
I’d imagine that all concerned would be tired after eight hours of that.
All of those are world records, except for the ones that I called “typical” or “average”; those toward the end.
I’d add the miles/hour for them, if anyone can give me a formula to convert them.
Referring to world records as normal statistics is somewhat unusual terminology. But, never mind.
Here’s a world record. The fastest time ever recorded for a 3-y-o racing over 1.25 miles is held by Quack, who ran 118.2 sec (1 min 58 1/5) to win the Hollywood Gold Cup in 1972. 119.4 sec (1 min 59 2/5) is the race record for the Kentucky Derby and the track record at Churchill Downs. However, if you want to call 119.4 sec a world record for the Kentucky Derby, that’s up to you.
I’m prepared to believe that 287.15 sec is the world record for the Queen Alexandra Stakes, simply because there can’t be too many races in the world run over precisely 2 miles, 5 furlongs, and 159 yards. Although the Ascot Gold Cup trip of 2.5 miles isn’t raced too often globally, that doesn’t mean 255.67 sec hasn’t been bettered somewhere in the world. I’ll have a look if I can find the time and resources.
I think one of the best ways I’ve ever heard Secretariat described is “a freak of nature”. His father was certainly an amazing horse on his own, but Secretariat was so fast it was stunning.
In the days of cavalry charges (say the Napoleonic era) how fast were horses supposed to charge and at what distance?
Well, they were supposed to stay together and hit the enemy lines as a group, so they basically moved at the speed of the slowest horse. Probably 15-20 miles/hour.
And distance? Usually the armies were at a close range, certainly within eyesight. Probably less than a mile, more likely 1/4 mile or so. (Note that the Battle of Waterloo (several separate conflicts) was all fought within a single square mile.)
My information was based on march tables, standards for going from one place to another in a military manner. Also what the army called a gallop was a collected canter, not a flat out horse race pace.
A charge by cavalry was a different thing than a road march altogether. Where a charge started had a lot to do with the effective range of the weapons that the cavalry would encounter. Until the development of the rifled musket in the mid 1800s that range was about 40 yards – the effective killing range of a smooth bore musket. Up until the Crimean War infantry could bring an attacking formation under effective fire for only the last 40 yards of so of the attack. If the attackers were infantry that probably meant that the defenders could get off two volleys before it came to push of bayonet and then only if the attacker could keep their formation and advance over their own dead and wounded. If the attackers were cavalry the infantry could get off one volley under the best of conditions.
Artillery firing cannister had a much longer range than musket firing infantry – maybe an extreme range of 400 yards.
Cavalry attacking musket armed infantry would maneuver to just outside the infantry’s killing range by advancing at ever increasing gates from a walk to a trot to a “gallop.” If the infantry threw away its fire at too great a range the cavalry would charge immediately – setting the spurs and going in hell for leather for the last 50 or 40 yards. Otherwise, the actual charge, the balls- out gallop would start just outside the killing range in the hope that the infantry would be too rattled to get off a solid volley before the collision or would break ranks and run. Well trained infantry would form squares when threatened by cavalry. Charging a well ordered square was a fool’s errand. See the French cavalry and the Anglo-Dutch infantry squares at Waterloo. However once infantry formed square it was duck soup for infantry and artillery supporting the cavalry.
Cavalry attacking artillery would try to maneuver to come at the guns from a direction they weren’t pointed, setting the spurs for the last 40 or 50 yards. Attacking artillery head on was not a good idea. See, for example Mercer’s battery at Waterloo and, of course, the destruction of the Light Cavalry Brigade at Balaclava (half a league, half a league, half a league onward).
You can figure that in that last 40 yards or so the charging cavalry would not lose so much cohesion as to come to the collision piecemeal and would collide pretty much as a solid mass, the troopers going in stirrup to stirrup with each horse and rider becoming a half ton missile.
On my previous post there is an error. The march tables called for a 40 mile march in ten, not eight, hours in the saddle.
Back in the summer of 59, I was cuttin brush in the Arkansas river bottoms southwest of Sallisaw Oklahoma. There was a well know little 900# grey horse that was owned by a young part Choctaw Indian man who, in 1932 was either running to-from dances, fights, courtin girls. courtin his future wife, etc all the time. He kept this little horse up and grain fed and took real good care of him. He would ‘single foot’ (type of gait faster than a trot slower than a short lope, for about 5 -10 miles, the horse would rest about 1-3 hours and then back home. Night after night. One night at the dance, the fiddle player broke his fiddle and the nearest one was about 10 miles away. Hot shot kid with a fancy bred horse that he claimed was the best horse around wanted to race the grey horse to get the fiddle and back. Johnnie told him it was a bad idea, might hurt his horse.
You know he did it anyway. Johnnie beat him to the fiddle and they only rested about 20 minutes. Johnnie got back a long time before the other big horse but it did get back. Johnnie told him to go care for his horse and forget the dancin. “Your not doing anything special for your horse.” To which it is reported that Johnnie replied, “Don’t need to, it’s a special horse. He does this all the time.”
About an hour later someone went out and the other guys horse was laying dead.
Maybe just a myth but not everyone told it the same but they all swore the horse existed and could do that …
Proper training, feeding, conditioning and the proper horse, no tellin what they can do.