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Description
to be fair, quadrupedal (especially ungulate) motion is much more efficient than a human gait, from an energy standpoint. the stamina comes from lung-to-body-weight ratio and specifics in human muscle fibers (lack of ‘fast-twitch’). fact remains that humans can pretty much out-jog any creature on earth… eventually.
Source
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Damn we are badass
On top of which, humans have more endurance than horses in general. The reason we use animals as labour sources is because they have more strength than we do. They’re capable of carrying a bigger load over a particular distance. Given an equivalent load to body mass, an average human can keep going for far longer than a horse without needing to rest.
@Background Pony #A88F
You’re thinking in the wrong terms. A tame horse can walk for a long time with a load, yes, but this isn’t about chasing a walking horse. It’s about predation of untamed animals who respond to predation by fleeing.
In the wild, when a horse or other similar animal sees a predator, it doesn’t amble away. It runs, as fast as it can, until it runs out of energy or escapes the danger. Most predators are adapted to high-speed pursuit of prey and usually tire at about the same time as the prey they’re pursuing. If the prey can get away in that time it will be safe.
As a consequence they have adapted to expend a great deal of energy to run extremely fast for a short distance, after which they have to spend time recovering. A lot of time. A horse can only gallop for a few minutes, after which it has to spend most of the day recovering and feeding to replenish its energy.
Humans and some other predatory species have adapted to exploit this through pursuit predation. The prey species, adapted to a fast predator, will bolt when a human turns up. The human will walk after it at a comfortable speed and reach the prey while it is still recovering from its previous escape run. The prey, though tired, will instinctively bolt again in order to escape. This pattern will repeat until the prey is exhausted and unable to keep running or even move, at which point the human will wander up and knock it on the head with a rock.
:-)
It’s still used by some African tribes when they hunt. They track an animal for miles until it’s too exhausted to continue.