I'm reading a historical novel now that has inspired me to start this discussion and to offer to help historical novelists -- or nonfiction writers -- with the horses in their books. This (unnamed) historical novel would make me laugh if I hadn't encountered the same sorts of errors in other novels. I understand, okay? that most writers today have probably never been up close and personal with a horse. Maybe all they know is that you put the hay in at the front end and scoop up the product from the back end. It's all right not to know about horses, but putting that lack of knowledge into your novel or history book may well cause your knowledgeable reader to return the book without finishing it. If you, the author, can't bother to look up something basic about the animal that carried humans through wars, pilgrimages, migrations, and hunting expeditions for thousands of years, the reader may well wonder what else you were too lazy to learn about.

So here we go -- or, right after I mention my horsey credentials. I'm no expert. But my father, who was a cowboy, put me on a horse at age 7. He taught me all I wanted to learn about them. I've ridden hunter-jumper and Western for fun, but not to compete. My best instructor, though, was a guy named Gus. He taught me how to talk horse as well as the innumerable subtleties that horses can communicate because he, well, Gus was my horse for 11 years until he died a year ago.

What you need to know if there's a horse in your novel:

1. They're not cars. You can't get on and go for miles and miles without a break.They need periodic rest and water and food.

2. They can't gallop for miles and miles at top speed. They can go all out for  1 - 5 miles, but both speed and distance depend on the horse's level of fitness. Just like us. A horse is in  danger of being seriously injured or dying if he has to travel at top speed for longer than he can physically do so. Top athletic horses, such as those at the upper levels of eventing can gallop cross country for 4-5 miles. I'd recommend looking for "horse speed in MPH" to see how fast a horse can go, then tailoring your character's journey to that. Or look up "equine endurance racing." Also decide how fit the horse is. Remember, the faster and farther the horse must travel, the more often your character should resort to #1 on the list. My father said he could ride his horse 60 miles in a day, but both horse and rider were in top physical condition, and they stopped for rest breaks as often as needed.

3. People in earlier times knew a simple thing about their horses. If the horse is not fed, watered, and rested you won't get as much out of him. Of course, many people ignored that, but if your character rides a horse for several hours without #1, then ties the animal up without food or water and unsaddling, the character has revealed him- or herself to be a thoughtless idiot or worse.

4. Horses are not pets. Cats and dogs are predators. Cats are solitary hunters and dogs hunt in packs. Horses are prey animals. They're at the bottom of the food chain and they know it. Their fight or flight response is highly tuned, as it has enabled the species to survive 55 million years. Just because you have pets, don't think the horses in your story will react the same.Police horses have had hours and hours of extensive training to overcome their nature. Also, they are range animals and do best in open fields where they can see danger miles away and run from it.

5. Horses are telepathic. They read us better than we read them. They also have a sense of humor. If someone goes into a field to catch the horse in a hurry, you can bet the horse will know it before the rider opens the gate. The rider will have to chase the horse all over the field until the horse is tired of the joke. Meanwhile all the other horses, who look like they're ignoring the whole incident, will be having a great big -- pardon the expression -- horse laugh.

Thank you, D J!

How interesting that your grandfather was a sadler. A man who lives in the same town I do was an officer in the U. S. Cavalry before and during WWII. When horses were phased out during the war, he transferred into the U.S. Air Force and rose to the rank of general. After he retired from the Air Force he had a racing stable for a number of years. He's now well into his nineties, and fascinating to listen to. We are fortunate indeed to know or have known people like your grandfather and the general.

Maybe at some point you'll post part of your book on Book Country and we can trade reviews. I'm about ready to post the entire first draft of mine, The Ghost at Beaverhead Rock.

Carol

From a great, true book on the US Cavalry, titled Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay. The romance of the Cavalry wasn't all that romantic. Men rode for half an hour and walked, leading their horses for half an hour, with stops to allow the animals to graze and drink when possible. In this way, they could manage a true 40 miles a day, although during much of the time the glamorous cavalryman wasn't much better than the infantry and, in fact, was worse off. Their boots weren't designed for walking - thus the comments about bunions, blisters etc.

