Nearly one hundred years to capture a small race of “horsemen” (8)
I believe the answer is:
centaurs
'race of horsemen' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both people as well as being plural nouns.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'nearly one hundred years to capture a small' is the wordplay.
'nearly' means to remove the last letter.
'one hundred years' becomes 'century' (I've seen this before).
'to capture' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'small' becomes 's' (abbreviation - e.g. clothes size).
'century' with its final letter removed is 'centur'.
'centur' going around 'a' is 'centaur'.
'centaur'+'s'='CENTAURS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for centaurs that I've seen before include "'Mythical creatures, half-man, half-horse (8)'" , "Mythical creatures, half man and half horse" , "Fabulous beasts of Etruscan origin" , "Tan curse on the mythical creatures" , "Man-horses?" .)