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2020-11-10, 11:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2020
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- Earth
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Re: D&D Horses Are Way Faster Than Real Horses
There's a bit of cherry picking going on with the horse side of the argument to be fair.
The fastest horse ever recorded was a Quarter Horse going 55 mph. There is a reason that it is Thoroughbreds and not Quarter Horses that race in the Kentucky Derby -- which is 1.25 miles, and Arabians race in long distance races. The argument being made for horses here grabs the Quarter Horse with a 55 mph world record and applies that to everything. The trouble is, the Quarter Horse has the same problem as the cheetah. It has a quick burst of speed, but can't sustain that speed over distances. They're called the Quarter Horses because they race the quarter mile. The fastest horse on earth has about the same full on sprint range as the cheetah.
If you want your horse to run all day, then you want an Arabian. The fastest Arabian ever recorded is 40 mph, quite a bit slower than your Quarter Horse -- the sprinting specialist. With a bit less focused selective breeding and public interest, the fastest greyhound ever is 45 mph. Faster than the fastest Arabian but slower than the fastest Quarter Horse. So with similar amounts of human meddling over the centuries, the dog -- same species as the wolf -- ends up about as fast as the horse. And when you come right down to averages, the average wolf can outrun the average horse.
Horses are not the fastest creature in the world by a long shot. Not in short sprints. Not over distances. They were ridden for millennia because they are pretty fast, that can be well trained, and carry a human body on their back.Not All Who Wander Are Lost
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2020-11-10, 12:58 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2008
- Location
- Hudson Valley, NY
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Re: D&D Horses Are Way Faster Than Real Horses
You now have me thinking. I love wildlife programs and have seen many on television about wolves out west over the years. I've seen film of them chasing bison & elk, but I can't remember one of them chasing wild mustangs?
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2020-11-10, 01:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2020
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- Earth
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Re: D&D Horses Are Way Faster Than Real Horses
Wolves have been almost entirely exterminated in the lower 48 states. They are extremely rare. I grew up in Wyoming and way back in the early 1900's, there was a big fat bounty on wolves and they were completely eradicated as a result. Every other state did much the same thing. I think Minnesota might be the only state where the wolf population wasn't hunted to extinction. Yellowstone had wolves reintroduced in the 1990's and is the only place where natural wild herds of bison still roam. It's also got a sizable elk population. If you saw a nature documentary of bison or elk being hunted and killed by wolves then it was probably in Yellowstone National Park. I can't think of anywhere else you'd see all three in the same place. There are no wild mustangs in Yellowstone. There are also no wolves in any area where wild mustangs live that I'm aware of.
Last edited by GodofThunder555; 2020-11-10 at 01:19 PM.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
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2020-11-10, 01:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2013
Re: D&D Horses Are Way Faster Than Real Horses
Colorado has both. I'm not sure if they have the same ranges, though.
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2020-11-10, 03:22 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
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Re: D&D Horses Are Way Faster Than Real Horses
I'm also not at all sure Wolves would do well hunting horses. The species that historically did so got replaced by hunting cats millions of years ago.
At the end of the day dogs have great senses and endurance but lower killing power, which is why they compliment human's killing and endurance but low senses.
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2020-11-10, 05:23 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2015
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2020-12-02, 07:20 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2007
- Location
- Greensboro, NC
- Gender
Re: D&D Horses Are Way Faster Than Real Horses
There is actually an incredibly small number (~10) of fully wild red wolves still in the Carolinas (I think it's the only wild population left, but I'm not sure), as well as about 100 in North Carolina's "Red Wolf Recovery Area" as part of a reintroduction program. Unfortunately, coyotes have moved in during the wolves' absence, which makes it harder for the wolves to return to the wild, and has led to breeding between the two species when reintroduction is tried. We did exterminate our grey wolf population though, I think the last confirmed sightings were in the 20s or 30s? You do get the occasional hiker or whatever claiming to have seen one still though. We also don't have wild mustangs though, so you won't see red wolves hunting them even if they get their numbers back (though we do have plenty of horses, which do NOT like wolves or coyotes).
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