Horse

Horses are mobs that can be tamed and bred. Their creation was assisted by DrZhark (John Olarte), creator of the Mo' Creatures mod. As a result, the horses are similar to those in the mod.

Once a horse is tamed and a saddle is attached, it can be controlled with standard directional controls and the mouse. Different variations of horse armor can be put onto horses. They can be tied to fence posts using a lead. There are different breeds of horses, similar to the different breeds of cats. A foal's growth can be accelerated via the use of apples, wheat, sugar, bread, golden apples and hay bales.

Spawning
Unlike most other passive mobs, horses can only spawn in a single biome; the plains (in snapshot 13w36a and later versions, the savanna and savanna plateau biomes). Because of this, horses are seemingly less common than other mobs, although within the plains they spawn just as regularly as any other. Horses spawn in herds, ranging from a minimum of 2 to a maximum of 6. All members of any given herd will have the same type of skin pattern, although individual markings can vary from mob to mob. All skin pattern variations of horses, including donkeys, have an equal chance of being spawned, although donkeys are seemingly less common. This natural spawn does not include mules, which can only be spawned in survival by cross-breeding a horse of any variation and a donkey. Like most mobs, horses can be spawned in creative mode via spawn eggs. The pattern of the horse that is spawned using the egg is completely random and cannot be controlled; this variation includes donkeys, who do not have their own spawn egg. Just like in survival, mules cannot be naturally found or spawned via a spawn egg; they must be bred from horses and donkeys.

Appearance


There are currently 5 variations of the horse mob in the game, where the variations are normal horses, donkeys, mules, skeleton horses, and zombie horses. Each variation has unique features and markings, and a foal version. Unlike wolves and ocelots, the appearances of horses do not change once they have been tamed, though tame horses may be differentiated from wild horses if they have been given equipment.

Normal horses
Normal horses all feature the same stocky build and can be 1 of 7 base colors: white, buckskin, dark bay, bay, black, dapple gray, and flaxen chestnut. The horses also have a secondary coloring known as markings. There are 5 different marking variations: no markings, stockings and blaze, snowflake appaloosa, paint, and sooty. In total, there are 35 possible horse coat combinations taking into consideration all base colors and markings. (For entity data values, see also Horse Variants.)

Donkeys
Donkeys are smaller all around than the normal horses and sport long, erect ears. Their manes do not protrude, but rather are drawn directly on the back of their heads and necks. All donkeys have grey-brown coats with darker ankles, ears, manes, and tails. If a donkey has a chest equipped, its storage is 5*3=15 slots.

Mules
Mules, the offspring of interbred horses and donkeys, are closer to (but are not quite) the size of a normal horse. However, their ears, coats, and manes are like those of the donkey, though the mules’ coats are darker and reddish-brown in color. You can also put a chest on the mule to store items. Mules cannot be bred with horses.

Skeleton horses
The skeleton horses are comprised of white bones, though it still maintains the general structure of a normal horse. This is reminiscent of the hostile skeleton mob, which is also made of bones but structured like the player. Skeleton horses cannot be mounted or tamed. Jeb later mentioned that this mob would not be implemented onto Vanilla Survival, but would still be in the files for developers and map makers to spawn them. Skeleton horses make the same noise as a normal horse when killed, but lower-pitched. As of snapshot 13w36a skeleton horses can obtained by using the command string "summon EntityHorse ~0 ~0 ~0 {Type:4}".

Zombie horses
The zombie horses appear to be the counterpart of the zombie mobs, much like how the skeleton horses resemble the humanoid skeletons. Like zombies, the undead horses are green-skinned on account of their leathery-looking rotten flesh and their eyes are completely black. Zombie horses can not be mounted or tamed. Jeb later mentioned that this mob would not be implemented onto Vanilla Survival, but would still be in the files for developers and map makers to spawn them. Zombie horses make a low-pitched screaming noise when killed. As of snapshot 13w36a zombie horses can obtained by using the command string "summon EntityHorse ~0 ~0 ~0 {Type:3}".

Usage
Tamed horses can be used as one of the fastest means of transportation in the game. They can also be used to climb hills, as horses can jump very high. Donkeys and mules can be equipped with chests and used as pack animals. Horses are difficult to use in the jungle and are rideable in the water for up to 2 blocks deep, though it is only recommended for 1 block deep water.

