How far could a party on five horses reasonably expect to ride in a day? (Walking or trotting, not galloping.) How often would teh horses have to be rested? Do you have to stop riding at twilight, or if there's a full moon could you continue?

(meep! My doG, he's gorgeous!)

As far as your questions go t tears self away from Lippis the longest modern endurance races are 100 miles. At that kind distance, they'll be going at a fairly fast trot for most of the way -- let's say 10 mph for 10 hours. But that kind of distance is for desert warfare and the horse equivalent of marathon racing -- are your characters out for a pleasure ride and they get caught out after dark, or are they running from highway robbers or angry relations?

I ask because that kind of trotting speed is bloody hard to endure unless the rider is equally fit. IIRC from my old pony club manual, a more typical trot is about 6-8 mph, and a walk about the speed of a brisk human walk, ~3 mph.

Horses are naturally diurnal, and they'll definitely want rest and a stunning amount of roughage after a long day. Be careful of your road surfaces if you're riding after dark. And more than a full day or so of that kind of stuff will cause the average horse to break down -- even the fittest sport horses generally get days off after a big exertion.

Gah. Somebody somewhere had a Web page on writing travel with horses -- it was to keep you from making stupid mistakes. It did things like warn against riding stallions (they're a pain in the ass on long journeys), mares coming into heat, about how far a horse could travel in a day, and like that.

Jane Ross Ewing has one on her page somewhere.

Oh, and the answer to how fast horses can go remains "slower than a bleeping Winnebago."

That's what I needed.. Thanks, Plei.

Oh, and they're making roughly a two-day journey away from an approaching army. They're in a hurry, but they don't want to kill the horses. There's a pre-asphalt road. And the second day is up into the foothills of mountains.

So.... how far away are the mountains?

Heh -- Pookie tried to eat my shirt, the one time I visited Judy's place. His mom came over and pushed him away because she wasn't tolerating any rudeness from lanky brown adolescents who didn't know their place in the herd hierarchy. (They're really ugly teenagers, btw.)

Lipps aren't "small" -- they're not terribly tall, but they're built like Charles Atlas. They're also scarily smart -- think of the smartest dog you ever met, then multiply the IQ by two.

IIRC, horses have almost as good night vision as cats. I've seen it said that it's perfectly, terrifyingly possible to ride a horse cross-country at full gallop in the middle of the night, if you're prepared to let the horse set the course.

Pookie is a beautiful grownup.

Lipps aren't "small" -- they're not terribly tall, but they're built like Charles Atlas. They're also scarily smart -- think of the smartest dog you ever met, then multiply the IQ by two.

Oh, I know 'em and love 'em -- and I should've said that I meant the "small" comment in the context of the dressage world, which has a raging height fetish. So you'll see people really looking down (figuratively, I mean, and not only literally) at anything under 17hh (5'8" at the shoulders, for those who are reading along), which is like the top 2% of the horse world. Kinda like saying that only NBA basketball players could possibly be tall enough people.

As an average-sized person with disproportionately short legs, I've always loved the not-so-tall but mightily solid beasties. Because I'm as vain as any of 'em, and aside from riding them badly, I look fucking dumb when my boots barely clear the bottom of the saddle flaps...

(Signed, spent happy years riding arabs in dressage)

(Raises an eyebrow at Dressage Arabs--though, which type? I could see Polish, as the Polish Arabs I rode had nicer strides.)

(Then again, learned dressage on an Appy, so not one to talk.)

Oh, I know 'em and love 'em -- and I should've said that I meant the "small" comment in the context of the dressage world, which has a raging height fetish.

Yeah. In that or in Grand Prix, you'll see a 16.2 solid-as-a-rock fellow called small.

Plei! On that eskimo site:

Favory II Gabriella II-1--.Bon Bon(!), his call name, has a great sense of humor and loves to play, but that, of course, may just be his young age! As with all the other "boys", he also loves attention and comes without delay when called.