“Don’t hurt animals” is a mainstay. Harming an animal may well cost you readers, even if you’re using it to show how awful somebody is (I’m not above doing that).

But if your characters are traveling by mount (typically horses, but also mules, donkeys, camels, etc), and you want to slow them down…slowing down the horses is one way to do it.

I thought I’d toss out some ideas for how to do that without injuring a horse.