Tourist

Hello! I hope my post does not breach forum ettiquette, I am new, please, no flaming. I would like to calculate how much energy an object(a horse, for me) expends over a given distance x, at a speed y. I would then like to compare this with energy spent over the same distance x, when accelerating to a maximum speed of y from an initial speed, a. Can anyone help, or at least make sense of my humble request? Tourist.