Horsepower

by Makensie Danaher

Walk

Trot

Canter

Topic:  Find out how fast a horse goes in miles per hour at the 4 basic gaits:  walk, trot, canter, gallop

Hypothesis:  I rode in a car and estimated how fast I would be moving if I were riding my horse. This is how I devised my hypothesis for how fast I thought each gait would be in mph.

walk:  3 mph
trot: 13 mph
canter: 21 mph
gallop:  40 mph

Materials:  Horse, Rider, Timer, Stopwatch, Measurement of distance based on survey, car, speedometer, formula to convert feet per second to miles per hour

Procedure:

1. Hypothesis estimates

2. Saddle horse and rider mounted

3. pre-measurement of distance to travel was made based on survey of the property but it is critical to know the distance you will be timed over.

4. position timer with stopwatch at the finish point

5. Rider walks horse from starting point to finish point while timer uses stopwatch to time the ride (repeat x 3)

6. Rider trots horse from starting point to finish point while timer uses stopwatch to time the ride (repeat x3)

7. Rider canters horse from staring point to finish point while timer uses stopwatch to time the ride (repeat x3)

8. (Rider cannot gallop so that estimate will be obtained using research and reported as part of the study)

9. Record results in feet per second for all rides and then perform conversions to miles per hour to gain the comparison desired with travel in a motorized vehicle.  Used the average of the 3 rides per gait.
    

   • Calculations used to convert to feet per second to miles per hour:

   • First converted 1/16 mile to feet 5280 ft per mile divided by 16 = 330 feet

   • Next divided the number of feet by seconds to get feet/second for each gait converted feet per second to miles per hour so I could compare my horses gaits to the speed of my car for comparison and to determine my rate of speed at each gait on my horse.