Introduction -- Pricked more with the spur then the provender : hungry horses and Woodstock -- Agency and/or containment? : man/woman and horse/rider relationships in early modern England -- Trampling on the bald pate : Morocco the wonder horse and the humiliation of St. Paul's -- Laying the world on your mare : the corrupt horse-race in Shirley's Hide Parke -- Constructed combatants : political steeds before, during, and after the Civil Wars -- Conclusion.