Writing a historical novel means knowing how far they can travel on a horse, This is good info right here.
(via Pinterest)
Off the top of my head, it jibes with what I’ve discovered in other sources.
Queuing this with a reminder to self: add that Cartographer’s Guild thread link to this, it has more details w basically the same numbers.
… things i never did: add that link. Ahem.
Just to add re: horses re: typical 4 gaits
Walk is an average of 4mph
Trot is an average of 8mph
Canter is an average of 16-20 mph
Gallop is an average of 25-30 mphYour gallop is probably only gonna be 40 mph if a) your horse is really fit or b) your horse is built for running, a la the English Thoroughbred or the American Quarter Horse. Your horse also needs to be pretty physically fit to sustain a gallop for more than a couple of miles. Top level eventing equines, at the peak of physical fitness, only sustain a gallop for about 11 minutes/4 miles, and that’s a tremendous effort resulting from serious conditioning, and is also including going over/through various terrain and obstacles that the average horse might shy away from. If your horse hits that speed, they will need to recover immediately afterward, either through stopping, or going at the walk.
Your horse will probably be able to maintain a relatively high speed for longer if they are alternating between walking and trotting, with some cantering.
Good references for horse travel include the Pony Express, literally any cavalry program, and modern-day endurance racing.
More on horses and distance.
Message riders, including the Pony Express, would switch horses so they could run a horse to exhaustion without killing it and then grab another fresh one while a groom took care of the spent horse. Which would then do another run after it had recovered. Pony Express riders would switch horses about every 10 miles. Also, the riders were restricted to 125 pounds. Most Pony Express riders were teenaged boys. So, how far did a Pony Express rider ride in a day? About 75 miles. Still not 100. Could you do it? Probably, with multiple horses, but you’d be riding yourself beyond exhaustion and it’s more likely you’d fall off from tiredness, bluntly.
Stage coaches also used a similar system to maximize speed. A stagecoach could cover 60 to 70 miles per day. This was, by the way, the fastest way to travel in Regency England.
100 miles in a day on a single horse?
The Tevis Cup is a 100 mile race with a time limit of 24 hours. In 2016 the winning rider, Karen Donley, rode Royal Patron to the finish at Auburn at 9:48pm, having set off from Robie Park at 5:15am.
This means it took her 16.3 hours to cover the 100 mile distance on a single horse.
The Tevis Cup is the most difficult endurance ride in the world.
After such a ride, both horse and rider would be spent. They take days to recover from these rides. Days.
The horses have to be at least 8 years old to compete at the top level. They’re checked by a vet regularly, and these horses and riders train extensively.
There is absolutely no way horse and rider could cover 100 miles in a day and be fit for anything else afterwards. Furthermore, if a top race rider is taking 16 hours to do that distance, with anything quicker likely to kill the horse…
70 is more reasonable, but they’re still not going to be much use.
So, how far should you have your character travel on horseback in one day.
The answer is 20-30 miles, maybe 40 if they’re on a road in level terrain. Less if they’re having to trailblaze, use game trails, etc. That is assuming that your characters know how to ride and that their horses are in appropriate condition.
It’s also assuming you don’t have a wounded, unconscious companion tied across the saddle. Or have a pack horse. Dead weight – unconscious or dead bodies, the deer you just killed, your packs, or somebody who doesn’t know how the heck to ride slow horses down considerably.
The distances are similar, by the way, for mules.
I’m going to add this because no one else will:
Most tractors’ top speed, on a highway, is about 20mph.
If you’re writing someone driving down a rural road (backroad or highway) during the spring or the fall, there’s a chance that they’ll be caught behind a tractor. You wanna frustrate someone, have that happen to them.