Horse: how to tame and ride one
The horse is the fastest mount in Minecraft, and it lets you cross the world much faster than on foot. Every horse has its own speed, jump height and health. Here is how to find a good one, tame it, fit a saddle and armor, and breed a new generation with even better stats. If you are just starting out, begin with our beginner's guide.
Stats
| Name | Horse |
| Health (HP) | 15-30 (random) |
| Speed | 4.74 - 14.23 blocks/s (random) |
| Jump height | 1.08 - 5.29 blocks (random) |
| Type | Passive |
| Taming | Repeated mounting |
| Breeding | Golden carrots or golden apples |
Every horse gets randomly generated speed, jump and health stats. The fastest horses move at 14.23 blocks per second: more than 3 times faster than a walking player (4.317 b/s) and far faster than a sprinting one (5.612 b/s). The best horses can jump over 5 blocks high, which clears most natural obstacles. Unlike a wolf or a cat, a horse does not fight or defend for you. It is pure transportation, and it completely changes how you explore the world.
Where to find horses
Horses spawn in these biomes:
- Plains: The most common place to find them. Groups of 2-6 horses appear on open grassland. Plains are one of the most widespread biomes, so finding horses should not be a problem.
- Savanna: Also common. Groups of 2-6 horses. The savanna is a warm biome with acacia trees, easy to recognize by its dry-looking grass.
Horses come in 7 base colors (white, creamy, chestnut, brown, black, gray, dark brown) and 5 markings (none, stockings and blaze, white field, white dots, black dots). That makes 35 possible looks in total. More importantly, a horse's looks have no effect on its stats: a horse of any coat can have great or poor stats. The only way to judge a horse's quality is to test it after taming.
/locate biome minecraft:plains in a world or on a server with commands enabled. Plains generate in practically every world and are easy to find even without commands: just look for open, flat terrain with short grass.
How to tame a horse
Taming a horse is unusual: it does not take food (like a wolf with bones or a cat with fish) but repeated mounting. It is one of the simplest taming methods in the game.
- Walk up to the horse: Right-click the horse with an empty hand to mount it. Horses do not run away from players, so getting close is easy.
- The horse throws you off: A wild horse bucks you off after a few seconds. That is normal and does not mean you did anything wrong.
- Mount it again: Keep mounting. Every attempt has a chance to tame the horse, and it usually takes several tries.
- Success: When hearts appear, the horse is tamed. Now you can ride it.
After taming
A tamed horse accepts you as its rider, but without a saddle you cannot steer it! The horse will just wander around at random. To control where you go, you need a saddle. That is the key difference: taming alone is not enough to use a horse as a mount.
Saddle and controls
Since Java 1.21.6 and Bedrock 1.21.90 you can make a saddle at a crafting table from 3 leather and 1 iron ingot (the saddle recipe shows the ingredient layout). Before that, saddles could not be crafted, which made them a valuable find. Ready-made saddles can still be found in chests, fished up with a fishing rod or bought from a villager.
Where to find a saddle
The chest odds below are for Java Edition 26.3. Since 1.21.6, saddles no longer appear in the chests of dungeons, desert and jungle temples, strongholds or ancient cities.
- Nether Fortress: 33.3% chance. The highest chance of any structure, but it takes a trip to the Nether.
- Abandoned Camp: 27.5% chance in a regular camp chest. The structure was added in Java 26.3 and Bedrock 26.50.
- Village: 17.3% in a tannery chest, 14.4% in a weaponsmith chest and 11.3% in a savanna house.
- Bastion Remnant: 12% in the chest in the hoglin stable.
- End City: 12.7% chance. You need to defeat the Ender Dragon first.
- Fishing: A rare "treasure" catch when fishing in open water (0.8% base chance). The chance goes up with the Luck of the Sea enchantment.
- Villager trading: A master-level Leatherworker sells a saddle for 6 emeralds. Handy when you are short on leather and have a top-level leatherworker in your village.
Controlling a horse
Once the saddle is on (press E while riding to open the horse's inventory and put the saddle in its slot), you steer the horse like your own character: WASD to move, Space to jump. Hold Space to charge the jump bar: the longer you hold, the higher the horse jumps. Press Shift to dismount. Keep in mind that fighting with a sword from horseback is less effective than on foot, so dismount for serious fights.
Horse armor
Horse armor protects the horse from damage, which matters when you travel through dangerous terrain. It works differently from wolf armor (added in 1.20.5): horse armor has no durability and never breaks.
| Armor type | Protection | Where to find |
|---|---|---|
| Leather Horse Armor | 3 points | Crafting (7 leather) |
| Iron Horse Armor | 5 points | Dungeons, temples, strongholds |
| Golden Horse Armor | 7 points | Dungeons, temples, strongholds |
| Diamond Horse Armor | 11 points | Dungeons, temples, End Cities |
Diamond horse armor greatly improves a horse's chances of surviving a fight and is one of the most valuable finds in the game. Leather horse armor is the only kind you can make at a crafting table, and you can dye it, so you can match the armor color to the horse's coat. All the other armors have to be found as loot in structures.
Breeding and improving stats
Breeding is the only way to get horses with the best stats. Unlike breeding wolves (any meat) or cats (raw fish), horse breeding calls for valuable materials.
How to breed horses
- You need two tamed horses.
- Feed both horses golden carrots or golden apples.
- A foal (baby horse) appears and inherits stats.
