Ask Me About Horses

[T.Allen.Smith]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this or not. It tangentially involves horses.

My intrepid heroes are caught in a howling snowstorm making their way to a large cavern for shelter (Oh no! Will they make it? How can they survive in the horrid snow?). They're on foot leading their horses and pass by a grove of trees. One of them gets the bright idea to gather a bit of wood for later use for fires in the cave.

I first thought, they'll just tie the stupid wood to the saddles, no problem. I got this comment:

Question 1: Is the comment valid? They have rope. Can they just tie some limbs to the side of the saddle?

Question 2: If Q1 is no, how would you do it? They don't need a ton of wood at this point, 8 to 10 good sized branches should get them through for now. I was thinking maybe putting some on the top of each horse's saddle and covering it with a bedroll. If you hold the bedroll, maybe that'll keep things stable.

Question 3: Our intrepid heroes make it to the cavern (Yay! That was a close one.). Turns out, this cavern goes on a long way, and they plan to go through it instead of over the snowed in passes. One of them decides they need more wood and decides to go out for it. How best to do this if you had a little time to prepare? I'm thinking some kind of make shift litter, two long branches with the bedroll stitched between, that the horse drags. Will this work? How do I attach it to the saddle?

Question 4: Completely unrelated to horses, I need to incapicitate our lovely hero while she gathers wood. Would a tree falling on her work, or does it make sense for the storm to blow over a tree? They're on a mountain. She could step in a hole and get her foot caught. I leave her with a limp the rest of the way, but I can't have the leg broken.

Thanks so much in advance for your help.

1) it's somewhat valid. I say somewhat because I find an unrealistic tint to it somewhere else. If I'm freezing & need to get shelter or die, the last thing I'm going to do is bundle up some firewood in pretty little packages and secure them to the saddle. What I might do though is to find some larger pieces of wood, tie a rope to them, and have my horse drag them to the cave.

2) see #1

3) if you use the method in #1 your character could reserve 2 of the longer wood pieces to form a litter. Tie an end of each to the saddle horn (this means the character will be walking). Lash the logs they find to the litter.

4) the biggest problem with this scene that I see could serve as a solution. If its snowing that much and the winds are really kicking, yes wind can knock a tree over. This is especially true of a dead tree or one that collapses due to the added weight of snow & ice. However, the first thing I thought of was "How is she & the horse even going to walk if that much snow has fallen?" Does she know enough woodsman lore to make herself snowshoes? If the snows aren't to dangerous levels where considerations like this aren't important then I think your tension is weakened. So.... If she isn't an experienced woodsman, use her ignorance. Snow drifts are tricky. The amount of weight that packed snow and ice can carry is vastly different from the amount of weight that a fresh drift can bear. Thing is, they look the same on the surface.
Years ago, back in my days as a young Marine, I took part in a training exercise 200 miles above the arctic circle. I saw people with improperly fitted snowshoes (or none at all) fall right through snow banks. Don't stress they came out just fine. If they were alone though, well they might have had some serious issues. Snow and ice can hide all kinds of nasty surprises beneath a calm surface. Could she fall into a chasm? That would serve to render her unconscious while at the same time protect her somewhat from exposure to the wind.

 

[BWFoster78]

1) it's somewhat valid. I say somewhat because I find an unrealistic tint to it somewhere else. If I'm freezing & need to get shelter or die, the last thing I'm going to do is bundle up some firewood in pretty little packages and secure them to the saddle. What I might do though is to find some larger pieces of wood, tie a rope to them, and have my horse drag them to the cave.

I'm not sure they're freezing to death as much as quite ready to find shelter. They have adequate clothes for the weather. They are quite fearful of wondering around a dangerous mountain slope in low visibility.

I do like your solution. Simple and elegant. Thanks!

3) if you use the method in #1 your character could reserve 2 of the longer wood pieces to form a litter. Tie an end of each to the saddle horn (this means the character will be walking). Lash the logs they find to the litter.

Works. Good deal.

Could she fall into a chasm? That would serve to render her unconscious while at the same time protect her somewhat from exposure to the wind.

I like this a lot as well. I had her injuring her ankle in a previous draft and don't want to change it. She can injure it in the fall, and the chasm can be deep enough that she has no hope of climbing out. Just have to figure out how her friends find her.

Thanks again. That was a great help!

 

[BWFoster78]

One more quick one:

I described a huge overhang prior to the cave's entrance, and have the protagonist ask if the horses would be all right there. Here's the answer:

“It’s perfect,” Brant said. “It’s wide, out of the wet, and three sides are protected from the wind. They’ll be fine. We’ll put rocks on top of their reins to secure them.”

Does any part of this bother you?

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Depends on the discipline level of the horses. A well trained horse won't pull away from even a weak tether. However, if it's a concern then the rock will have to be heavy.

If it was me I wouldn't even discuss the how & why of the actual tying off. I'd just give the setting the horses will be sheltered in. Whether or not the characters toss boulders on top of the leads or whether they just tie them off on a large rock really doesn't matter.

 

[ArielFingolfin]

Well everyone's pretty much answered

You can tie wood to a saddle; I attach stuff to saddles all the time. And if the horses are well trained they'll drag stuff.

I think I've mentioned hobbling horses, but you can also have horses that are trained to 'ground tie' which is where they've been trained not to wander when they're left alone. Also the rocks would work, but they would have to be on the heavy side.

