How to Tame a Horse in Minecraft

The survival world of Minecraft can be frustrating at times because you soon realize how much walking is needed to explore all biomes and important loot structures. Although you can teleport or use an Elytra later in the game, there’s an easier alternative solution. You can learn how to tame a horse in Minecraft, and you have a pretty reliable mount.

Horses in Minecraft are easy to find, they are fast, and they even provide combat advantages. Plus, you can even look for a horse that matches your Minecraft skin. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and first learn how to tame a horse in Minecraft.

Quick Guide: How to Tame a Horse Fast

If you’re in a hurry, here’s the fastest way to learn how to tame a horse in Minecraft:

• Find an adult horse in a Plain or Savanna Minecraft biome.
• Empty your primary hand and interact with the mob.
• The horse might throw you off several times, but keep mounting it until you see the heart particles appear.
• Now, use a saddle on the horse to control it. You can further add armor to its body for some extra protection.

Pro Tip: If you miss the heart particles because of lag or low graphics settings, try opening the horse’s inventory after mounting it. If it opens, displaying the armor slots and saddle options, the horse has been tamed.

So, whether you’re looking for how to tame a horse in Minecraft with food or without it, the process is the same regardless of the edition you’re playing on.

Where do Horses Spawn in Minecraft? (Biomes & Villages)

Before learning how to tame a horse in Minecraft, you first need to find one. Thankfully, they’re among the most common passive mobs in Minecraft. Horses spawn in groups of up to 6 at a time, making them a pretty reliable companion.

But when spawned in a group, all the horses have the same or similar color. The marks on their skins can be slightly different, but you will have to look for a new group if you want variety.

If you are looking for regular overworld horses, they spawn in the following biomes:

• Plains
• Sunflower Plains
• Savanna
• Savanna Plateau
• Windswept Savanna
• Villages

How to Tame a Horse in Minecraft (Step-by-Step)

Learning how to tame a horse in Minecraft is surprisingly simple once you know what its favorite foods are. The process of taming is similar to real life. You have to interact with and train the horse until it accepts you as its owner. Follow these steps to tame a horse in Minecraft:

Step 1: Approach with an Empty Hand

The biggest mistake that players make is trying to interact with the horse while holding food, weapons, a Minecraft saddle, or another usable item. First, find the horse and do the following steps:

• Choose any horse variant as long as it’s an adult.
• Select an empty hotbar slot before interacting with the horse. Holding food might simply feed the horse, while other items might make it rear up.

Step 2: Repeatedly Mount the Horse

Once you climb onto the horse, it will remain calm only for a few seconds before bucking you off. Once you have emptied your hands, this is what you must do:

• Right-click or use the secondary action key on the horse to mount it.
• Within seconds, the horse will reach its temper and push you off.
• When the horse pushes you off, you have to mount it again.

Step 3: Watch for the Heart Particles

Note that every successful attempt at mounting the horse increases its temper, and it brings you closer to taming it. Repeat this process of mounting until hearts appear on top of the horse’s head, and it accepts you.

There goes the process of taming a regular horse. So, if you were searching for how to tame a zombie horse in Minecraft, you should know that it only spawns during the night, and taming it requires you to continuously mount it.

Other than that, if you were looking for how to tame a skeleton horse in Minecraft, learn that it only spawns with a skeleton horseman when lightning strikes the regular horse. So, the horse is already tamed, and you only need to defeat the skeleton horseman in order to ride it.

Minecraft Horse Food & Temper Mechanics Explained

Although some of you might be playing Minecraft on the assumption that taming a horse is completely random, there’s a hidden mechanic called Temper that works behind the scenes.

Temper is the acceptance rate of horses towards Minecraft players. Every horse starts with 0 temper once it spawns. Then, it is assigned a random temper amount on a scale of 0 to 99. As you might’ve guessed, the higher the temper, the easier it is to tame the horse.

Each time a player rides a horse, their temper increases by 5 points. So, unless you are lucky, it can take you some time to tame multiple horses in Minecraft.

How to Increase Horse Temper Instantly

There are some selective food sources in Minecraft that are best for increasing the horse’s temper. Simply hold one of the accepted food items and interact with the horse to feed it. Continuous feeding of the horse will keep increasing its temper without triggering breeding. Using food is not mandatory, but it significantly speeds up taming the horse.

Minecraft Horse Food Efficiency Table

You can feed the following items to a horse with the given temper points:

Food Item	Temper Boost	Healing Factor	Growth Acceleration	Notes
Sugar	+3	1 Heart	30 seconds	Great for cheap temper boosts
Wheat	+3	1 Heart	20 seconds	Easy to farm early game
Apple	+3	1.5 Hearts	1 minute	Common drop from oak leaves.
Golden Carrot	+5	2 Hearts	1 minutes	Used to activate Breeding Mode.
Golden Apple	+10	5 Hearts	4 minutes	Highest temper boost but expensive.
Hay Bale	+0	10 Hearts	3 minutes	Best healing item for tamed horses.

Once the horse is tamed, you can feed a hay bale to it. Hay bale is the best food to heal a horse in Minecraft. Not to forget, golden apples and golden carrots can force a horse to breed. So, unless you want to get a baby horse, you should stick to non-golden food while taming it. Although the golden apple does improve its temper by 10 points, which is higher than any other food.

How to Control and Ride Your Tamed Horse

Once you have tamed a horse, you can mount it without the fear of getting pushed off. But the horse won’t allow you to steer it.

To counter that and control the horse, you will need to find or craft a saddle in Minecraft. After you obtain a saddle, follow the steps below to easily ride a horse in Minecraft:

• First, walk up to your tamed horse and hold a saddle in your hand.
• Right-click or use the secondary action key while holding a saddle.
• This will place a saddle on the horse, and you will be able to ride it.

Alternatively, if you are riding the horse, you can press your inventory key (I) to see the horse’s inventory. Here, you can place the saddle in its slot to equip the horse with a saddle.

Once your horse is ready, you can use the movement keys to control it. The horse moves at a faster pace than a player and can even jump a longer range.

How to Equip Horse Armor for Protection

Horse armor is one of the most overlooked upgrades in Minecraft, especially if you constantly keep switching your base in the game. The hostile mobs with bows and arrows, such as the Skeletons, can easily inflict damage on your horses. So, here is how you can equip the horse armor to protect your mount:

• Tame the horse first, then open its inventory.
• Drag and drop the horse armor into its armor slot under the saddle slot.

With that, you know everything about how to tame a horse in Minecraft. You can now use this new best friend to explore some of the warmest grasslands in the world, made using the best Minecraft seeds.

Now, you know all about how to tame a horse in Minecraft, along with its two variants as well. So, are there any other issues with taming you have been facing in the game? Tell us in the comments!