- Wait out the 5-minute cooldown before breeding again.
Stat inheritance
A foal's stats are the average of both parents' stats plus a random modifier. That means breeding two fast horses gives you a better chance of a fast foal, but no guarantee. Repeatedly breeding your best horses gradually raises the average stats of your herd, much like selective breeding in real life. In practice, after 5-10 generations you can get horses close to the maximum stats.
Golden carrots vs golden apples
Golden carrots (8 gold nuggets + 1 carrot) are cheaper than golden apples (8 gold ingots + 1 apple). Both work the same for breeding, so golden carrots are the more economical choice. You will find the golden carrot crafting recipe in our guide. One gold nugget is 1/9 of an ingot, so a golden carrot costs less than 1 gold ingot, while a golden apple costs 8 full ingots.
Horses and donkeys: crossbreeding
You can cross a horse with a donkey to get a mule. A mule cannot breed any further, but it combines traits of both parents: it has decent speed and can carry a chest (15 item slots). Breeding a mule takes the same golden carrots or golden apples as breeding horses.
Horse variants and related mobs
Besides standard horses, Minecraft has several related variants. Each one has its own traits that make it useful in other situations.
- Donkey: Slower than a horse, but it can carry a chest (15 slots). Taming works exactly like it does for a horse. It spawns in plains and savannas, but less often than horses. It works well for hauling resources from a distant mine back to your base.
- Mule: A cross between a horse and a donkey. It can carry a chest and cannot breed on its own. Its stats come from its parents, so a mule from a fast horse can be faster than a wild donkey.
- Skeleton Horse: Appears from a skeleton horse trap during a thunderstorm. It is tamed from the start. In Java Edition you need a saddle to steer it, while in Bedrock you can ride it without one. It does not throw its rider underwater and walks along the ocean floor. A skeleton with an enchanted bow rides it.
- Zombie Horse: Since 1.21.11 it spawns naturally at night, under a zombie rider with an iron spear. Once you defeat the rider, you can tame it like a regular horse.
The mule is a good pick if you need mobile storage: the chest gives it 15 item slots, and a mule from a fast horse also inherits decent speed. The skeleton horse is handy for exploring oceans, because you ride along the seabed without having to dismount. The skeleton horse trap works like this: when you approach the horse during a thunderstorm, lightning strikes it and 4 skeleton horses appear with skeleton riders.
The horse as transport: comparison
The horse is one of several ways to get around fast in Minecraft. Here is how the speeds of different transport methods compare, so you can decide when a horse is the right choice.
| Transport method | Speed (b/s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Walking | 4.32 | Slowest method |
| Sprinting | 5.61 | Drains hunger |
| Fastest horse | 14.23 | Needs a saddle |
| Slowest horse | 4.74 | Barely faster than walking! |
| Boat on ice | 40.0 | Needs an ice road |
| Elytra + fireworks | 33.5 | Requires defeating the Ender Dragon |
| Nether portal | 8x distance | Effectively 8x faster |
A horse is the best means of transport in the early and mid game, before you get an elytra or build ice roads. Even late in the game, a horse stays useful for local trips and for exploring new terrain. To make travel even more efficient, you can build stables with your best horses in different places around the world.
Tips and tricks
- Horses in water: Since Java 1.21.11 and Bedrock 1.21.130, a horse with a rider does not sink but stays on the surface, so you can cross a river or lake on it. If you go under with your head, though, you fall off the horse. A skeleton horse does not swim: underwater it walks along the bottom and does not throw its rider.
- Leads: Tie a horse to a fence with a lead so it does not wander off. Without a lead, a tamed horse with no player on it roams at random. Craft a lead from 5 string. Since Java 1.21.6 and Bedrock 1.21.90 a slimeball is no longer needed, and the recipe makes 2 leads.
- Quick mounting: You can mount a horse from 3 blocks away, which helps when you need to escape from Creepers or other enemies in a hurry.
- Horses in the Nether: Horses work in the Nether, but lava and ghast fireballs are dangerous. Diamond horse armor is highly recommended. Consider a Potion of Fire Resistance for yourself.
- Falling: In Java Edition a horse takes no damage from falls of up to 7 blocks, and beyond that it loses 0.5 HP for every extra block. As the rider you are safe as long as the horse is, but once the horse takes damage, you take normal fall damage too.
- Food: You can feed horses wheat, apples, carrots, hay bales (they heal 20 HP!), golden carrots and golden apples. Hay bales are the best healing food: craft them from 9 wheat.
- Names: Rename a name tag on an anvil, then use it on a horse. That makes your best horses easy to pick out of the herd, which helps when you are breeding a dozen or so horses with different stats. Since Java 26.1 and Bedrock 26.10 you can craft a name tag from paper and an iron, gold or copper nugget.
- Horses and the Wandering Trader: The Wandering Trader shows up with two llamas. You can tame those llamas too, but they do not work as mounts. Use horses for transport.
Summary
The horse is an indispensable travel companion in Minecraft. Tame it by mounting it repeatedly, make a saddle from leather and iron or buy one from a villager, put diamond armor on it and enjoy speeds of up to 14 blocks per second. Breed horses with golden carrots to improve their stats generation by generation, and use a mule to haul items. Pair the horse with other companions, a wolf for fighting and a cat for defending your base, and you are ready for any occasion. For more on crafting saddles, armor and breeding, see our crafting guide.