It's a great book. Don't know if it's still in print but worth looking for.

Thanks for the recommendation, Chuck!

 Anyone who wants to write about U. S. Cavalry soldiers in any war, including the horse soldiers in Afghanistan, would do well to read up on actual conditions for riders and the horses.

Oddly enough, it was Bernard Cornwell's series of novels about Richard Sharpe, the infantryman in the British Army during the Napoleonic wars, who showed me how the cavalry fought. It takes a strong stomach for a horse lover to read those battle scenes, but any romance a person expects becomes an education in the reality of using horses in battle.

Gus was a trained dressage horse that I rescued from an equine shelter. Learning how to ride him the way he expected to be ridden taught me how much time -- hours and hours of training and practice it takes to build the skills of both rider and horse. Modern dressage movements are all based on the cavalry tactics of war horses.

Some other points about using horses in fiction.   If you're going to do it a lot, then you really should get up close and personal with horses: spend the time to visit a stable, take some riding lessons, learn to groom, muck out, pick out hooves, tack up (saddle and bridle), lead a haltered horse and a tacked up horse, learn how to (and not to) tied the horse.  Do that for whatever kind of horse usage you plan to write about: if your character is a coachman or teamster, then...learn to drive.  If you're writing a historical western, ride in a western saddle.  If you're writing a historical set elsewhere, find and ride in the closest equivalent to the period saddle you can find.  They're all different, all designed for specific uses, often specific types of horses, and not interchangeable. 

Someone once asked me to describe what it felt like to ride a gallop--and refused my suggestion that the best way to approach that was to ride a gallop herself.  She refused.  She didn't like horses at all but figured that a book about a girl taming a wild horse would sell, and just wanted enough information to write it.  Does not work.  The writers who've been successful writing horse-centered books DID ride, DID know horses, and more than one kind.

What, then, can you do, if you want to write in a period of history when horses were in common use and you absolutely cannot find a stable and learn some basics yourself?   Go for the median horse in all respects.  Forget the flashy spirited stallion, the very tall, the very beautiful, the fastest ever, etc.   Do not make horses any more important to your characters than you have to.  "He mounted his horse and rode away."  "Six days later they rode into Paris" (ignoring the necessary horse care on the way by collapsing the timeline.)   Don't make your characters expert horsemen, or people particularly interested in horses.  Even when horses were in heavy use, there were people who saw them strictly in terms of their utility--as transportation, as power to pull a plow or harrow.  Have the horses perform at an average level.  

References to look up:  Judith Tarr has written a guide for writers about horses, perfectly named Writing Horses.    The Pony Club Handbook is a good place to start for people who realize they know nothing at all:  you get all the parts of the horse (the poll, not the pole; the reins, not the reigns, where the hocks are, etc.)  and all the parts of common riding tack.   (No, it's not the belly band.  It's a girth or a cinch, depending on what kind of saddle.)   Packin' In On Mules and Horses is a good start for those who write historical fiction involving wilderness horse travel, though it's also relevant to all packing situations, including military.   For those writing in English history in the Tudor period, Anthony Dent's Horses in Shakespeare's England is excellent, but assumes some reader knowledge of horses.  An excellent US Cavalry source has already been mentioned.   Historically, horses were more capable of serious daily work than most modern horses because most modern horses aren't used the same way.   I have an old book on horse management in the mid-19th century that discusses a breed already gone by the late 1800s, the Norfolk Trotter--which the author had regularly ridden 40 miles in a day.  The copperplate illustration looks much like a good working-style Morgan or Quarter Horse (not the show-type, the working type.)   Most horses in history were smaller than the horses preferred by dressage riders and sport riders today:  18th century horses were small, and the horses in the Bayeux tapestry were smaller. 

