A horse continues to apply a force to move the cart with constant speed. Why?

According to Newton's First Law, a body remains in its state of motion or rest until an external force acts on it. But in this case the horse has to continuously exert the force to move the cart, this is because the force of friction is acting against the motion of the cart which opposes its motion lowering the speed of cart. So the horse has to apply force to overcome this force of friction and move cart with uniform motion.