Skeleton and zombie horses are currently of little use to the player because they cannot be tamed, but their appearances and their respective similarities to skeletons and zombies suggest that they may be intended as enemies.

Behavior


Normal horses and donkeys will spawn in the plains biome in the Overworld in herds of as few as 2 individuals. Normal horse herds seem to be somewhat rarer than groups of other passive animal mobs such as cows or sheep. Donkey herds are even more uncommon. There is little variation within naturally spawned herds; foals may spawn alongside adult horses, but coat types all tend to be similar. For normal horse herds, most of the animals will have similar or the same markings and base coat colors.

Mules, skeleton horses, and undead horses do not spawn naturally. Mules can be acquired through breeding. Currently, the undead horses and skeleton horses can only be brought into the game by editing the region files with third party editing programs.

All horses will 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, will allow itself to be attached to a lead without protest. However, if the player attempts to saddle an untamed horse, it will rear and flail its front hooves, though this causes no damage to the player. Horses remain passive even when hit. The appearances of the undead and skeleton horses suggest that they could possibly be intended as hostile mobs, but at this time they are completely passive if spawned.

Horses will also open their mouths and make noises that depend on the particular horse’s variation. Normal horses make neighs and whinnies, while donkeys and mules, which use the same audio, emit brays. Skeleton horses make various metallic sounds. Zombie horses make several ominous moaning sounds.

Horses don't like water, so if you have a horse and you want to tame in the water it will flail about and throw you off immediately after you try to mount it. You can build a few blocks underneath the horse to get it on dry land.

Taming
Adult normal horses, donkeys, and mules can be tamed; foals, skeleton horses, and zombie horses cannot. It is necessary to tame a horse in order to breed it, give it equipment, or ride it for any length of time.

To tame a wild horse, approach it and right click on it with an empty hand. You will climb on top of it, and will likely be thrown off. After a few attempts, it will allow you to remain on it and will give off heart animations. At this point you can dismount it by pressing the sneak key and place a saddle on it, or you can place a saddle without using the sneak key at all by right-clicking on the horse with the saddle in hand. Horses can also be saddled by opening your inventory while mounted and moving the saddle to the appropriate slot in the horse's inventory.

The chance of successful taming on the first try is almost 0%, yet it can be done. Taming on the first attempt is very rare. After the first attempt without taming the horse, the chances increase by about 5%, and usually one can then tame a horse after about 5-6 attempts. Taming can be sped up by feeding the horse any of the approved foods when you are standing next to it - see column "Taming prob." in the table below.

Breeding
Feeding tamed horses golden apples or a golden carrot will activate love mode. Depending on the variations of the parent horses, the offspring can be one of several types. The offspring will be more spindly than their adult versions and will grow progressively larger with time until they reach their full size. Breeding horses tend towards average horses and the best horses are found in the wild or spawned through spawn eggs.

The offspring will not automatically belong to the player who owns its parents. Rather, it will be born as an untamed horse and will need to be tamed if the player wants the benefits of ownership. It will not be tamable until it has grown into an adult, a process which takes approximately 20 minutes. If the player does not want to wait, the foal can be fed to make it mature faster. See table below.

The offspring’s health bar will always shows 26 hearts even though its real health is lower (and never exceeds 15 hearts). This glitch can be fixed by reloading the world. A foal has an attachment to its birth-mother, unless you kill her(in which case it will move to another available horse).

Normal horse
Breeding two normal horses produces a normal horse foal. Usually the new foal has the color of either of its parents. One out of nine times it will take on an uncorrelated color. (This color could still be the same as the parents', slightly reducing the probability of the new color being different.) Markings are supposed to work likewise, but due to a bug the foal will only ever have the markings of one of its parents.

Mule
Mules can not be found in the wild. Mules are only found by breeding a horse and a donkey, occasionally getting a mule.

Donkey
Breeding two donkeys creates a donkey foal. Since all donkeys have the same texture, the offspring will look exactly like its parents when it is fully grown.

Foods
Feeding a horse food can alter its behavior, cause it to grow (if it is not yet an adult), and/or restore its health. The table below lists the effects of the various foods horses will take. The two undead horses cannot be fed, even if spawned tame with an editor. Horses can only be fed when their health is low or are untamed by holding the feed and right clicking (similar to other animals). If a horse does not need feeding or if the food is invalid, the player will just mount the horse instead of feeding it.

Note: it takes 20 minutes for a newborn foal to grow into an adult.

