• Lexam@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    Horses today yes. They are built incredibly efficient compared to yesterday’s horses. Better ligament material, lighter and stronger bones, not to mention the carbon muscle fibers.

    • Artyom@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      This but unironically, horses are constantly being bred to be bigger. The reason people rode chariots in Greece is because horses were too small to ride horseback.

        • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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          4 months ago

          Yeah one of the main causes of the downfall of chariot warfare in the ancient world was that horses were bred that could carry a fully armed rider with armour for a long enough period of time.

          Disclaimer: I know very little about anything.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          I’m not so sure. There’s plenty of accounts of ancient warriors using ridden horses as transportation. It probably has more to do with a chariot being more compatible with horse/soldier training and soldier gear at the time. Riding a horse into battle takes a lot of unique training and gear, and camels were the better option for a lot of the latitude around North Africa/Middle East, where you had ancient empires with the ability to research technology.

          The idea that horses had to embiggen, I think, comes from the Persians. They wanted the world’s first heavy cavalry and they certainly needed bigger horses for a fully armored rider. But light cavalry has evidence dating back to at least 5,000 B.C. thanks to the proto mongols. (Central Asian tribes before they were united)

    • jumjummy@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Don’t forget about the gear all horses are on nowadays! You need to check the labels for All Natural hp.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 months ago

      Horses today yes. They are built incredibly efficient compared to yesterday’s horses. Better ligament material, lighter and stronger bones, not to mention the carbon muscle fibers.

      and i thought horses used to be toeing the line between fucking exploding and run fast hee hee hoo hoo