Question About Riding Horses

[Kestrel]

In my story, my MC has magical ethereal wings that she can will out and use whenever she needs them. Due to circumstances of her life, she has never before ridden a horse. She always just flew to go anywhere that was of any significant distance. I should also mention, she has the memories of all her mothers that came before her. So she has memories of riding, understands how to ride, but has just never physically done it. So she would understand the mechanics and everything, but her body would be completely new to it.

She has just joined up with an army that is set to ride out to a location that is a day and a half ride away. They expect to head in to battle shortly after they arrive. In an effort to conserve energy that she will need for that battle she has chosen to ride with the soldiers.

I've never been on a horse longer then an hour, so I have no clue. How would a person who has never ridden before feel after a hard day and a half of riding?
Would she be able to?
Would she instead be better off riding with someone else? (I've considered this option. She has a love interest I might have her ride with instead)
I imagine it would hurt if one was not used to it. If so, where would you feel it most?
Anything else I should consider regarding this?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Mad Swede]

OK, well lets suspend belief a bit and say she can ride thanks to those memories. so she knows how sit in the saddle and how to control the horse.

To answer your first question with one word: sore. She'll feel a bit bruised (saddles aren't especially soft) and she'll feel pain in her legs, especially along the front and all down the inside of her thighs. Her calf muscles too will be sore. She may have a sore back as well. The morning after the first day she'll feel very stiff so stretching exercises may help. The reasons for all these are that if you're riding the horse at a canter or a gallop you'll be standing with your legs apart in the stirrups for a lot of the time - and to cover any distance the horses will be at a steady canter for most of the time. She will also be tired, because you have to concentrate when you're riding, especially the first time you ride a horse thats new to you (the horse will be tired too, because it will be a bit tense and nervous as it doesn't know you).

In reality you wouldn't be able to ride like that the first time you got on a horse, and quite honestly you'd need to be a bit desparate to even try it.

Riding with someone else won't help, because that horse will be carrying two people so they'd need at least two horses. You also wouldn't be able to travel as fast without both of you standing in the stirrups and that isn't usually possible.

 

[LAG]

haven't ridden in a while. bruised^, yeah. consider age, sex, condition of the horse. horse armor? is it battle-trained?
A friendlier horse on easier terrain is able to bear someone with little riding experience, depending on this person's intuition, agility, stamina, muscle denseness, and pure willpower. MC has wings, so I'm sure she used to being very agile and might find steering a willing horse easier than anticipated.

My advice: Don't worry too much about the details, the nitty gritty. She mounts, maybe struggles to gain control for a while. maybe companions give her sage advice, going diagonal on inclines and how to subtly control a horse with reigns as to not at all or brutally, which will get you bucked most of the times.

Check out some long-distance trail riding vids on youtube, maybe war horse vids. Never searched for those but they must surely exist. Have fun!


*Edit: Oh and just because you haven't ridden doesn't mean your MC has no experience. In ages past it was common for many folk in certain societies to be adept riders as that was how their socioeconomic reality was structured. So to make this less of a big deal, just let your MC act normally around a horse, knowing how to saddle it, bridle it, mount it, steer it, communicate with it.

I mean, let's say your MC was young and, even with wings, rode along with her mother/others to be polite, or too relax, instead of flying all the time.

 

[Chasejxyz]

Realistically, the horse isn't going to be cantering the whole time, especially if they're going as part of an army unit (so there's going to be wagons or mules with supplies, the horses are weighed down with armor/weapons etc). You can do that if it's just you riding one horse and you're not going too far, but if you're riding all day you're going to be walking (the horse speed) for most of it. There are horses that are trained to go fast for longer distances, just like how there's humans that have trained to run ultra-long marathons, but the average person can't do that (nor can the average horse).

She's going to be very sore in the legs/abs. In order to ride a horse efficiently (and not to get it mad at you), you need to move with the horse's gait and movements instead of sitting on it like a sack of potatoes. Think of you ride a bike or rollerblade, you're shifting your weight around along with the movements so you can keep your balance, make nicer turns etc. You do the same on a horse. A walk is a 4 beat gait and their shoulders go left-right-left-right and you move along with that. A trot is 2 beat so you either "post", which is you rise and fall in beat with the gait, or a sitting trot but that takes a lot more muscles (look up videos of this I don't think I could explain it very well lol). A canter is 3 beat and is almost rocking horse-y in the movement/momentum "rolls" forward and back and you go with that. I haven't done a lot of galloping so I can't speak much about it lol. So even if you know to do these things, having the muscle-memory/rhythms down will take some time (like learning to ride a bike).

Also every horse is different. Some are utter brats and will fight you at every opportunity, some are just really chill and are on autopilot, others are really lazy and you have to keep bumping them to get their speed back up. Unless you plan on the horse being a "character" instead of a low-tech car, you don't have to worry about that so much, unless you do want to give your character a challenge. Like she might say "Oh pffft I totally know how to ride a horse" and someone gives her a tricky one because they want to see her fail, and then maybe she might learn a lesson about knowing the theory of something is very much not the same of knowing it in practice. There's also some weird horses with unique gaits (like the Tennessee walking horse) which do require slightly different skills to use and it's possible her ancestors never encountered that, but all horses generally have the same 4 base gaits.