Be aware of historical errors:  the increase in draft power of the more modern draft horse had very little to do with the horse collar (and earlier harness systems did NOT choke horses) but rather with three things:  the increased supply of iron for axles, better roads for wheels to roll on, and taller, heavier horses so they could lean into the load  and use  gravity as well as strength to start a load.  The reference here is to Early Harness Systems: Experimental Studies : a Contribution to the History of the Horse.  by  J. Spruytte, who actually experimented with a variety of early harness systems and vehicles, using horses of correct historical (pony) size as well as modern horses.   It's not that easy to find, but it's well worth hunting up if you're going to be writing in pre-horse-collar periods, and at least you'll be saved repeating the same error.

Great thread. My horse has been gone many years and, yeah, I do miss getting out for a couple hours a day with him. He was a registered Quarter Horse and appeared in a number of movies such as Cheyenne Autumn, The Wild Bunch, Hired Hand, The Cowboys and several others.

 The high point of my ownership, I think, is that the great western actor Ben Johnson rode my horse in The Wild Bunch and wanted to buy him. He claimed that Badge had one of the smoothest gaits of any horse he'd ridden. I didn't sell.

I rode strictly western, on an old Heiser high back saddle that dated from the 1930's. It's a treasure I still have that I found in an abandoned house. The saddle was in good shape, needing only new cinch straps front and rear and oil and saddle soap.

Charles, I hear you -- three months late. I rode both English and Western. The Western saddle I had was a Crates reining saddle that I loved, but i switched to riding English because I found an English saddle that fit Gus better. He had very high withers on a strong back.

Gus has been gone nearly 2 years, but I still miss him.

Good information about horses. I don't know enough about horses. We've had a couple of riding horses for ten years. Our two old geldings, a very well trained Quarter Horse and a Tennessee Walker that we trained to drive with a cart or a sleigh, both passed away this year. Now we have two mares at our house, a Walker and an Arabian. I want to train at least one of them as a driving horse.

The larger point is critical. If you're going to write about anything, learn enough about that thing to make it believeable. I'm reading a historial novel where one of the characters shoots a deer in April and drags it out of the woods by the antlers. Whitetail bucks do not have antlers in the spring. I'll let a lot of things pass, if I don't know the subject, but this was too much. The author didn't do her homework, and it has detracted from the impact of the writing and the story.

--edited by Perry on 6/29/2015, 9:30 PM--

How right you are, Perry!

With all the information available at our fingertips over the internet, there isn't really much of an excuse for a mistake such as a buck or bull elk or moose having antlers in April.

Besides that, you sound like you know a great deal about horses. More than I do. So it would be good if you'd contribute some of your knowledge about training horses to this thread. Gus was already trained when I got him, and I think I mostly learned from him rather than the other way around.

Everything you write about horses is true. When I had Gus, I boarded him in a pasture although I had the choice to keep him in a stall. He did not like being stalled because he wanted to be out where he could see and where the other geldings were.

I adopted him from an equine sanctuary after he'd had a bad year or two, and it took me three years to completely gain his confidence. Fortunately for both of us, we had good advice from experienced horse owners who boarded there, too. I became a sponge and soaked up as much knowledge as I could from people who'd had horses for 30 years or more.

He was a Holsteiner who stood 16.2 hh, and weighed between 1100 and 1200 lbs. Once he fully trusted me, we became best friends. He showed the other horses that I was his human. When he expected to see me, he waited at the gate. He was never the herd leader, usually #2 or #3, and he was very smart. At the sanctuary he figured out how to get out of the pasture and took the rest of the herd on walkabout through the neighborhood.

He was already trained in dressage and showing at level 2, in training for level 3 when I got him. I learned to ride some dressage in order to ride him the way he was accustomed to.

What you say about horses being herd animals applies to working with them, too. When a person is with a horse they become a little herd of two, and one will inevitably be the alpha. That had better be the person, and not the horse, or there will be trouble. Like you say, we humans will come out worse in a battle with a creature who weighs nearly 10 times more than we do. 

Thanks for the opportunity to talk horse with you.