Wrangling horses, driving herds, remudas

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by safisher

Yes, I know. Eight to ten horses might be a good limit without penalty.

[...]

They'll probably have a few horse holders riding with them, holding the strings for 2-3 riders.

One Raurin (Akhal-teke/Nisean-esque super horse) courser and four Semphari (small Arabian-esque breed, 700-900 lbs.) jennets or rouncies have been assigned to each of the one hundred horse archers who will have the job of serving as outriders, screen and feint furthest away from the main columns.

While the horses can be stationed somewhere, they probably don't have to leave more than ten of their number to watch the spare ones. During the ride, a full half of them will have to hold the reins of the spare horses while the rest of the outriders patrols and possibly skirmishes with chasing cavalry. No doubt they'll alternate the jobs.

Originally Posted by safisher

Probably a month or two. Assuming they are well bred and experienced horses.

Awesome. Even the horses that were collected last will have had at minimum two to three months of cavalry training already (though some of that was during travel, so they might not have been able to do full-time training of formations all day) and the majority have been under the care of expert trainers for the cavalry all winter, I'd say that at minimum 75% of the horses already qualify as good cavalry horses and the rest are only weeks away from being fully trained (most of those being the youngest horses that were only half trained for riding when collected).

The PCs will be able to mount all of their available experienced cavalry on three good cavalry horses each, immediately upon arrival. Even if they picked up several hundred more recruits, they'd have trained horses for them.

[safisher]

Some interesting tidbits on horse endurance in this article:
http://www.si.com/vault/article/maga...4149/index.htm

A "Berlin-to-Vienna endurance race" of 360 miles completed in 71 hours an 20 minutes. That's an average of 5 mph. A count won the race, but the horse died at the end. of some 230 entrants, 30 horses died. Which suggests they really pushed it.

The 1,000 mile race from Chadron to Chicago had the following rules: "Only western cow ponies could be used, and only two horses to a man, with ordinary 35-pound range saddles, the saddle and rider to weigh not less than 150 pounds." And At the end: "[The ride] covered the thousand miles (set later at 1,040) in 13 days and 16 hours, the last 130-plus in 24 hours and the last 80 miles in nine hours and a half. Humane society veterinarians examined [his horse] Poison and pronounced him in fine shape. "Western range horses," cried Buffalo Bill, "are the hardiest and best horses for cavalry use on the face of the earth!"

[Barghaest]

Originally Posted by Icelander

And from my limited experience of horses and cows, horses are a lot more curious, mobile and prone to panic than the stodgy cows. Of course, longhorns may be considerably more active than our European cows, which are the very picture of docility.

I've either lived in close proximity or dealt with various farm animals most of my life. Horses do seem slightly more skittish than cows for the most part, but environment is a huge factor. Right now, we live next to a pasture that has Angus. They're fairly skittish (likely due to the coyotes/wolves/wild dogs in the area... surprisingly large number considering all the subdivisions around us, then again they primarily prey on unattended pets and seldom go after - much less take down - cattle) and extremely hard to wrangle if they don't know you... I've had to get a few off the street when they've escaped the fence and the owner was unavailable (as a side note, my brother has suffered brain damage from a motorcycle wreck and animals seem to sense something is wrong with him and they will almost outright panic if he tries to approach them).

I have no personal experience with Longhorns but my father does and he's told me stories about how ornery and aggressive they were (especially one bull that had almost everyone giving that particular pasture a wide berth - no shortcuts through that field unless you were a fast runner or a big man as he seemed to leave really large guys alone) even going so far as to say they're the Mustangs of cattle - wild and spirited.