Everything You Need To Know About Horses In Minecraft

Where Do Horses Spawn In Minecraft?

Minecraft horses spawn in the savannah and plains biomes, commonly in groups of 2-6.

You can also find horses in stables/pens in villages.

How Do You Tame Horses?

Horses use the ‘temper’ mechanic in taming and each horse starts out with a temper of between 0-100.

Players must ride the horse (by pressing ‘use’ next to it with an empty hand) to tame a horse in Minecraft.

When the player jumps on the horse, it will be assigned a taming threshold of between 0-99 and it will buck. Once the horse's temper is more than this threshold, the horse will be tamed.

You will know the horse is tamed when hearts float around it in game and it does’t buck any more.

The player must hold on to the horse as it moves around. If they are bucked off, the temper is increased by 5, making the horse easier to tame next time.

Feeding a horse also helps to tame a horse as it increases temper.

What Do Horses Drop?

When killed, horses drop:

• 1-2 leather (up to a max of 5 with a weapon enchanted with Looting III)
• 1-3 experience
• If equipped, horse armor or a saddle.

Once a player does tame a horse and it dies, all players receive a death notification in game.

How To Breed Horses In Minecraft

To breed horses in Minecraft, adult horses need to be fed Golden Apples or Golden Carrots (enchanted golden apples also work).

Once two horses have been fed one Golden Apple or Carrot, they will each enter love mode (showing they’re ready to breed) which is shown as hearts around the horse.

Once in love mode, the two horses will automatically path-find to each other if close, and will mate to produce a baby horse (a foal).

The foal will take some of its parent’s stats, along with the same colors (however can be different markings).

What Can You Feed Minecraft Horses?

Food that you can feed a Minecraft horse are:

• Sugar
• Wheat
• Apple
• Hay bale
• Golden Apple
• Golden Carrot

The different effects of these foods are shown in the table below:

Hay bales can only be fed to tamed horses.

How To Feed A Horse

To feed your tamed horse in Minecraft:

• Hold the item you wish to feed it in your main hand
• Stand in front of the horse you wish to give food to
• Press ‘use’

You can only give food to a horse if it would have an effect, for example when it will increase a horse’s health.

How To Ride Horses

To ride a horse, stand in front of a horse and press right-click or use to mount it. Only tamed horses can be saddled and ridden in Minecraft.

Using a Saddle

Saddles are needed to be able to control the movement of a tamed Minecraft horse when riding.

To equip a tamed horse with a saddle:

• Have the saddle you wish to use in your inventory
• Approach the horse and open its inventory by mounting it or standing in front of it and pressing the inventory button
• Place the saddle in the horses saddle slot

How To Get A Saddle

Horse saddles are only available to find in the game, they cannot be crafted.

You can find a horse saddle:

• Via treasure when fishing
• Trading with a leatherworker villager (50% chance to find in Bedrock Edition, 100% in Java)
• Killing a strider ridden by a zombie piglin (drops on death)
• Killing a ravager (drops on death)

You can also find horse saddles in Minecraft chest loot in the following world areas:

• Dungeons
• Ancient City
• Bastion Remnant
• Desert Temple
• End City
• Jungle Temple
• Nether Fortress
• Stronghold
• Villages

Horse Speed

A Minecraft horse’s speed can be directly influenced by potions, and a tamed horse's maximum movement speed is given as a random number when tamed in the game.

Without potions, a horse’s maximum speed when riding is between 4.74 blocks/second and 14.3 blocks/second (for reference a player's running speed is 4.3 blocks/second, so even the slowest horse is faster than a running human in Minecraft).

Potions that affect a Minecraft horses speed are:

There is an exploit in which if two horses are bred when under the effect of a potion, the speed given from the potion will influence the foal, resulting in faster and faster horses.

Can You Jump With a Horse?

You can jump with a tame Minecraft horse by pressing the ‘jump’ button , and holding the control buttoncharges a higher leap.

Horses aren’t affected by jump boost potions or beacons.

The jump strength of a tame horse ranges from 0.4-1, with 0.7 being the average. For example, a tame horse who has a jump strength of 1 has a jump height of 5 blocks - high enough to jump fences easily.

Horse Armor

Minecraft horse armor offers equippable protection for your horse, with different materials providing more or less protection:

There is no durability assigned to horse armor, so it won't degrade while riding.

How To Get Horse Armor

You can craft leather horse armor, however other armor types can only be found in the world in certain structures:

There is no durability assigned to horse armor, so it won't degrade while riding.

How To Equip Horse Armor

To equip horse armor to your horse:

• Have the armor you wish to use in your inventory
• Approach the Minecraft horse and open its inventory by mounting it or standing in front of it and pressing the inventory button
• Place the armor in the horses armor slot
• OR hold the armor you wish to equip and right-click on the horse to equip it

You can only equip horse armor on adult tamed horses.

Will a Horse Attack You?

Horses are passive mobs, and they remain passive even if the player attacks them, so no, Minecraft horses will not attack you.

This is only true for normal horses, skeleton horses or zombie horses can attack you, as can other animals.

Other Fun Horse Facts 

• Speed, health and jump power can all be bred characteristics in horses from the parent horses to the baby horses
• Minecraft horses have 7 different base coat colors
• Zombie horses are only able to be spawned into the game
• When saddled, zombie horses are the fastest mount in the game
• A player can lead any Minecraft horse- tamed, untamed or undead
• You can swim with your horse in water up to 2 blocks deep before dismounting