Rigid-terrain unmanned ground vehicles(UGV) can run under the field environment by the advanced adaptive ability. This paper presents a novel horse inspired rigid-terrain eight-wheel vehicle with four-swing arms. This unmanned ground vehicle is drived by distributed hydraulic motors. By cooperating with four-swing arms and eight wheels, the vehicle has the ability to work like a horse climbs an obstacle under the complex ground. The mechanism, bionic obstacle surmounting algorithm and operation strategy are analyzed in detail. The posture planning of wheel arms and the kinematic model of the UGV are studied. Automatic Dynamic Analysis of Mechanical Systems (ADAMS) simulation results and prototype experiments are executed to verify the analysis and strategy. The results show that this type of unmanned ground vehicle has good performance on crossing the obstacle and running on the rigid-terrain ground.