How to Find, Tame and Ride Horses
Find horses in plains and savannas, mount one empty-handed until hearts appear, then add a Saddle made from 3 Leather and an Iron Ingot.
Every horse rolls its own speed, jump and health when it spawns: speed runs from 4.86 blocks per second, slower than you sprint at 5.6, up to 14.57. Finding or breeding a fast horse is the real work.
Where horses, donkeys and camels spawn
| Mount | Biomes | Group size |
|---|---|---|
| Horse | Plains, Sunflower Plains, Savanna, Savanna Plateau, Windswept Savanna | 2–6 |
| Donkey | Plains, Sunflower Plains | 1–3 |
| Donkey | Meadow | 1–2 |
| Donkey | The three savanna biomes | 1 |
| Camel | Desert, plus one in the centre of each inhabited desert village | 1 |
| Mule | Never spawns: breed a horse with a donkey | – |
Search the plains first. Horses have five times the spawn weight there that they have in any savanna.
How to tame a horse
Pick the horse first. How fast a wild horse walks on its own hints at its speed, so watch the herd and choose the quickest.
- 1.Empty your hand and use the horse to climb on.
- 2.It rears and throws you off. Climb straight back on.
- 3.Repeat until hearts appear. The horse is now yours.
Each horse has a hidden temper value from 0 to 100. Every failed attempt adds 5, and the higher it climbs the likelier the next mount sticks. At 100 the horse always accepts you, so none needs more than 20 failed attempts.
Food raises a wild horse's temper too:
| Food | Temper | Also |
|---|---|---|
| Sugar, Wheat, Apple, Carrot | +3 | Heals |
| Golden Carrot | +5 | Heals, breeds tamed horses |
| Golden Apple, Enchanted Golden Apple | +10 | Heals, breeds tamed horses |
A Golden Apple is worth two failed mounts, so keep gold for breeding. Donkeys and mules tame exactly the same way. You can also put a Lead on a wild horse and walk it home before you tame it; five String make two Leads.
A Zombie Horse spawns at night in Plains, Sunflower Plains, Snowy Plains and the three savanna biomes, ridden by a zombie. Kill the rider, then tame it the same way. It has 25 health, eats Red Mushrooms and burns in daylight unless it wears horse armour.
Get a Saddle
A tamed horse carries you but will not steer until it wears a Saddle. Craft one at a Crafting Table: one Leather on top, then Leather, Iron Ingot, Leather in the row below. Or find one:
- Chests in Nether fortresses, bastion remnant hoglin stables, End cities, and village tanneries, weaponsmiths and savanna houses. Since 26.3, abandoned camp chests can hold one too.
- Fishing treasure.
- A Master-level Leatherworker, for 6 Emeralds.
- Every Ravager drops one.
Use the Saddle on the tamed horse, or mount up and open your inventory to reach its saddle and armour slots. Shears take gear back off: the first use removes the armour, the second the Saddle.
Horse armour
Horse armour has no durability, so one piece lasts forever.
| Horse armour | Armour points | How to get it |
|---|---|---|
| Leather Horse Armor | 3 | Craft from 7 Leather (dye it if you like), or buy a dyed one from an Expert Leatherworker for 6 Emeralds |
| Copper Horse Armor | 4 | Chest loot |
| Iron Horse Armor | 5 | Chest loot |
| Golden Horse Armor | 7 | Chest loot, including ruined portals |
| Diamond Horse Armor | 11, +2 toughness | Chest loot, including ancient cities |
| Netherite Horse Armor | 19, +3 toughness | Smithing Table upgrade of Diamond Horse Armor |
Copper, iron, golden and diamond pieces all turn up in dungeons, desert pyramids, jungle temples, stronghold corridors, Nether fortresses, End cities and village weaponsmiths. The netherite upgrade needs a Netherite Ingot and a Netherite Upgrade Smithing Template; the smithing templates guide covers where that drops. Netherite Horse Armor also adds knockback resistance.
Read a horse's stats
| Stat | Worst | Average | Best |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health | 15 (7.5 hearts) | 22.5 | 30 (15 hearts) |
| Speed, blocks per second | 4.86 | 9.71 | 14.57 |
| Jump, blocks | 1.15 | 3.12 | 5.92 |
Stats are fixed for life, and food never changes them. While you ride in Java Edition, the jump bar replaces your XP bar and the horse's health replaces your hunger bar. Hold jump to charge and release to leap.
To compare speed, gallop each horse along a flat, straight 100 blocks, watching X or Z on the F3 screen, and time it. The fastest take about 7 seconds, an average horse about 10 and the slowest over 20.
To test jump, build side-by-side wall sections two, three, four and five blocks high and jump each from flat ground on a full charge. The tallest it clears is its jump, rounded down.
Breed faster horses
Feed two tamed adults a Golden Carrot or a Golden Apple each. They produce a foal and cannot breed again for 5 minutes. A foal takes 20 minutes to grow, and each Hay Bale fed to it takes 3 minutes off.
Each of the foal's stats is rolled around the average of its parents. The spread is the gap between the parents plus 30% of that stat's full range, and the roll clusters near the middle because it averages three random numbers.
- Two evenly matched parents give foals close to their average, never more than 15% of the full range away. For speed that is about 1.5 blocks per second either side.
- Near the top, results that overshoot the maximum bounce back down, so progress slows as you approach 14.57 and never passes it.
The loop: breed your best pair, keep any foal that beats the weaker parent, and swap it in. A horse stable and paddock keeps the herd sorted. The wider rules for every other animal are in breeding and taming animals.
Donkeys, mules and camels
| Mount | Speed, blocks per second | Jump, blocks | Chest | Armour | Riders |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Horse | 4.86–14.57 | 1.15–5.92 | No | Yes | 1 |
| Wild donkey | 7.56 | About 1.7 | Yes | No | 1 |
| Mule | From its parents | From its parents | Yes | No | 1 |
| Camel | 3.9 walking, 8.2 sprinting | Dashes up to 12 forward | No | No | 2 |
Donkeys and mules for cargo
Use a Chest on a tamed donkey or mule for 15 extra slots. The chest only comes off if the animal dies. Mules cannot breed. A mule's stats roll from its parents' average like a foal's, so a mule from a fast horse almost always outruns a wild donkey.
Camels
Camels need no taming: put a Saddle straight on. The passenger takes over if the driver gets off. The jump key triggers the dash, which recharges every 2.75 seconds. Camels step up 1.5 blocks, so they walk over fences and walls, and a fenced paddock will not hold one. Riders sit too high for zombies, vindicators or hoglins to reach, though spiders and slimes still can. Breed camels with Cactus.
Riding tips
- Water. A ridden horse floats in Java Edition, so you can swim it across a river. If it goes fully under, you are thrown off.
- Boats. Adult horses cannot sit in a boat. Lead the horse and tow it behind yours instead.
- Headroom. Horse and rider need 2.75 blocks of clearance and cannot pass a gap one block wide.
- Portals. In Java Edition you can ride straight through a Nether portal; plan the far side with Nether travel coordinates.
- Longer routes. A boat does 40 blocks per second on packed ice and about 72.7 on blue ice, up to five times the best horse. Ice boat highways explains the build.