Effects
Effects can be placed on tame horses by using splash potions. Splash potions have to be thrown at a distance from the player at the horses, or the player will mount on the horses. However, should the player decide to mount a horse, the player can still throw splash potions to give the horses effects, but it will also be applied to the player.

As of the current snapshot, effects can only be seen on the horses through the particles, not through accessing the inventory of a horse, like effects would appear in a player's inventory menu. ''Be careful of what effects you choose! They can also harm a player if caution is not observed.'' Like any other mob, horses can't drink milk, so the effect has to wear off before the horse is normal again. Keep that in mind!

Effects can also be given to donkeys, mules, and both versions of undead horses.

Creative mode
The health GUI for horses, mules, and donkeys show up when the player is in Survival Mode and Adventure Mode. The only other GUIs that appear in Creative Mode for horses, mules, and donkeys is the jump bar.

Equipment


Tamed horses can be equipped with saddles, horse armor (normal horses only), or chests (donkeys or mules only). Foals cannot be equipped with anything. Skeleton horses and zombie horses cannot be tamed, but if spawned tame with an editor they can be equipped with saddles only.

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 holding down shift and then right-clicking on the horse. (Note that right-clicking without holding down shift will cause the player to mount the horse.) A normal horse’s inventory will only have 2 slots, 1 for a saddle and 1 for horse armor. A donkey or mule will only have a saddle slot originally, but if it is given a chest, it will acquire 15 more inventory slots that can hold anything the player wishes.

Chests can only be given to a donkey or a mule by right-clicking on the donkey or mule with the chest in hand, and afterwards the chest cannot be removed, except by killing the donkey or mule. Upon death, the donkey or mule will drop the attached chest and its contents.

Even a wild horse can be attached to a lead, which can then be tied to a fence post to keep the horse from wandering. Leads are attached by holding it in hand and then right-clicking on the horse.

Riding
Once you have tamed a horse and put a saddle on it, you can control it with standard directional controls and the mouse (Please note that a horse can be mounted without a saddle, but can not be controlled, similarly to how a pig with a saddle can not be controlled without a Carrot on a Stick).

Horses can be made to jump, and holding the jump key allows you to charge your jump. Horses are not affected by Jump Boost beacons. Sneaking causes you to dismount, as does going in water deeper than two blocks.

Horse jump bar

Empty: 

Full: 

When you mount a horse, the hunger bar and oxygen bar are replaced by the horse's health in survival or adventure mode. It uses a slightly different heart texture than the player's health bar. The experience bar is replaced by the horse jump bar, which gauges how high you jump. The maximum jumping height, which is reached when the bar is fully charged as you release the spacebar, depends on the horse you ride. It seems to range from about 1.2 to 5.5 blocks high. As each horse has different statistics, it is difficult to gauge the maximum distance, but testing has revealed that certain horses can jump distances of 12 blocks.

You can use any item while riding a horse, including drinking or throwing potions, activating doors or redstone devices, or using chests, crafting tables, and furnaces. You can also break and place blocks, use a sword, and fire arrows.

When running forward, you will start at a slow walk and build to a speed faster than sprinting. You will automatically run up any one block high slope. You are three blocks tall while on a horse, but you can ride under 2 block tall areas, causing your head to pass through blocks. This causes suffocation damage, except when passing through non-solid blocks. You are slightly wider than one block, and are unable to walk through one block wide gaps. However, due to the horse's length, you can run over any one block gap. It also appears you can run across a two block gap at high speeds, but this does not seem to work all of the time.

Virtually all horses appear to be able to go faster than a minecart when both are moving at full speed. Some seem to be quite dramatically faster than a minecart. This 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 Earth-equivalent in The Nether). The speed of a horse is irrespective of its outward appearance. In order to find a fast horse, you have to tame multiple individuals and compare them.

Horses are very slow moving backwards, and about as fast as the player when moving sideways. Therefore, turning around is quite preferable to moving backwards or sideways.

Health, Jump Height, Speed
All horses have three "equine stats" which vary from horse to horse: health, jump height and (maximum) speed. The stats are created once the horse is born and are not affected by food. The different horse types use different formulas for each:


 * Health runs from 15 to 30, with most around the average of 22.5.
 * Jump strength is from 0.4 to 1.0 in internal units (but tending toward the average of 0.7.)
 * Maximum speed is from 0.1125 to 0.3375 (but tending toward the average of 0.225.) This is in internal units. By comparison, the player's walking speed is 0.1 in the same units.
 * The speed in blocks/second is a bit over 43 times the internal value, but can be affected by various conditions.
 * Donkeys are spawned with 15 to 30 health, 0.175 movement speed and 0.5 jump strength.

