Medieval warhorses again

[Erpingham]

We discussed the research behind this when it first came out but it does challenge our idea of what our heavy cavalry were actually riding about on.  I was reminded of it when posting the link to the Book of St Albans the other day.  Note how the illustrations reflect the proportions of rider and horse and compare to the diagram in the article.  I haven't done a particular scale comparison but the half dozen medieval horses I have lying about (mainly Perry) come in around 28-30mm at the whithers, making them in the about 1.68m, 16.2 hands at 1/56.  So should really be shorter.  I do wonder, though, having been used to illustrations and representations with a certain proportion between rider and animal whether a move to more "realistic" proportions might look odd.

[Ian61]

I do wonder, though, having been used to illustrations and representations with a certain proportion between rider and animal whether a move to more "realistic" proportions might look odd.

The size of model horses is a big enough problem already, I have two metal Roman horses from Warlord (one is the Marcus Aurelius fig) that are a only a tad over 20mm at the withers and look very odd against the rest of the horses in my Celtic/British and Roman Armies although the metal British light cavalry are only a couple of mm bigger some of the Victrix Celtic Cavalry horses are easily 26mm but if they were standing with legs straight down would probably be closer to your 28+mm. I also have two sizes of steads for my Numidian cavalry and have jacked the metal ones up on extra basing to make the units look more coherent.
I suspect that in reality, as those box plots suggest, historical horses were a far more mixed bunch than our modern sensitivities like to see. I fear realism doesn't always 'look 'right.