Horse

"The horse is a calm and confident compatriot out in the Minecraft wilds. Found in herds of two-to-six, they roam the plains and savanna biomes chomping on grass and swishing their swishy tails. But this life is an ambling, unfocused one, and the proud horse is a creature worthy of far greater adventure."

- Emily Richardson

Horses are tameable mobs that can be ridden when tamed. The five types of mobs have similar overall mechanics, but differ in some aspects.

Spawning
Horses spawn in plains and savannas in herds of 2–6. For horses, all combinations of color and markings are equally likely. All members of the herd have the same color, but markings may vary. 20% of the individual horses spawn as babies.

Villages generate naturally with stables and animal pens containing horses.

Appearance


Each horse variant has unique features and markings, and a foal (baby) version. Adult horses are 1.4 blocks wide and long, and 1.6 blocks high. Foals start at half the size of adults and get progressively bigger as they age. Unlike wolves and cats, the appearances of horses do not change once they have been tamed, though tame horses may be differentiated by giving them equipment.

Horses feature a stocky build. They can have 1 of 7 base colors: white, buckskin, flaxen chestnut, bay, black, dapple gray, and dark bay; and 1 of 5 marking patterns: no markings, stockings and blaze, paint, snowflake appaloosa and sooty. In total, there are 35 possible horse coat combinations.

Unlike almost all other mobs, horses with equipped saddles or armor do render these when under the effect of Invisibility. This is a bug, but Mojang decided not to fix it.

Drops
Upon death, horses drop:
 * 0–2 . The maximum amount is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 0-5 with Looting III.
 * 1–3 experience when killed by a player or tamed wolf.
 * Horse armor if the horse was already equipped
 * A chest (donkeys only) if already equipped

Usage
Tamed and saddled horses can be used as one of the fastest means of transportation in the game, though they are unable to fit through single block-wide openings. They can also be used to climb hills and jump fences, as some horses can jump high enough to clear up to five block heights, versus the player's maximum of about one (without a potion). They can be ridden in water up to 2 blocks deep. In deeper water they separate from the player and swim uncontrolled.

Horses can be pulled along and tied up using a lead. They can be towed, swimming behind a boat by using a lead.

Equipment


Tamed horses have the following two slots available:

Foals cannot be equipped.
 * Horse Armor Slot: For equipping horse armor. Exclusive to horses.
 * Saddle Slot: For equipping a saddle.

Equipment can be placed on a horse by holding it and then right clicking on the horse, or by accessing its inventory. A horse’s inventory can be accessed by mounting the horse and opening the player inventory or by ing and then right-clicking on the horse. A normal horse’s inventory has two slots, one for a saddle and one for horse armor.

Riding
Once a horse is tamed and saddled, the player can control it with standard directional controls,, and the mouse. The player dismounts using the control.

When riding a horse, the hunger bar is replaced by the horse's health in survival or adventure mode. $$, the horse health bar is still visible on creative. It uses a slightly different heart texture than the player's health bar. The experience bar is replaced by the horse jump bar.

A player can use any item while riding a horse, including drinking or throwing potions; activating doors or redstone devices; using chests, crafting tables, and furnaces; breaking and placing blocks; and attacking with melee weapons or bows.

A ridden horse automatically runs up any one block high slope. The horse and rider can safely fit through a space as low as 2.75 blocks high. Lower clearance risks suffocating the rider if the rider's head enters a non-transparent block. The horse itself can enter gaps as low as 1.625 blocks high, but may itself take suffocation damage when clearance is less than 1.75 blocks. Horses cannot fit through a 1-block-wide gap.

The maximum speed of horses varies between 4.8375 blocks/second and 14.5125 blocks/second (compared to the player's walking speed, which is about 4.3 blocks/second). About 68% of horses are able to go faster than a minecart. A fast horse can be combined with speed potions and the Nether to make the horse easily the fastest practical way to travel in Minecraft (around 130 m/s Overworld-equivalent in the Nether). The speed of a horse has no relation to its outward appearance. Horses are very slow moving backwards, and about as fast as the player when moving sideways.

A ridden horse can be made to, and holding the control charges for a higher leap. Horses are not affected by jump boost beacons or potions. The standard control dismounts from the horse, as does going in water deeper than two blocks. Like the player, horses take fall damage when falling from heights.

It is impossible for a player to use a Nether portal while on a horse. It is possible however, to enter the portal on the horse and then dismount, sending the horse through the portal on its own, or use a lead to position the horse, then push it through the portal.

Behavior


All horses roam idly, occasionally stopping to rear, swish their tails, or lower their heads as though eating the grass. Unlike sheep, the eating animation does not actually cause any grass to be consumed. If a player comes near, the horses may turn to look at them. Any horse, even a wild one, can be attached to a lead without protest, although an untamed horse rears and flails its forelegs if saddled. Horses remain passive, even when hit.

Horses make neighing and whinneying sounds.

Horses, like most mobs, can ride in a minecart but cannot ride in a boat. Unlike other passive mobs, horses slowly regenerate health.

