Have you ever wondered why fast luxury cars have always shared something with horses? After all, we have the iconic Ferrari horse, as well as the Ford Mustang, so there must be something more to it, right?
Well, horses carry a lot of symbolism, and even though they are not the fastest animals on earth, they’ve always been associated with speed. A thoroughbred horse can run at 40 mph, which isn’t a lot compared to the Ferrari going at 200 miles per hour, but the symbolism is there.
Horses have always reminded us of freedom, power, endurance, speed, and they have a unique muscle built that inspired many car designers.
So, horses and cars have a lot in common. Both chase peak performance, precision design, and the thrill of pushing the limits. Let’s see what other things they share.
Engines and Equines
Let’s start this with a question. What is the most important thing that most people look at a car? Maybe horsepower, right?
How did horsepower become a unit that symbolizes how powerful a car is? Well, this goes back to steam engines where the seller James Watt in the 70s was selling machines to replace horses, and the only way for him to explain how powerful they are, is by comparing them to how many horses they can replace.
This became a unit for power for modern vehicles. Now, let me ask you a question, how much horsepower does a horse have?
You’d think 1, right? Well, not exactly. The maximum output of a horse can be up to 15 horsepower. This means that their engine (leg muscles and built) directly impacts their ability to run fast.
This is very similar to cars. A modern Bugatti Chiron Super Sport has way more coming at 1,600 HP, but it has a W16 engine. On the other hand, horses might have only 15 horsepower, but if you put them head-to-head, I bet that the horse will win on a muddy terrain.
So, if you put a racecar at Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby, I bet the horse will win the race due to the terrain. Since we are talking about the Kentucky Derby, if you are making a bet, make sure to check out the 2025 Kentucky Derby winners and payouts.
Additionally, both are marvels of efficiency—cars with titanium exhausts shedding heat at 1,200°F, horses with lungs pumping 1,800 liters of air per minute. Nowadays, engineers and breeders alike chase that edge: aerodynamics for the car, biomechanics for the horse, each tweak shaving milliseconds off the clock.
Lightweight Design
When you look at it, weight is the main enemy of speed. Every car manufacturer, or at least the ones that are chasing faster times is looking for a way to make cars more lightweight. This is the main reason they’ve introduced carbon fiber.
A 2025 McLaren Speedtail tips the scales at 3,150 pounds, it’s carbon-fiber chassis and hybrid battery shaved to a featherweight ideal, slicing drag to hit 186 mph in 13 seconds flat.
On the other hand, we have the same thing in horse racing. Yes, you cannot manage the wight of a horse since it can negatively impact performance, but that’s why jockeys need to follow strict weight requirements.
Both lean on cutting-edge materials: cars with aluminum alloys dropping 10% off older frames, horses bred for sinew over bulk, their skeletons a natural blueprint of strength-to-weight perfection. It’s a dance of minimalism, where less means more speed.
Suspension and Stride
Smoothness wins races—whether it’s rubber on asphalt or hooves on turf. A 2025 Porsche 911 Turbo S uses adaptive dampers, adjusting 100 times a second to hug a corner at 1.2 G-forces, with tires gripping like glue.
A Thoroughbred’s legs do the same fetlocks flexing like shocks, absorbing 2,000 pounds of force per stride, tendons stretching and snapping back to keep a 1:12 furlong split steady.
Nowadays, car engineers tweak magnetic ride control for millisecond responses, while trainers’ study slow-motion gait analysis—say, a 20-foot stride at peak—to perfect a horse’s bounce. Both are tuned for stability, turning raw speed into a controlled glide that owns the curve.
Cooling
Speed breeds heat and managing it’s a shared obsession. A 2025 Rolls-Royce Spectre, all-electric at 577 horsepower, vents heat through liquid-cooled batteries, keeping 1,000 pounds of cells below 104°F on a 300-mile run.
A racehorse, mid-Derby, spikes to 105°F internal temp, sweating out 10 liters of fluid in two minutes, its vascular system—pumping 75 gallons of blood per minute—acting like a radiator.
Both push limits: cars with graphene heat sinks shed 20% more warmth than 2020 models, and horses with sweat glands evolved to cool a 200-beats-per-minute heart. It’s a duel of thermodynamics—keep the beast chill, and the finish lines yours.
The Art of the Build
Craftsmanship ties these titans tight—luxury cars and racing horses are bespoken from the ground up. A new Aston Martin DB12 AMR rolls off the line hand-stitched—leather seats, a 700-horse V8 tuned to purr at 205 mph—every bolt torqued to a micron’s tolerance.
A top colt’s bred the same way: a sire like Galileo (82 Group 1 winner) paired with a dam whose 1:58 mile screams stamina, foaled and raised on custom diets—oats, alfalfa, a dash of molasses—to hit peak at three years old.
Both take years: a car’s two-month assembly, a horse’s two-year growth, each a masterpiece of intent, built to dominate their turf with surgical finesse.
Horses and cars share a lot of similarities in terms of how they manage torque, how they find grip, and how they cool themselves down. Maybe that’s the reason why so many car brands are inspired by horses.
