Skeleton Horse

Skeleton horses are undead variants of regular horses.

Spawning


Skeleton horses initially spawn as "skeleton trap horses" from a fraction of lightning strikes during thunderstorms (0.75–1.5% chance on Easy, 1.5–4% on Normal, and 2.8125–6.75% on Hard, depending on regional difficulty). It despawns after 15 minutes if not triggered.

When a player comes within 10 blocks of a skeleton trap horse, lightning will strike it. This lightning cannot start fires or damage nearby entities. When struck, the skeleton trap horse transforms into a skeleton horseman: a skeleton riding a skeleton horse. It will also spawn three additional skeleton horsemen in the vicinity. Each skeleton is equipped with an enchanted iron helmet and an enchanted bow, and have damage immunity for 3 seconds after spawning. Skeleton horsemen move fast and maneuver exactly like skeletons, strafing when attacking and backing up when the player moves towards them.

Other notes:
 * The skeleton will be wearing an iron helmet, unless it randomly spawned with some other headgear.
 * The skeleton's bow and helmet will be enchanted as if on an enchantment table at level 5–22. The exact level depends on regional difficulty; on Easy it will always be a level-5 enchantment.
 * The skeleton trap horse will become fully grown if it was a baby, and the breeding cooldown will be reset.
 * The original horse will be tamed when struck, and the additional three horses are spawned tamed.
 * The skeletons will not despawn if ( is set).
 * A trap horse may spawn in areas that a regular horse may not, such as the middle of an ocean.
 * A trap horse can trigger normally in clear weather.

Drops
Upon death, skeleton horses drop:

If armored, chested, or saddled, they will drop anything equipped.
 * 1–3 experience when killed by a player or tamed wolf.

Using a weapon enchanted with Looting increases the maximum amount of drops by 1 per level of Looting, up to a maximum of 5 at Looting III.

Usage
Tamed and saddled skeleton 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 in any depth. Skeleton horses sink in the water and can be ridden along the ocean or river floor

Skeleton horses can be pulled using a lead.

Equipment
$$ Skeleton horses have the following slot available: Saddles can be placed on a skeleton horse by holding it and then right clicking on the skeleton horse, or by accessing its inventory. A skeleton horse's inventory can be accessed by mounting the skeleton horse and opening the player inventory or by ing and then right-clicking on the horse.
 * Java Edition
 * Saddle Slot: For equipping a saddle. (available for other horse variants as well)

$$, a skeleton horse has no inventory and cannot be equipped with a saddle.
 * Bedrock Edition

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.

Skeleton horses are spawned already tame. $$, skeleton horses can be controlled by the player without a saddle. $$, skeleton horses can be equipped with a saddle and then controlled.

When riding a horse, the hunger bar is replaced by the horse's health in survival or adventure mode. $$, the horse health bar will still be 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 will automatically run 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.

Unlike normal horses, a skeleton horse will not dismount the player when it enters water deeper than two blocks; rather, it can be ridden underwater without the skeleton horse running out of air. When underwater, its running speed and jump will remain the same but it will have a slower rate of descent.

Behavior
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.

Skeleton horses, like most mobs, can ride in a minecart and boat. Unlike other passive mobs, horses will slowly regenerate health.

Skeleton horses cannot be bred or fed.

Taming
Skeleton horses cannot be tamed by the player, as horses spawned through skeleton traps are spawned already tame.

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
Skeleton horse's health is always 15. Displayed hearts are health, divided by two, rounded down. A horse with an non-even number of health points (15, 17, 19, etc.) will not show the last half-heart. You may strike a horse to test this. 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
Skeleton horse's speed is always 0.2; 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.

See transportation to compare the speeds of various transportation methods.

Jump strength
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.

Data values
Skeleton 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.
 * 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.
 * It is possible to summon a rideable skeleton horse using the command which will spawn a horse wearing a saddle, which the player can then mount. Like a donkey there is no armor slot, but also no way to equip a chest.
 * In the Bedrock Edition the 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 will result in the player being mounted on the horse again rather than being placed inside the boat to pilot it.