How to Tame a Horse in Minecraft

Learn how to tame a horse in Minecraft. Find, mount and ride a horse to your house.

Finding a Horse

Horses come in 7 basic colors in Minecraft: white, black, bay, dark bay, dapple gray, buckskin, and flaxen chestnut. Horses can also have one of several marking patterns. Horses models were updated in the 1.13 patch.

Horses spawn in the Plains and Savanah biomes. Horses usually spawn in a small herd of the same color. Learn how to breed horses in Minecraft.

Before searching for the perfectly colored horse to tame, you should get a horse saddle. Bring the horse saddle with you or you will not be able to ride the horse back to your house or base. Even tamed horses need a saddle to be controlled.

If you don’t have a saddle you can make a horse lead to control a horse or leash it to a fence post.

Taming a Horse

Taming a horse is easy. You should bring a saddle with you otherwise you will not be able to ride and control the horse even after it is tamed. Approach the horse with an empty hand. In mobile editions, move the pointer over the house and press the mount button. In the Java/PC edition use the right mouse button and use the LT button on Xbox and L2 button on Playstation.

After mounting the horse, the horse will buck and throw you off. Mount the horse again and it will throw you off again. Repeat the process several times until hearts appear around the horse indicating it has been successfully tamed and will no longer throw you off. You can also feed a horse before taming to making it easier to tame.

Now that your horse is tamed, you can mount it but you cannot control it until you get a horse saddle.

To place a saddle on your tamed horse, either have the saddle in your hand and press the right mouse button or the use button on other editions of Minecraft. Alternatively, if you have already mounted the horse, you can open its inventory with the regular player inventory button and then move the saddle to the saddle inventory slot of the horse.

You can now ride and steer the horse with the directional controls for your Minecraft Edition.

To dismount a horse press, the left shift key on PC, sneak/crouch on mobile editions and the right stick on Xbox, Playstation or Nintendo.

Skeleton Horses

Skeleton Horses are a unique undead horse that is made when lightning strikes a horse. Skeleton horses are fast, jumper high and can be ridden underwater. You can tame a Skeleton horse and ride the same as a regular horse but only in console versions until the PC/Java edition is updated. You cannot breed a skeleton horse.

Zombie Horses

A Zombie Horse is a horse variant that does not spawn naturally in Minecraft. To spawn a zombie horse you need a Zombie Horse Egg or a cheat command. Zombie horses can be tamed and you can ride a Zombie horse.