Regency Era Horse Sense

Writing and Horses

In a previous Regency Resource post, I briefly introduced different modes of transportation in the Regency Era. One mode that crossed class boundaries was the horse. From pleasure and sport riding among the nobility to the working horses pulling carts and wagons for the working class, it’s easy for modern authors to ascribe unrealistic feats and abilities to these background ‘characters’.

So what’s an author to do if she wasn’t raised around horses? Research, just like anything else we haven’t experienced firsthand. As an author, you want to make sure your details are believable. Beyond the different ways in which Regency Era horses were used, you also need to know what you should expect in terms of speed and endurance from the animals doing these different tasks. Luckily, there are numerous sites sharing details that can keep your story authentic and keep the equine police off your back.

Regency Era Horses as Transportation

As noted, horses were put to a variety of uses. For work, they’re well-suited to pulling carriages, wagons and carts. A great resource that links Regency period conveyances and their economic status can be found at the Jane Austen Society. Generally, the larger the vehicle to be pulled, the larger the number of horses would be required to pull it. This lead to terms like “two-in-hand” and “four-in-hand” which refer to the number of horses controlled by the ribbons or reins. Larger coaches might require a team of six or more.

On the side of pleasure, horseback riding was popular with the nobility as a form of exercise as well as transportation. From very young ages, affluent boys were taught to ride astride, while girls were taught to ride aside or sidesaddle. Thoroughbred racing was also a popular sport during this era, as was fox hunting, which emphasized jumping and endurance over short bursts of speed.

Realistic Speed

So what is a realistic speed for a horse? Without getting into a pedantic dissertation on what a “gait” means in expert horse talk, the layman best understands the term as the equivalent of “gears” or different speeds one can expect from their mount. The four basic speeds for horses are: walk, trot, canter and gallop.

• Walk: You can safely estimate this as roughly 3 to 4 miles per hour.
• Trot: Depending on the horse’s stride and weight carried or pulled, you can estimate this as 8-10 miles per hour. A horse pulling a cart typically moves at this speed.
• Canter: A decent speed, but not pushed as hard as possible, this speed averages 10-17 miles per hour.
• Gallop: This horse is going flat out top speed. The depends on the horse’s condition and athletic ability. Some horses are not built to run fast and may only do a fast canter at their best; however, the gallop is about 30 mph. Thoroughbreds, which are bred for running distance but not speed, have been clocked at over 40 MPH.

Great, we know have an idea of how fast a horse can go. So your hero’s ready to hop on his trusty steed and gallop off after the heroine who’s being whisked off to Gretna Green in a coach by the villain.

Realistic Endurance

Woah, there! It’s possible for him to catch up with them, but he probably won’t ride the same horse the whole way. Likewise, the villain will also have to stop to change horses along the way.

An average riding horse in good condition can travel 20 to 30 miles in a day. The actual distance covered will also depend on road and weather conditions as well as availability of food and water. Horses properly trained and conditioned for long distances can be expected to go 50 or 60 miles in one day. By the Regency Era, only serious working horses in the Army or in service to the post might fall into this category and even then it would be more likely that the horses would be changed out on a regular basis instead. The common event of stopping to change horses was a reality of the times. Unlike an automobile, horses can’t be pushed hard for 20 miles and then simply stashed in the stable for the night. A horse, overheated by exertion, must be walked until it cools down and rubbed dry before it can rest.

In light of these general parameters, you might better appreciate this feat in 1808, when the Marquis of Huntley rode from Aberdeen, Scotland, to Inverness (a distance of 105 miles) in 7 hours with only 8 changes of horses. This works out to each horse averaging 15 mph for about 13 miles.

Unless you’re writing fantasy and the horses have magical abilities, travel involving horses should work with your story, serving it and perhaps defining it, never straining the plausibility of it for readers who are in the know.

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For more information regarding Regency Era Horses, Carriages and Transportation and a variety of other Regency-themed topics can be found on my Regency Resource page.