Things Fantasy Characters Need to Stop Doing With Horses

This mule has an opinion about your writing. Photo by author.

Somebody said to me there are two things writers need to get right every time: Guns and horses.

Most of the horse errors I see are just things which make me roll my eyes. A “gelding” is a castrated male horse, not a breed or type of horse. Mules exist (Punch there has an opinion on you forgetting he exists),

But every so often I see something in a book that is outright dangerous. As in if somebody did what your character did in real life somebody is going to get hurt. Worse, that somebody is likely going to be the horse.

If you’re going to have your characters do any of the following, there must be consequences. Because in real life there would be.

Hold On By the Reins

This is the one that yeeted me right out of the book I’m currently reading with the force of a bronc.

The character is riding a magical construct horse, which makes it a little less terrible, but only a little.

The horse runs up a vertical cliff and the character, the protagonist “holds a death grip on the reins.”

Take a look at Punch up there. That metal thing in his mouth is the bit. That’s what the reins are attached to.