The above applies to naturally spawned horses. When breeding two horses, the foal's stats are determined by averaging both parent's stats with a third set, randomly determined as above. (That is, add both parents' stats with the random value, and divide by 3).

On multiplayer, it is possible to easily figure out which of two horses (owned and ridden by different players) is faster. Each rider needs to apply a lead to the other horse, then play 'tug of war'. The stronger horse will be faster. This can be seen in this video, along with a simple horse garage, and the world's slowest horse.

Trivia

 * The way you tame a horse is in the same style as taming a horse in real life, called "Breaking" a horse. The food is also used to calm down the horse in real life.
 * Donkeys and mules can be used to store and transport goods.
 * Donkeys and mules can be just as useful as horses as they can be tamed and ridden exactly the same way as horses. They also can carry chests which horses can't do. Unfortunately, Donkeys spawn much rarer than horses which are also rare.
 * Just like other baby mobs, you can spawn foals with the spawn egg by right-clicking on a horse. The foal will be the same breed as the horse.
 * Every foal spawned this way follows the horse you spawned it from like a normal baby mob.
 * If you ride just beside a tree causing your head to be within a block of leaves, it will cause certain parts of textures of some blocks to disappear. This can be used to have "X-Ray vision" as you can essentially see through nearby trees.
 * An interesting trick you can do while riding a horse is to get on your horse, press F1 on your keyboard, drink a potion of invisibility, and press F5. It will look like you are the horse, instead of riding on the horse.
 * This can be used to trick other players into thinking that you are a horse, making this a great mob disguise.
 * This also works with pigs, but you can only control it with a carrot on a stick, which other players can see you holding when you are invisible.
 * It is possible to jump over wooden fences and stone walls while riding a horse.
 * It is possible to "double jump" by falling off of a block above the ground, and then jumping before landing.
 * Even though the skeleton and zombie horses look like undead versions of their counterparts, they are not treated as undead. A wither will attack them as if they were any other living mob.
 * Running over a TNT Minecart landmine will result in the horse dying, but the player being undamaged until they hit the ground.
 * Horses are quite possibly the best method of traveling long distances overland; they can attain speeds of at least 11 meters/second (660 blocks per minute, nearly 40 km/hour), navigate hilly terrain very easily, jump ravines with near-100% consistency, and require no infrastructure except at the end (they are not good in jungles or some forests though.)
 * It is currently possible to get tamed zombie and skeleton horses via use of NBTedit by changing a horse's variation number to 3 and 4 for zombie and skeleton horses respectively.
 * A horse, like most mobs, can ride in a minecart. You can get full grown horses out. A horse can be released by riding the horse and punching the cart.
 * It is impossible to enter a Nether portal while on a horse. It is possible however, to sometimes enter the portal on the horse and then press shift to escape, sending the horse to the nether on its own, like dogs. Additionally, you can dismount, walk the horse into the portal with a lead, and remount, or you can just nudge the horse into the Nether. Note that horses, like all other mobs, have a cooldown of about a minute after going through a portal before they can come back.  They must be clear of the portal during that time in order to go through again.
 * In the Minecraft credits it gives credit to Dr. Zhark for the Horse.
 * The Buckskin colored horse is the only horse that has a white blaze no matter what markings it receives.
 * If you open the horse's panel while it is leashed, the leash will overflow outside of the horse model.
 * Foals spawned by the player without right-clicking on an adult horse will occasionally follow a random adult horse with foals of its own. The breed of the adult horse does not matter at all.
 * Foals can be spawned from foals. The resulting foals will not follow an adult horse.
 * Foals have the ability to walk into vertical blocks, making raising foals in hilly terrain very difficult.
 * Spawning a horse on a vertical surface causes the horse's back half to protrude into it, dealing the horse damage. This is probably because of its size.
 * If an adult horse is killed and drops leather, you may receive the "Cow Tipper" achievement even though you got it from a horse rather than a cow. This appears to be intended behaviour.
 * Although it is very difficult to tell due to their base coat colour, white horses DO show markings besides sooty if you look closely.