How Fast Can a Horse Run? Top Speeds and Records

How fast does a horse go at each gait?

A horse has four natural gaits, each with its own rhythm and speed. The figures below are typical averages for an ordinary riding horse; trained racehorses and harness horses are much faster.

Some breeds have extra gaits. The Icelandic horse has the smooth, four-beat tölt, and many Standardbreds race at the pace, moving both legs on one side together. Top harness racers trot or pace a mile (1.6 km) in under two minutes, faster than 48 km/h (30 mph).

Do all four hooves leave the ground?

Yes, at the gallop. In 1878, the photographer Eadweard Muybridge used a row of cameras to photograph the horse Sallie Gardner galloping in California. His pictures proved that all four hooves are briefly off the ground, but with the legs gathered under the body, not stretched out front and back as many painters had shown.

The fastest horses on record

Winning Brew: the official speed record

Guinness World Records lists the fastest speed for a racehorse as 70.76 km/h (43.97 mph), achieved by Winning Brew, a two-year-old Thoroughbred filly, over two furlongs (about 400 m) at Penn National Race Course in Pennsylvania on 14 May 2008. This is the highest reliably timed speed for any horse.

Quarter Horses: the sprinters

The American Quarter Horse is named after the quarter-mile races it was bred for in colonial America. Its powerful hindquarters give it explosive acceleration, and it is the quickest breed over about 400 m. Quarter Horses have been timed at up to about 71 km/h (44 mph). Claims of 88 km/h (55 mph) are often repeated online, but they are not backed by reliable timing.

Secretariat and the great racehorses

Thoroughbreds are bred for speed over longer distances, typically 1 to 2.4 km (5 furlongs to 1.5 miles). Most top-level races are run at average speeds of roughly 55–65 km/h (35–40 mph). In the 1973 Belmont Stakes, Secretariat ran 1.5 miles (2.4 km) in 2 minutes 24 seconds, winning by 31 lengths. That record still stands, and works out at an average of about 60 km/h (37.5 mph) for the whole race.

What makes horses so fast?

Horses evolved on open grasslands where outrunning predators was the best defense. Several features make them superb runners:

• Long, light lower legs. Each leg ends in a single toe and hoof, and almost all the heavy muscle sits high up near the body, so the legs can swing quickly.
• Elastic tendons. Long tendons in the legs stretch and recoil like springs, storing and returning energy with every stride.
• A long stride. A galloping Thoroughbred covers roughly 6–7 m (20–23 ft) per stride, taking about two strides a second.
• Huge heart and lungs. A racehorse’s heart typically weighs around 4 kg (9 lb), and a horse at full gallop breathes in time with its strides, taking one breath per stride.
• An oxygen reserve. The spleen stores red blood cells and releases them during exercise, boosting the blood’s ability to carry oxygen.

Speed vs stamina: endurance horses

Sprinting is only part of the story. Horses are also among the best long-distance runners of the animal world. In endurance riding, horses cover 80 to 160 km (50 to 100 miles) in a single day over rough country, with veterinary checks along the way. The Tevis Cup in California, first held in 1955, crosses 100 miles (160 km) of the Sierra Nevada within a 24-hour limit.

Arabian horses, bred in the deserts of the Middle East, dominate endurance sport thanks to their stamina and ability to cope with heat. Over these distances, even the winners average far lower speeds than sprinters: roughly 12–15 km/h (7–9 mph) on a mountain course like the Tevis, and faster on flat desert courses.

How does a horse compare with other fast animals?

Horses are fast, but not the fastest land animals.

The cheetah wins any sprint, but it tires within a few hundred meters, while horses and pronghorns can keep up high speeds for much longer. Zebras are a little slower than racehorses but are tough and agile, as explained in How fast can a zebra run?. For the full ranking, see our list of the fastest animals.