dixswizzle: Careful on this...
In the 100 mile horse race at the 2010 World Equestrian Games held in Kentucky the winning time was 10 hrs 55 min and 44 sec (and that included 3hrs and 20 min of mandatory vet holds). That’s a pace of 6:33 min/mile over the 100 miles (again including holds). I also won’t even get into the fact that the horse has to meet a low pulse criteria before the “hold time” starts so the riders have to control their pace during the ride. Just taking into account the actual running time of 7:35:44, that is 4:55 pace. That would equate to about a 2:08 marathon, a well-trained endurance horse like that (pure Arabians by the way) if “only” doing a 26.2 miler could go well below the human marathon WR.
Here’s a link to the results:
http://www.alltechfeigames.com/competition/discipline.aspx?id=226
(Click on “team and individual results” about half way down the page.)
By the way… this whole thread is an interesting Troll Fest.