Horse-drawn taxis are still available in major North American and European cities, even horse-mounted police patrol. There was once my boss brought me to his sister's farmhouse in outskirt Seattle. I tried riding their horse, beginning with gentle cantle, then gentle gallop and then gathering confidence or rather, over confidence, went for full speed trying to make it take me over a low fence equestrian style. Obviously, my riding and horse controlling skill sucks. The horse looked puzzled and clueless as to what I really wanted and jammed brake, flinging me over the fence, leaving me quite some backaches and bruises. Fortunately, those were younger and tougher boned days and recovered within a couple of days, but they banned me from riding the horse ever since.