Taming
Taming a horse is required to breed it, to give it equipment, or to control it while riding.

A player mounts a horse by pressing on it with an empty hand, or while holding any object that cannot be used on a horse. A player tames an adult horse by repeatedly mounting it until the horse stops bucking off the player. Taming depends on the horse's "temper". Horses begin with a temper of 0 out of 100. When a player first mounts the horse, a random taming threshold 0–99 is chosen. The horse becomes tame if the temper exceeds this threshold. Otherwise, the player is bucked off and the temper is increased by 5, to be compared against the threshold the next time the player mounts the horse. Temper can also be increased by feeding the horse.

After repeated mountings, hearts appear above the horse, indicating that it is tamed.

Like all tame animals, when a horse is killed, a death message is displayed to the owner.

Breeding
Feeding two tamed horses golden apples or golden carrots activates love mode, causing them to mate and produce a foal. The foal appears more spindly than adult horses, and grows to full size with time. The foal is born untamed, and can be tamed after it grows into an adult. The foal can be fed to make it mature faster.

Depending on the variations of the parent horses, the offspring can be one of several types.
 * Bred with horse: Breeding two horses produces a horse foal. Usually the new foal has the color of one of its parents although there is a 1/9 chance of having a random color. Markings work likewise.
 * Bred with donkey: Breeding a horse and a donkey creates a mule foal.

Food
Feeding a horse food can alter its behavior, cause it to grow (if it is not yet an adult; foals normally take 20 minutes to fully mature if not fed), and/or restore its health. The table below lists the effects of the various foods horses can take. Zombie and skeleton horses cannot be fed, even if tame.

To feed a horse, hold a valid food item and right click on the horse. Feeding invalid food causes the player to mount the horse. Horses can be fed only when feeding would have an effect, similar to other animals.

Statistics
All horses have three "equine stats" which vary from horse to horse: health, (maximum) movement speed, and jump strength. These stats are created once the horse is born or spawned, and are not affected by food.

Spawned values
When spawned in any way except breeding – for instance, using commands, spawning naturally, spawning as part of a skeleton trap, or using spawn eggs – horses are assigned their stats within certain ranges, specific according to their horse type.

Health
Horse's health ranges from 15–30, but tends towards the average of 22–23. Displayed hearts are health, divided by two, rounded down. A horse with an odd number of health points (15, 17, 19, etc.) does not show the last half-heart. If the horse has lost one fewer health point than the inflicted damage and did not regenerate, it has an odd number of health points, otherwise it has an even number of health points.

Movement speed
Horse's movement speed ranges from 0.1125–0.3375 in internal units, tending toward the average of 0.225. The player's normal walking speed is 0.1. The speed listed does not include any status effect that affects the speed of a horse or a player.

A horse's maximum speed is 14.5125 blocks/second. The average horse speed is about 9 blocks/sec.
 * Minimum: 4.8375 blocks/sec.
 * Player speed (walking): 4.3 blocks/sec.
 * Player speed (sprinting): 5.6 blocks/sec.

See also transportation to compare the speeds of various transportation methods.

Jump strength
Horse's jump strength ranges from 0.4–1.0, tending towards the average of 0.7.

A jump strength of 0.5 is enough to clear $1 9/16$ blocks, while 1.0 is enough to clear $5 1/4$ blocks.

The following derived equation can be use to calculate a horse jump height from its jump strength attribute (with an rss of 5.510e-19). This function was fit to the data found in the table below and is therefore most accurate around these values. Where x is JumpStrength

The exact jump strengths, to 15 digits, required to clear several block heights are listed below.

Bred values
When breeding two horses, the foal's stats are determined by averaging both parent's stats with a third set, randomly determined as above (i.e. add both parents' stats with the random value and divide by 3). Random values are used for the third set even when the value is not normally randomized for the type of horse being bred.

Data values
Horses have entity data associated with them that contain various properties of the mob.

Trivia

 * Dr. Zhark appears in the credits after the End Poem as the creator of the horses.
 * If a player picks up leather dropped by an adult horse, they receive the “Cow Tipper" achievement. This is due to the achievement being given when a player picks up any piece of leather instead of being given when one kills a cow.
 * If a player pulling a horse with a lead enters a boat, the horse swims along at the same speed as the boat.
 * A horse with a rider can be pulled by a lead, and can even be lifted into the air.
 * On multiplayer, to know which of two horses (owned and ridden by different players) is faster, each rider can apply a lead to the other horse, then play 'tug of war'. The stronger horse is faster.
 * $1/5$ horses can be transported in a boat by riding the horse and jumping into the boat then dismounting (leaving the horse behind in the boat) and activating the boat from underneath/underwater. Attempting to activate the boat in order to pilot it from above results in the player mounting the horse again rather than being placed inside the boat to pilot it.
 * Horse first appears on Java Edition 2.0 as an April Fools joke feature. These horses come in shetland pony (pig) and horse (cow).