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The term "horse carts" spans a huge range of wheeled vehicles, obviously with wheels and one further thing in common; they are all pulled by at least one faithfull horse.

So, a horse cart can be anything from a simple hand-made work-a-day unsprung two wheeled vehicle, without a brake and not intended for the conveyance of anything more demanding than a farmer's produce to market, to a noble carriage used in state ceremonies.

There must be billions of the simple horse carts in use around the world, they perform an absolutely essential fucntion for their owners, daily in the industrializing nations of the world.

At the other end of the spectrum of wealth, other forms of horse carts have become he playthings of the community of horse owners, especially in the UK, who rather than ride their horses, like to spend a fair deal of their time riding behind them in a type of two wheeled horse cart often known as a trap.

History is littered with references to regional and nationally favoured horse cart types, and in the past their have probably been as many regional horse cart variants as there are variations in national dress. Each of these locally favoured horse cart types has been developed, or perhaps just evolved, over time by local craftsmen to be particularly suited to the particular requirements of local people, the terrain and road conditions, the type and size of the horses they own, the crops they grow, the materials available to build from, and often also the products they produce.

The United Kingdom, as one of the earliest countries to industrialize itself, produced one of the richest ranges of horse carts, although almost none at that time wuld have been so vulgar as to call them such. In fact, the English gentry coined the derisory term "dog cart" in the early days, for the cheap carts used by the poor, and that term has been used for hundreds of years for both dog carts and two wheeled horse carts.

In the UK the following horse drawn vehicles which come under the overall term of "horse carts" were common until the advent of the motor car, and examples of most are still used for ceremonial purposes today by the Royal Familiy and the horse owning gentry:

Four-wheeled Carriages:

Brougham

Landau

Wagonette

Coach

Chariot

Barouche

Victoria

Mail Phaeton

Park Phaeton

Stanhope Phaeton

Pony Phaeton

Dog Carts.

Two-wheeled Carriages:

Curricle

Cabriolet

Gig

Hansom

Sledge

Various Public Carriages

The English of the time considered themselves a cut above the Americans as horsemen in most respects, and the same applied to their skills of a gentleman in driving horse carts of all kinds.

The following Appeared in the "Book of the Horse", Cassell, London, 1875.

The trot is the all-important pace in harness, and the favourite pace of Englishmen riding. It may be fast or slow, or both, but to be perfect it should be performed with the most mechanical precision by all the four legs.

Under saddle, a good trotter can do six miles an hour in good form, and increase the pace up to eight, ten, or twelve miles an hour; beyond twelve miles an hour with most horses, except in harness, it is better to turn to a hand-gallop.

For park work, or on the stones, eight miles is quite fast enough in either saddle or harness. In harness a horse ought to be able to do ten or twelve with ease.

Mail-phaeton horses and the wheelers of a four-horse coach are not perfect unless they can do what the Americans call a "square trot'' of fourteen miles an hour.

Beyond fourteen miles an hour it becomes racing pace, only expected from sporting publicans or American millionaires displaying their really wonderful carriages and trotters.

The class of young gentlemen who in England would indulge in a well-appointed mail-phaeton or four-in-hand would in the United States have one or more 2.40 horses, that is, horses that can trot a mile in two minutes and forty seconds.

Pace is not the principal point in a gentleman's horse except it may be in a cover hack or railway station trapper.

A horse or pony that can trot eight miles an hour in good form, bending his knees, and carrying himself like "a gentlemen," will fetch more money than a vulgar brute with no other merit than extraordinary speed.

Pages might be employed, without giving any distinct ideas, in trying to describe what good trotting should be; but it is a subject that, after all, must be studied from the live animal.

The trotting action that is admirable in harness, combining a fast pace with a sprightly or a grand style, may be perfectly detestable under saddle ; a degree of high, even rough, extravagant action, may be accepted and much admired in harness, which under saddle would wear the rider to death and make him look ridiculous.

So, too, a large number of horses perform with perfect safety, and even brilliantly, in harness, which could not carry even a boy in saddle, because all horses intended for riding as well as driving must not only have riding " shoulders " with good legs and feet, but the proper riding action, which, as before observed, will soon be spoiled if put to draw heavy weights.

The same publication also states that: "A good horse in harness should bridle well, which no horse can do which has not a head joined to his neck in the proper way."!