Who would win a race between horses and other animals?

Horses are prey animals and, as such, are naturally flighty. In other words, in the absence of other defences, they have fast reaction times and are predisposed to run away from danger – which, in the wild, includes natural predators, such as bears, mountain lions and wolves – as their primary means of survival.

According to Guinness World Records, the highest speed recorded for a Thoroughbred racehorse in a race was the 43.97mph achieved by Winning Brew, over two furlongs, at Penn National Race Course in Grantville, Pennsylvania on May 14, 2008. However, the fastest domestic horse, the American Quarter Horse, has been clocked at speeds up to 57.9 mph over similarly short distances.

That figure is not quite as the fast as the cheetah, which is remarkably athletic and can accelerate very rapidly up to their top speed of 75 mph, albeit over just a few hundred yards at a time. It does, however, compare favourably with that of other prey animals, such as the springbok, proghorn and wilderbeest, which can hit speeds between 50 and 55mph when sprinting to elude predators.

Speaking of predators, mountain lions, which are native to the Americas, can run at up to 50 mph when hunting prey, as can their African counterparts. Bears, notably grizzly bears, and wolves are a little slower, but can still hit speeds between 35 and 40mph, in the case of the latter for miles at a time. By contrast, the fastest man on Earth, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, clocked a paltry 23.35mph when setting the 100-metre world record.