The importance of horses to Anglo-Norman society needs little introduction. While the significance of the horse in eleventh- and twelfth-century warfare has tended to loom large in historiography, especially in the debate over the existence of the Anglo-Saxon ‘warhorse’, a by-product of scholarly attention in this area has been the welcome dismissal of the idea that the English beast was no more than a shaggy pony and its Norman counterpart only a thoroughbred. Far from being overshadowed by its continental neighbours, selective breeding of horses in England before 1066 is well-attested, as is the existence of specialized studs, raising the possibility that the kingdom may have been comparatively well-horsed. Without diminishing the potential importance of the Conquest to equine culture, the more recent tendency of historians not to unduly differentiate between the kind of horses found on both sides of the channel either side of 1066, provides a more balanced approach. In similar vein, this essay discusses the geography of horse breeding in England, principally in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. There are specific reasons why this period in particular might be worth exploring. Before 1200 the horse was becoming increasingly significant as a beast of agriculture and it became more so thereafter, drawing speculation that improvements in breeding must have occurred, not least to increase numbers. The emergence in the late pre-Conquest period of middle-ranking ‘riding men’ whose position in society was determined in part by mounted service arguably drove a need for steeds of certain quality and fed rivalry among this particular social group: something reflected archaeologically in the widespread occurrence of decorative horse gear. It might be assumed that competition from below motivated the higher elite to differentiate their mounts from those of their inferiors and while the horse burials of the early and middle Saxon period attest that equestrianism on the part of the aristocracy was something of a constant, arguably the renewed interest in the material trappings of wealth in the late pre-Conquest period took this interest further. The perennial demands of warfare and hunting must also have fed a motivation for breeding. Perhaps more mundanely, the growing governmental sophistication of late Saxon England that rested in part on efficiency of communications may also have been a driver of change.