Cowboy Bob's Questions and Answers - page 327 - How many horses could two riders herd?

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QUESTION:
I didn't see how to submit a New question on your Question and Answer page. I am writing a story and wondering, how many horses could two men expect to safely get to market over mountain and forest trails in postmodern times? My setting is more medieval fantasy, but I'm guessing many of the hardships and dangers would have been the same for cowboys (the only major difference being that cowboys would have firearms). What kind of strategy might these two use if, for instance, their string of horses was attacked by wolves along a forest trail?

Any thoughts are appreciated!

D. P.

ANSWER:

There's no fancy way to submit questions to my website. Just do as you did: send me an e-mail.

The answer to your question depends a lot on how the herd is prepared for the move. If one of the riders is mounted on the herd's lead brood mare, the rest of the herd will instinctively follow her. A few training trips will help the herd learn to trail steadily along. The better the herd is trained and domesticated, the better it will go. With one rider leading the herd, you'd only need one more rider to wrangle the critters that tend to lag or stray.

As to how large the herd can be, with the right herd the sky is pretty much the limit. They weren't well-mannered, but another rider and I had no problem bringing in the entire string of more than 30 rodeo bucking horses from a large pasture. With gentler horses, we could probably have handled more than double or triple that number.

As for the wolves, the herd could likely protect itself. There might be some injuries or even deaths, but horses come equipped with some pretty lethal teeth and hooves. In some parts of the U.S., cattlemen just add a donkey or two to the herd to protect all the cows against predators.

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