How to breed horses in Minecraft – and tame them too

Giddy up, cowboy! Find out how to find and ride the perfect Minecraft horse in 1.18

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Horses are an ideal way to traverse the Minecraft Overworld as they can get you from A to B far quicker than your own two legs can. So next time you’re wanting to travel thousands of blocks to find the nearest Pillager Outpost or Ruined Portal, it might be worth having a pet steed or two ready to go. In order to do get the best horse you can, you’ll want to breed them, so here’s everything you need to know about breeding horses in Minecraft.

How to breed horses in Minecraft

Horses can be bred in Minecraft, and can even be used to breed mules, too. By breeding, you can (kind of) determine the colour and markings of your pet horse, as well as its stats. Breeding is also the only way to breed a mule, which is far more useful than you might think. Unlike horses, mules can be equipped with chests so they have their own inventory space, increasing your on-the-go storage by 15 slots.

First, you’ll need to find horses, but this shouldn’t be too difficult. While horses only spawn in Savannas and Plains biomes, these are two fairly common biomes, and they’ll also spawn in herds of 2 – 6, so you’ll be sure to find at least one pair that you can start breeding.

To breed a horse, simply feed a golden carrot or a golden apple to two horses, and they will enter love mode. This will cause a baby horse to spawn. A Golden Carrot is the cheaper item of the two, as it requires a carrot and eight gold nuggets, while a Golden Apple requires and apple and eight Gold Ingots.

While this is all you need to know to breed horses, there’s a little more technique to horse breeding if you want the best pet possible.

Minecraft horse stats – Jump height, speed and health

Unlike other Minecraft mobs, horses have their own speed and jump height stats. They also, of course, have a health level, but you can actually see a horse’s health level on your HUD. Knowing how to find and use these stats means you can find the best Minecraft horse available, and even breed it with another to get more prize stallions and mares.

Your horse’s health will be on display where your health bar usually is, and can have up to 15 hearts (30 health). The image below shows a horse with 10 hearts (20 health). The jump and speed, however, are a little more difficult to determine. You’ll need to just test these out manually from horse to horse and feel it out. But it’ll be quite obvious once you’re riding it.

If you manage to find two wild horses with very good stats, any foal bred from them should also carry high stats, as a baby’s stats are averaged from its parents (and one other random set of figures). This way, you can have stables full of high-spec horses just waiting to take you on those long cross-Overworld journeys.

Breeding mules in Minecraft

To breed a mule, you’ll need to breed a horse with a donkey, again using golden apples or carrots. This is a little more difficult as you’ll have to find both, but once you do, it’ll be worth it. Like with a baby horse, a baby mule (or mule foal) will take its stats from its parents’ average (and one other random set of figures), so you can breed quite fast and healthy mules, but as mentioned above, you can then equip it with chests. Therefore, breeding a strong, fast mule and giving it inventory space can make for quite the survival buddy.

If you aren’t sold on breeding a mule for use in-game, then you might at least want to do it for the Artificial Selection achievement, available to Bedrock edition players for breeding a mule from a horse and a donkey. There is no achievement for breeding mules in Java Edition, but you need to do so to earn the Two by Two advancement, which is for breeding every type of animal.

Can you breed Minecraft Skeleton Horses?

Skeleton Horses are a separate horse species that are created randomly and rarely by lightning strikes. The spawned horse is called a trap horse, which will trigger a skeleton horseman and three additional skeleton horsemen when a player comes within 10 blocks of it. This is the only way a Skeleton Horse can spawn, and you cannot feed or breed a Skeleton Horse once you have one.

For the full list of Minecraft animals that can be bred and which food items to feed them to encourage them into love mode, check out our full guide to breeding horses and other animals in Minecraft.

How to tame horses in Minecraft

Taming and riding horses is a pretty easy process, the only difficulty being that you’ll need a saddle to ride one. And you’ll need to tame a horse before you can find out its stats (and ride it for speed/jump).

To tame a horse simply left click (mouse)/left trigger (controller) and you’ll hop onto its back. You’ll most likely get bolted off, and you need to just keep trying until the horse lets you stay on its back. You’ll know this when you see hearts appear above it. The number of times you need to mount the horse is random, as it depends on the horse’s randomly generated “temper” stat.

How to ride horses in Minecraft

Once a horse has been tamed, you still won’t be able to determine its direction until you equip it with a saddle. But you can stay on its back and see where it takes you if you particularly want to. Once you have a saddle, click E on PC/Y on Xbox/Triangle on PS to open its inventory, and you’ll see a slot for a saddle and a slot for armor. These inventory slots are restricted to these items only, and only one of each.

How to make a saddle in Minecraft – Or find them

As mentioned above, you will need a saddle in order to be able to ride a horse in the direction you want to go in. Which is kinda crucial, really. And, sadly, you actually can’t craft a saddle in vanilla Minecraft. You’ll need to find one instead. There’s a list of potential places to locate a saddle below, but you might also want to check out our full guide on how to find saddles in Minecraft.

• Desert Temple Chests (Overworld)
• Jungle Temple Chests (Overworld)
• Village Chests (Overworld)
• Dungeon Chests (Overworld, Underground)
• Stronghold Chests (Overworld, Underground)
• Bastion Remnant Chests (Nether)
• Nether Fortress Chests (The Nether)
• End City Chests (End City)
• Fishing loot
• Leatherworker Villager trade

How to put armor on a horse in Minecraft

Much like how you shouldn’t leave your starter base to go adventuring without some armor on yourself, you shouldn’t expect your horse to survive without it, either. So if you’ve got really attached to your latest pet, you’d better craft it its own gear. Yes, this you can craft (sort of).

Horse armor will, much like your own armor, go some way to protect your horse from harm. So if you’re likely to come into contact with the likes of Skeleton arrows and Creeper blasts, some nice, shiny horse armor could go a long way to keeping your faithful steed alive.

To craft horse armour, place Leather into a crafting table in the shape of an ‘H’. However, you can only do this with leather, and any other horse armor will need to be found in a chest. You have a chance of finding Iron, Gold and Diamond horse armor in chests in the following locations:

• Desert Temple (Overworld)
• Jungle Temple (Overworld)
• Village — Weaponsmith’s Chest (Overworld)
• Dungeon (Overworld, Underground)
• Stronghold (Overworld, Underground)
• Nether Fortress (The Nether)
• End City (End City)

You may also come across Gold Horse Armor in chests at Ruined Portals.

To equip a horse with its armor, simply mount the horse, then click E on PC/Y on Xbox/Triangle on PS to bring up its inventory. Then, just pop the Horse Armor in the armor slot. Horse armor, unlike player armor, doesn’t have durability, so will remain on the horse until you take it off, or the horse is killed, in which case it will drop the armor.

And that’s it, you now know all you need to know on how to breed horses in Minecraft, along with how to tame horses in Minecraft. Enjoyed our guide, why not check out our Minecraft hub, filled with more useful guides to the game!

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And head over to our Minecraft hub for even more news, guides and how-tos!