It's so cool to see all the horse wise people here

 

[JonSnow]

I have a question more about what to call certain horses. For instance, I'm currently reading George R.R. Martin, so I'll use his writing as an example... he uses "garron" a lot to refer to the horses ridden by warriors in battle. I don't know if this is a general term that anybody can use, or if Martin created it himself. I've also seen other fantasy authors use generic names for horses, such as "destrier" (Robert Jordan, if I remember correctly). Again, I don't know which ones are commonly used, and which ones are made up by the author.

I was wondering if anybody knew (or could easily compile a list, if there is one) of what certain types of horses are called (not necessarily the breed) by size, strength, speed, male/female, etc. I would assume a "garron" is a large, strong male horse that can easily carry the weight of a man in full armor, and can probably run fairly quickly.

My apologies if this has been asked already, but I didn't see any answers to this as I read through the thread. Thanks!!

 

[BWFoster78]

The more I write, the more I realize how little I know about horses. You'd think that I would've picked more up from all those fantasy novels I read. I can't express to y'all how helpful this thread is.

My next question:

Timmy and his family have gone camping in a snowstorm. He and his faithful horse, Lassie, go looking for firewood. Oh no! Timmy falls into a well. What does Lassie do?

A. Return to where the other horses are.
B. Stay by the well.
C. Wander off.

BTW, Lassie belongs to a militia and is well trained. I'm not exactly sure what kind of training, but there was definitely a lot of it going on.

Thanks again.

 

[BWFoster78]

Sorry, yet another one:

My intrepid heroes are on the side of a mountain in a severe snowstorm. I'm assuming that it's unsafe to ride in those conditions and that walking the horses is a good idea. Does that track?

Also, when they go to rescue Timmy from the question above, they leave the horses behind. Does this make sense? If not, I need it to make sense. Any ideas?

Thanks again again.

 

[BWFoster78]

I'm starting to regret even including horses in my story. In epic fantasy, though, it's hard to get by without them.

I asked a similar question and got great answers earlier, but I want to describe the scene a little better.

I need to know how to get the horses to go into a dark tunnel. It's too low to ride them. Do you pull the reins? Slap them? Will them resist? How? Kick? What?

 

[SeverinR]

I believe a normal horse would graze or seek out herd mates depending on how independant it is.

Sorry, yet another one:

My intrepid heroes are on the side of a mountain in a severe snowstorm. I'm assuming that it's unsafe to ride in those conditions and that walking the horses is a good idea. Does that track?

Also, when they go to rescue Timmy from the question above, they leave the horses behind. Does this make sense? If not, I need it to make sense. Any ideas?

Thanks again again.

Anytime you are uncertain about footing, walking a horse is best. Deep snow covering rough terrain sounds like a good time to walk them.

Timmy in a well, if they don't have someone strong enough to pull him up, a horse could help. Otherwise horses are good staying safe, with or without being near the family.

Don't know about the dark tunnel. I have rode a horse into a giant cave, 15 horses across took up only half of the cave width and it wasn't dark.

 

[Ankari]

I stumbled upon this website with horse sounds. May be useful to some people.

 

[SeverinR]

great list of horse sounds, each one shows what the horse is communicating.

 

[Ankari]

great list of horse sounds, each one shows what the horse is communicating.

That's good to hear. I tried to find the noise a horse makes when in pain. I posted an scene in Showcase with the request that someone familiar with horses validate the authenticity of the "dying horse" segment.

If if wouldn't bother you, could you look into that for me?

 

[Taro]

Interesting post Ankari, i would think if the horse had been inflicted real amount of pain while dying it would be squealing of sorts... i know not very pretty

 

[SeverinR]

I did a quick look, didn't find anything.
Sudden severe pain would be a shriek, not much different then a woman's scream. I would guess.
Dying would a low nervous blow.

 

[Ankari]

SeverinR, you can find the scene here

 

[SeverinR]

SeverinR, you can find the scene here

If I read it right, the horse is suddenly stuck immobile, it would be a shriek of panic. (high pitched with terror)
Then the pain of the attack; scream of pain, less frantic, but still high pitched.
dying would be a low depressed sound similar to this:"An expectant nicker with a second nicker for good measure." (on the horse sounds link)

 

[BWFoster78]

New question:

I show my heroes riding in wet/rainy/muddy conditions with the bad guys right on their tale. How dangerous is this? Should I show one of the bad guys going down? How would this happen?

Thanks.

 

[gavintonks]

well the horses slow down to a walk and place their feet very gingerly, so you would have a group of horses looking at the ground ignoring their riders mostly for their own safety
they would not risk injury to themselves, so the question is how much on their tails?
the other thing is horses do not like being in driving rain and turn their bums into the rain, so again you will have a group of people standing around with the rain at their backs
Riding with a horse slipping underneath you is no joke either, so you would be best advised to get off and run with the horse

 

[BWFoster78]

well the horses slow down to a walk and place their feet very gingerly, so you would have a group of horses looking at the ground ignoring their riders mostly for their own safety
they would not risk injury to themselves, so the question is how much on their tails?
the other thing is horses do not like being in driving rain and turn their bums into the rain, so again you will have a group of people standing around with the rain at their backs
Riding with a horse slipping underneath you is no joke either, so you would be best advised to get off and run with the horse

Does this apply to muddy, but not rainy, conditions as well?

I'm sure I've seen movies with horses galloping through mud. You seem to imply that it wouldn't happen.