Quote Originally Posted by Watchman
By what I know of it the usual pace of close-order shock cavalry attack was about universally something called canter. I've been told trotting is pure torture for a horse having to carry armour and an armoured man (and not exactly comfortable for the rider either), and gallop ***** up the formation something awful and tends to make it extremely difficult to reform afterwards.
A canter (or a lope) is definitely easier on the rump than trotting and galloping. I would imagine even more so when fully armored up. I have never tried but I can guess it would be difficult to steady a lance while trotting (too slow and bouncy) or galloping (too fast and bouncy), however in a canter I’ll bet I could even hit a target.

With a ton+ of horse and rider covered in armor you don’t really need to be going 30 mph (the speed of a gallop) in order to smash a formation (a 15 mph canter would be plenty IMO).