Back to the title of this thread. Coincidentally I was just finishing a novel by Rider Haggard yesterday. Haggard was born in 1856 and was essentially part of the English gentry class. He wrote the novel in the mid-80s and by then he had seen a certain amount of "action" in South Africa,where cavalry would of course have been involved. Having noticed this thread earlier in the day I was rather struck by his decription of a horse being ridden into quicksand by a madman : The horse shrieks in fear and agony,as only a horse can.
I think given his time and his class Haggard would hve spent rather more time round horses than the OP.