How Fast Can A Racehorse Run?

I was at the races with some friends the other day and we were all enjoying the show.

We’ve always loved horse racing for a lot of reasons, but for me, I’ve always just been incredibly impressed by the speed on display.

One of my friends remarked to me that he’d never really had any sense of how fast they’re actually going.

After all, the only reference point is the other horses.

So, I decided to look into it to give him an answer.

So, how fast can a racehorse run?

Thoroughbred racehorses typically run at speeds in excess of 40mph during races. In 2008, the fastest speed ever recorded was made when the horse Winning Brew covered 440 yards in 20.57 seconds; an average speed of 43.97 mph. So, in the region of 40mph is about the limit.

40mph for an animal to run, let alone while carry weights and a rider, is simply mind boggling.

It’s difficult to imagine, really.

It’s essentially about as fast as we would all usually drive our cars on most roads.

Now, there are some sprinters that can run faster; one American Quarter-Horse was documented sprinting at 55mph. but this is over a much shorter distance than an actual racehorse would run.

How fast does a racehorse run at maximum speed?

So, let’s first get a sense of how fast horses generally run.

The average horse gallop falls at somewhere in the region of 27mph.

An incredibly fast speed for an animal, but not the most amazing thing you’ve ever heard.

Compare that, then, with how fast they can accelerate to when racing.

As I said, typically, they will run at up to or around 40mph on the racetracks, an increase of at least 13mph.

The fastest time ever recorded for a thoroughbred racehorse during a race was the 44mph of Winning Brew.

So, as of now, 44 mph is about the fastest speed ever recorded by a racehorse.

Racehorses generally run over long distances than other types of horse that may run faster, but 44mph is the fastest speed for an actual racehorse.

Does that make Winning Brew the fastest horse in history, though?

Well, not exactly.

Who is the fastest horse in history?

So, the fastest a racehorse has ever run during a race was the roughly 44mph of Winning Brew, in May of 2008 at the Penn National Racecourse.

Stamina comes into play in a big way in horse races, because they represent a longer distance over which that speed has to be maintained.

They calculated it via distance, so they could simply see how far it ran in the time period.

Old records were held in the same category by Secretariat, the famous racehorse who won the Triple Crown in 1973.

This is one of the most prestigious racing feats a horse can achieve.

Then, he ran at an average speed of 37.5mph.

Secretariat was, again, a distance runner who had to do his best to keep his speed up over distance.

Sprinters, on the other hand, do actually attain higher speeds.

The American Quarter Horse has been clocked running at around 55mph, though obviously over a much shorter distance.

So these are the extremes, and it certainly helps to put that in the full perspective of racehorse average speeds, so let’s consider that for a moment.

What is the average racehorse speed?

Taken as a survey of a large number of horses over many races, the average speed on average is around 30mph. that might seem quite slow compared with the speeds we’ve looked at, but something else you should keep in mind is that a horse will alter its speed during a race.

Typically, it will run much faster at the beginning and at the end, and try to conserve its energy in the middle.

So, the speed will fluctuate for every horse involved.

The speed of 44mph achieved by Winning Brew would have been his peak of the race; he wouldn’t have come out of the gate at that speed and kept it up for the whole race.

So, this goes some way to explaining exactly the racehorse speed record.

But what about wild horses?

You might be surprised how close they can come to these same speeds.

How fast can a wild horse run?

Now, horses obviously love running.

It’s in their nature.

Most of what they do in the wild is either grazing or galloping to look for new grazing.

But naturally, thoroughbred horses are bred for one purpose, from a long line of racing horses.

Furthermore, they’re trained to run at the fastest speed they possibly can. So, what about wild horses?

They can still run at mind boggling speeds for an animal, but compared with the kinds of speed attained by the fastest racehorses and Quarter Horses it does seem like more of a leisurely trot.

Wild mustangs generally run at speeds of around 25 to 30mph in the wild, although they have been clocked at the top speed of 55mph according to some sources.

It’s certainly much harder to determine with horses in the wild, but clearly even some wild horses can achieve seemingly impossible speeds.

There’s a pretty obvious reason we’ve been racing them for as long as we have, then.

There aren’t actually many land animals that can run faster than horses for such a long distance, although many are much better sprinters, like cheetahs and greyhounds.

Racehorses are much bigger and capable of keeping up that speed for a long time.

It’s really a sight to behold.