One last thing to note, this writer knows what she knows about horses from...well, the horses mouth, so to speak. If you're going to write about horses, follow her example, not just her advice. Ride a horse.

For instance, how long would it take to ride a horse across England?

Well, having done some horsepacking myself, it's all about logistics. So it's not as simple as dividing the distance across England by 2.5 mph. You'd have to figure in severe weather, rest & recuperation stops, sidetrips to farriers, perhaps a sidetrip for an ale or two (daily), a full day for each major river crossing, a spare mount for every woman, etc.

They have big yearly trailrides doen here in Texas, it might be worth looking at how lng it takes tehm to do it. On pavement. With escorts. And TVs.

A team of horses pulling a covered wagon on a typical covered-wagon-type road (dirt, ruts, etc.) could travel at the very most about 30 miles in a day. (With rest stops and feeding stops, of course.)

A load-bearing horse can't go at a full gallop for very long at all. A good quarter horse is supposed to be able to gallop for a quarter of a mile (hence the name). I think a good thoroughbred (race horse/Arabian blood) is supposed to be able to gallop for around a mile, but not much more.

A fit man on foot can travel farther in a day that a fit horse bearing a rider.

There's a race called "ride and tie" which involves two people and a horse. One person starts out running and the other rides to a certain stopping point. The rider gets off the horse, ties it up, and starts running. The horse is supposed to have rested enough by the time the runner gets to it that it can be ridden again, past the runner to a new point where its rider ties it up, and starts running again, while the horse rests until the other runner gets to it. And so on.

I've heard that this kind of race can kill a horse, but if you have a couple of characters who have to get somewhere, and they only have one horse, that's probably the quickest way they can travel. They need to make sure the horse has food and a little bit of water (not too much), and is covered with a blanket to prevent chills while it waits.

Anyway:

First, horses in pre-industrial times were fitter than horses now, simply because they were USED all the time. These days horses are purely recreation and, just like their humans, need to be purposefully exercised in order to 'train' for athletic purposes.

Second, horses in those days did not live as long, because they were USED. Used up. Used, as a piece of property, until they couldn't go anymore, then sold to the knackers or chopped up to feed the deerhounds.

Third, dead on about horses being skittish and the rider often being the cause of it. I learned driving carriages in SLC that it didn't matter how terrified I was (like when a horse decides it might be fun to drag race on a busy city street) I had better not let that signal get to my horse through those lines or I'd likely never get him to stop. So a forced body-calm can mask mind-fear to a horse. They read your mood through their mouth and through the tension in your legs and the quaver in your voice.

Lastly, when your hero or villain is running his horse off its feet to save himself, I highly doubt he's going to be thinking, "Oh, my! I need to stop and warm some water in my helm for my poor thirsty horse." In fact, though heartless, it might add a nice detail to see him literally run the horse to death, in which case the animal might have blood in its saliva or coming from its nostrils. It might have bloody lather (white-whipped sweat caused by friction, in armpits and under tack) from being whipped or spurred. It might cough and wheeze and fight for breath. It might, if thirsty enough, drown itself once it finds water. And also keep in mind that if our hero's horse can only run a few miles at a stretch, so can his pursuers. So, unless the pursuer has a fresh supply of horses along the route (which, of course, is carefully planned out ) or access to horseless vehicles, he won't make much headway without exhausting his own horses. Catching a bad guy who has a significant lead on a horse will take persistence, stealth, time.

OK, NOW it's the last: Pony express riders rode full-bore gallop. Stations were 3 to 5 miles apart. At each station they would trade in the tired horse for a fresh one and keep on going. Until the telegraph came through it was the fastest way to get mail from one end of the wilderness to the other. You'd have to look up exact times and distances.

The Grand National (National Velvet fame) is, I believe, a three mile race, run at full speed, with jumps along the route. It's brutal, but very exciting.

And one more: Horses with black hooves will hold up better without shoes than horses with white hooves. Black hooves are tougher and less likely to chip, crack, wear. Wherever white skin touches the quick of the hoof, the hoof will be white below that point. In pre-shoe times horses with four black hooves would have been more valuable than those with pretty white socks.

Oh, and I LOVED the part about our hero leaping gracefully from his steed after a long day riding. Perfect!

This makes for an entire journey of around 400 miles in less than three days for which he is alleged to have used a relay of 26 horses. We aren't told how many were ridden to death but it is considered quite an epic feat for which he was well rewarded.

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In fact, though heartless, it might add a nice detail to see him literally run the horse to death, in which case the animal might have blood in its saliva or coming from its nostrils.

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In The Three Musketeers and its sequels, Alexandre Dumas has his characters ride their horses into the ground on a few occasions. However, something that was pointed out in the introduction of one of the books I read, was that D'Artangnon and his budies were able to cover greater distances without changing horses as they got older and they could travel about as fast as they did with multiple mounts.

By the time Dumas gets to The Man in the Iron Mask, D'Artangnon is able to cover nearly twice the distance before his horse drops dead beneath him.

I would disagree with DJV's first point (even though it has a certain basis in truth) but her second (and "Lastly" point) is dead on. Mortality rates for horses back then weren't just because they didn't have modern veterinary science. In a pinch, you pushed your horse as hard as it would go, just like you would use your sword in a life or death fight.

In many horse cultures that would be one difficult choice. Cultures in which a man would choose his horse over his wife, but those were more rare. I tend to think it's only in modern times, when machine (including such early advancements as firearms) began to overtake the horse's usefulness, that a good horse became of gradually lesser value.

So, yes, they actually would have taken good care of their horse, seen to its needs. Your point, however, is that a writer must be cautious concerning how much of this information is pertinent to the story. In fact, writer's must be conscious of everything and whether it is pertinent to the story. BUT, if part of your story is building characters and cultures in which the horse is important, then adding a few details about such things adds greatly to that.

Oxen was mostly used by farmers in Britain then, and horses did not get used for ploughing until the Vikings came. But Britons did fight from horseback or chariots when the Romans came and with some success. It does seem clear that, from the articles I have read, the fighters only used the horses for short periods with breaks in between.