You can put a second person on a horse, like how you can put a second person on a bicycle, but they're not really meant for that, nor is the saddle, so everyone's balance is going to be off, it's going to be extra tiring for everyone, and it won't be very fun. Most people who write about horses in fantasy clearly haven't horsed themselves (they say stuff like they galloped all day), but anyone who has horsed enough also knows how dumb horses are. They can die from tummy aches or from laying on the ground for too long or from stepping on a rock. They can get scared by anything and everything because they have some big blind spots (like about a foot right in front of their face), but they're also smart enough to be spiteful. But we fudge things all the time in writing and most people just accept the things that are gotten wrong all the time (guns are another example).

So unless you want this whole experience to be a character-building moment you can just say "and she was really sore because she didn't have the muscles for it and it sucked" and that'll be fine.

 

[Rosemary Tea]

I rode horses years ago, but not recently. From that, I would still know how to saddle and bridle one (maybe with a few refresher pointers), how to mount, and how to control it. No problem, as long as it's a fairly docile horse. If it's a very spirited, as in difficult to control, horse, that would be a different story.

But she's going to be EXTREMELY saddle sore. The first time I was on a horse, it was only for a couple hours at a walking pace, and the insides of my legs ached like crazy. All day at a harder pace, and she probably wouldn't be able to walk. Literally.

 

[Kestrel]

This is all really great input. Thank you everyone.

I've done a bit of research into medieval war horses, so I have the very basics down there. Honestly the horses and riding them are not very integral to the story. Mostly I wanted to get an idea of how she would be feeling before going off to battle after being on one for so long. To see how it would affect her movements, or how it would affect her strategy.

Of course, I fully intend on having some supporting characters get a good laugh at her expense. especially because she comes across to everyone as a divine being, who doesn't have struggles. To see her struggle with something as basic as the normal pains of riding a horse, they'll enjoy that, and it'll help them connect with her on a different level. Seeing her not just as the daughter of a God, but as a normal fallible person.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[Rosemary Tea]

Is your character participating in the battle, on horseback?

Fighting on horseback is a whole other skill. You would have to spend quite some time learning it and practicing it before you could do it competently, and before you can learn to fight on horseback, you must know how to ride horses very, very well. If your character has never even been on a horse, it goes without saying that she won't have that skill.

Perhaps the closest analogy in the modern world would be playing polo. Which is nowhere near as intense as horseback fighting. There's no way anyone could be a competent polo player the first time they get on a horse, even if they're already a good croquet player. Someone who isn't experienced with horseback riding, let alone horseback fighting, will be slaughtered if they go into battle on horseback, even if they're competent at fighting on foot.

 

[Kestrel]

Is your character participating in the battle, on horseback?

Fighting on horseback is a whole other skill. You would have to spend quite some time learning it and practicing it before you could do it competently, and before you can learn to fight on horseback, you must know how to ride horses very, very well. If your character has never even been on a horse, it goes without saying that she won't have that skill.

Perhaps the closest analogy in the modern world would be playing polo. Which is nowhere near as intense as horseback fighting. There's no way anyone could be a competent polo player the first time they get on a horse, even if they're already a good croquet player. Someone who isn't experienced with horseback riding, let alone horseback fighting, will be slaughtered if they go into battle on horseback, even if they're competent at fighting on foot.

Oh no! She knows her limits. The horse is just to get her to the location so she doesn't burn energy flying the distance with her ethereal wings. Once there, she will be flying into battle, working alongside a skilled calvary platoon.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I'll mainly go from personal experience here, which is that 10-ish years ago I spent two weeks on a farm in australia chasing cows and sheep on horseback while (almost) never having ridden before.

Her memories are of very little use to her. She'll get the horse saddled and ready for a day's riding, but those are the easy bits. Especially if her companions are willing to help, that's stuff you can explain in an hour, at least to a level where you know enough not to kill yourself or your horse. But the tricky part is actually sitting on a horse at faster speeds. And that's something you can only get with practise. No matter how much someone tells you how it goes, only when you sit on a horse for a while do you learn how to move with the horse.

Your character will get muscle aches from 3 things. Firstly, sitting on a saddle all day. This is comparable to sitting on a bicycle for a long time. A saddle isn't the most comfortable thing and it takes a while to get used to it.

The second is from sitting spread-legged on the horse. They're pretty wide animals and you have to wrap your legs round, and it's not the most natural position. There's also some chaffing on the inside of your legs and all that. This will give you muscle aches, though if your character is young and fairly fit she should be okay with this. Unless it's a very long day, she'll just be sore but able to function. Also, she can actually alleviate some of the problem by getting off the horse for small periods of time to give her legs a rest. The horses will spend good parts of the day walking, and you can easily keep up with a walking horse by simply walking next to it (or flying over it).

