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A Horse Of A Different Colour indeed - and an entirely different nature. Combining the coolness of a horse with the tireless reliability of a machine, the Mechanical Horse is, at its most basic level, a motorbike with legs. The Mechanical Horse will usually be a robot, but some Steampunk universes feature clockwork horses.
The idea is not quite as ludicrous as it sounds. Biological horses can walk on vastly more kinds of terrain than a wheeled vehicle, and it would be quite useful if there were a machine that could do the same thing. But engineers find it very challenging to overcome all of the problems with moving around on legs, on any uneven surface, without falling down. As an odd example, the US military once funded experimentation into a "walking truck", a horse-like machine designed as an all-terrain mount and transport. (It looks really weird ◊.)
Not to be confused with horses treated like machines. A really big mechanical horse with some of the animal traits taken away and some weapons added is basically a Spider Tank.
Examples:
- In Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, it appears D's horse is either a cyborg or a robot; when one is destroyed early in the film, mechanical parts go flying rather than blood.
- This troper remembers there being some blood when the cyberhorse went splat at the bottom of the cliff.
- D later goes to a cyborg horse stable to order a new one.
- It's expressly stated in the first Vampire Hunter D novel that the horses are cyborgs.
- Dungeons And Dragons's Eberron campaign setting features automaton horses.
- Not to mention the Stone Horse items in the 3rd edition Dungeon Masters Guide. But they're awful, so I won't talk about them too much.
- A Rainbow Bright movie (the one with the diamond-planet) features a talking
Cylon Cyber Horse for Bright's Spear Counterpart.
- Adventures Of The Galaxy Rangers likewise has robo-horses, since many newly-settled planets lack roads for wheeled vehicles.
- The Discworld novel Making Money introduced golem-horses, tireless pottery automatons, which are now in the employ of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office.
- In Gunnerkrigg Court, carriages are drawn by the Model-H's: intricate robotic horses that spout Milton as they slouch apocalyptically toward their destination.
- One of the Arabian Nights stories features a clockwork horse, which makes this Older Than Print.
- Rifts features both Robot and Bionic horses.
- G Gundam gives us Fuunsaiki, a Mecha horse piloted by an actual horse.
- Which was likely inspired by SD Gundam, which frequently featured mechanical horses due to its heavy use of samurai and knight settings. Some characters (such as Musha Zeta and Knight Gundam), even have centaur forms where they can combine with their steed. Perhaps topping them all, Ryofu Tallgeese in the current (as of early 2009) series SD Gundam Sangokuden has a powerful robotic horse that can also transform into a motorbike.
- Similarly, the Aussenseiter in Super Robot Wars is piloted by a person, but transforms into a horse. All together now: "Real Men Ride Each Other".
- In Roger Zelazny's Dilvish, the Damned and the sequel, The Changing Land, Dilvish had a talking metal horse named Black (which was... black.) Not exactly a Mecha Horse, as we find out that it is some kind of creature, possibly a demon, who agreed to help him in his quest according to a deal they made.
- AT-STs, the small personal mechs first seen in Return Of The Jedi, only have two legs and are sometimes called "chicken walkers", and they're armed, but otherwise follow this trope perfectly. An early version appears in Episode Three. Walkers in general, and there are a lot of them in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, sit comfortably between this trope and Spider Tank.
- And let's not forget the giant AT-AT's. They may not be very nimble or horse-like but they work on the same principles.
- The Dark Side Of The Sun, a science fiction novel by Terry Pratchett, features robot horses on a world of nothing but Mechanical Lifeforms. The horses are sapient, and have a philosophical outlook on life.
- Pratchet's later book Strata, contains a similar mechanical horse that can fly. It says it runs on magic.
- Warhammer 40000, in addition to fully robotic mounts, has heavily augmented bionic horses and cyber-boars.
- And Warhammer Fantasy features the mechanical horse. This is sufficiently ridiculous for even the distinctively over-the-top Warhammer world that many Empire players consider it Dis Continuity. Empire army book author Graham McNeill considers it the Empire's attempt to invent the car.
- Saber Rider's Steed and April's Nova in Saber Rider And The Star Sheriffs.
- The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson has mechanical horses; one of the main characters is given one with directions preprogrammed into it as a way of taking him to a secret location.
- Interesting in that they're specifically mentioned as being capable of using different gaits: galloping like a horse on smooth, level terrain, but more like a big cat when walking on steep, uneven terrain.
- "A horse, or something built around the same general plan, was coming down the street at a hard gallop. Its hooves did not make the pocking noise of iron horseshoes. Bud realized it was a chevaline - a four-legged robot thingy." From the The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson.
- In the tabletop RPG Exalted, some characters can create horse-like constructs of bonded magical energy.
- Can't be complete without 30-30, the half-mechanical deputy transforming horse from Bravestarr.
- The Mechanostriders (mechanical ostriches) from World Of Warcraft, which are unfortunately too small for any race but gnomes and dwarves.
- The Rankin Bass special Jack Frost has the villain riding a Steam Punk mechanical horse.
- In the Whateley Universe, Stalwart likes to go around in Arthurian-looking Powered Armor he built himself. He has a robot horse he rides too. It still breaks down a lot. He is only in high school.
- Christopher Stasheff's Warlock series has Fess, a Robot Buddy computer brain that spends much of the series in a robot horse body.
- Gertrude, Brunhilda & Nikki of the webcomic The KAMics received mechanical pegasi as a gift from the webcomic Magical Misfits. Nikki's pegasi was shown to convert into a convertible.
- According to the MST 3 K classic childrens' film Santa Claus, our hero's sleigh is pulled by hideous giggling clockwork reindeer. This was, of course, the Trope Namer for Nightmare Fuel.
- The fan-favorite He Man And The Masters Of The Universe episode "Origin of the Sorceress" also featured Stri-Dor, Man-At-Arms' hand-built robot mount for He-Man, which Cringer/Battle Cat viewed with no small amount of distaste. It even got a Heroic Sacrifice-turned-Disney Death fighting a villain called...wait for it...Morgoth the Terrible.
- Stephen King's Dark Tower novel ''Wolves Of The Calla". The 'wolves' that kidnap children from the town of Calla Bryn Sturgis every generation appear as wolf-masked riders, but are actually robots mounted on mechanical horses.
- The Count in Gankutsuou has a hovering carriage drawn by mechanical horses.
- In Garo, the titular Makai Knight gets one of these upon slaying 100 Horrors. It's awesome. He can even transform his sword into a BFS while riding it.
- Real Life example: one of the early projects of automobile, back in the 1800s, included a papier-mache wheeled horse with engine inside. The idea was to make it less scary to other horses (and some of the more conservative folks as well). And no, I am not making this up.
- Another Real Life example: The BigDog mechanical mule.
- Magic The Gathering has the Clockwork Steed.
- Kim Possible has a few of them in the episode 'Showdown at Crooked D'. Her uncle has a technologically advanced ranch where the horses are the norm.
- The Quest for Saint Aquin, a 1951 short story by Anthony Boucher, had the priest protagonist using an artifically-intelligent 'robass', which happens to be an aetheist.
- One of the challenges in Syberia II is how to repair a group of horse automata (no, not Automaton Horses!) that "dance" on stage in a tavern. They can't be ridden anywhere, but they're kinda fun to watch.
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Not to be confused with horses treated like machines. A really big mechanical horse with some of the animal traits taken away and some weapons added is basically a Spider Tank.