The third is from bouncing around (and this is the main place where muscle memory comes into it). A horse has 3 distinct types of movement (to keep it simple). Walking is easy. The horse plods along and you can sit on it without too much issue. The canter/gallop (yes, they are different, but not enough to make a difference here) are also fairly easy. They're the fastest speed of the horse and they're actually fairly smooth for the rider. You mainly have to cling on while not accidentally slowing the horse down by pulling to tight on the reins. Your character will also not be using this to cover long distances, since it tires the horse too fast.

The tricky part is the trot, which is the middle speed, and something a horse can keep up for a while. So it would be one of the speeds you use (besides walking the horse) to get somewhere fast. It's a very bouncy ride. If you've ever seen a rider bob up and down on a horse it's because the horse is trotting and the ride is that bouncy. You have to move with the gait of the horse to compensate for the movement. It takes practise to get the rythm right and stamina to keep it up for a long time. If you don't you will bounce up and down a lot and you will be forced to use your legs and arms to compensate and prevent you from falling off. This is where most of the aches of your character will come from. She'll be saddle sore from bouncing up and down on a saddle. And she will have cramps from holding on too tight to prevent her from falling off.

 

[Mad Swede]

Realistically, the horse isn't going to be cantering the whole time, especially if they're going as part of an army unit (so there's going to be wagons or mules with supplies, the horses are weighed down with armor/weapons etc). You can do that if it's just you riding one horse and you're not going too far, but if you're riding all day you're going to be walking (the horse speed) for most of it. There are horses that are trained to go fast for longer distances, just like how there's humans that have trained to run ultra-long marathons, but the average person can't do that (nor can the average horse).

Thats not quite true. Horses can canter for between 60 and 90 minutes at a time, provided its a working canter and not something faster. Over a 24 hour period the most you can canter a horse for is about 7 hours in total. You need to walk the horses between periods of cantering, usually for about 20-30 minutes, and at least once during the days ride you'll need to stop completely and rest the horses properly - on a long trip I prefer to rest the horses a couple of times, for about an hour each time (which is also time enough to fix some food for me).

You can't keep this up for more than 2 or 3 days before you have to rest the horse for a day or so. You also have to ensure the horse is fed properly, 2 or 3 times a day, with grain, hay and something like alpha-alpha. The horses also need water, so planning the route you're going to take is important.

The other thing to remember is that when you're riding a horse like that you shouldn't use a bit, you should use a hackamore or halter with the reins clipped to the sides. That way the horse won't get bit sore.

 

[Kestrel]

I have to say, I've gotten clearer information here that I have sifting through Google searches all day!
I absolutely appreciate all this information. My MC is definitely going to struggle it seems!

I was able to write a bit tonight and felt pretty comfortable with how it turned out. I worked in a part where she's able to get some time on a horse a few times prior to their leaving. I tried not to delve too much into the technical horsey stuff, keeping it more about the interaction with the supporting character she's with.

 

[skip.knox]

She wouldn't ride a war horse as transport. She'd ride a palfrey, with the war horse being led to the battlefield. Then she'd transfer, and likely would have her hands full.

>she probably wouldn't be able to walk.
This. I have strong memory of riding a horse for a full afternoon in the mountains above Sun Valley, Idaho. Anniversary weekend for me and my wife. We had a lovely time. Came back to the hotel and were sore. Laid down for a while and then couldn't move. We forced ourselves to walk a few blocks to get a pizza, staggered back and collapsed. Went nowhere the entire next day. It *hurt*!

If you are looking for a fictional treatment, look at Lois McMaster Bujold's Paladin of Souls, which has a middle-aged woman riding a horse and getting saddle sore. Very good treatment (good story, too).

 

[Darkfantasy]

It depends how fit you are as you are using quite a lot of muscles and most people who are not used to riding sit tense and rigid in the saddle. As a kid I didn't feel anything but a bit sore in my legs.
As an adult I felt sore the moment I got off after not riding for a while, and it stayed like that for at least two days.

Speed of the horse comes into it as well and how fluid the movements of the horse are. Trot can be bouncy or it can be quite smooth and easy to sit to.

 

[Don Coyote]

Ya know, it sounds like your girl would be better off flying.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I can’t add much to this, except perhaps a little humor... I rode horses for years, although i didn’t partake in distance competitions, and I’ll tell you what, it didn’t prepare me for jumping on a camel for even a few minutes.

Oh my God! Just a few minutes and my hips were friggin’ killing me, and I had pain for like 2 days in my left hip. Maybe when younger... but I won’t get on a camel ever again, LOL.

 

[CupofJoe]

Never trust a camel!
A friend got on a "tourist" camel somewhere in Egypt. The camel stood up, took two steps and then decided to sit down again, face planting my friend in to piece of ancient stonework. Cue broken nose and black eye.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Daaang, at least my camel was polite.

Never trust a camel!
A friend got on a "tourist" camel somewhere in Egypt. The camel stood up, took two steps and then decided to sit down again, face planting my friend in to piece of ancient stonework. Cue broken nose and black eye.

 

[Prince of Spires]

The camels I've ridden were actually fairly comfortable. You just need to make sure you don't treat it like a horse or expect to sit on one like on a horse. But once I found a comfortable position sitting on one was sort of like sitting in a comfortable rocking chair with very weird motions.