How to Tame a Horse in Minecraft (Java & Bedrock)
By
Gunter
|
11 min read
|
Updated on
August 11, 2026
TL;DR: How to Tame a Horse in Minecraft
- ✅ Mount the horse repeatedly with an empty hand until red hearts appear. Every time it bucks you off you get closer — there is no item that tames a horse outright.
- ✅ Feed it first and it takes fewer attempts. A Golden Apple is worth two free mount attempts; a Golden Carrot is worth one.
- ✅ A tamed horse still needs a Saddle before you can steer it — taming and riding are two separate steps.
- ✅ Only five biomes spawn horses naturally: Plains, Sunflower Plains, Savanna, Savanna Plateau and Windswept Savanna (villages can also generate them). Our Plains Finder shows you where the nearest one is in your own world.
Every guide to how to tame a horse in Minecraft tells you the same thing: click it until it stops throwing you off. That is true, and it is also the least useful half of the answer — because the number of times you get thrown off is not fixed, and what you do beforehand changes it. This page covers the actual mechanic behind the bucking, the differences between Java and Bedrock, and the part most guides skip entirely: where horses spawn, and how to find one of those biomes in *your* world instead of wandering until you get lucky.
How Do You Tame a Horse in Minecraft?
You tame a horse by mounting it over and over with an empty hand until red hearts appear above it. There is no taming item — unlike a Wolf, which is tamed outright with a bone, a horse has to accept you.
- Empty your main hand. In Java Edition the hand must be genuinely empty; in Bedrock Edition anything that is not a usable item works.
- Right-click (or press the Mount button) on the horse. It will throw you off.
- Get back on. Repeat.
- When red hearts burst around the horse, it is tamed and will no longer buck you off.
The reason this feels random is that it is random, but only once. Every horse carries a hidden "temper" value that starts at 0 out of 100. The first time you try to mount it, the game rolls a secret threshold somewhere between 0 and 99. Each failed attempt adds 5 temper, and the moment your temper passes that hidden threshold, the horse is yours. Because an unfed horse starts at 0 and the threshold is never below 0, the first attempt always fails — the fastest possible taming without food is the second attempt, and the worst case is the twenty-first.
That is why feeding matters. Food adds temper directly, without the horse having to buck you off first — so every point you feed in is one you do not have to earn the hard way. As of Java 26.2 and Bedrock 1.26.40:
| Food | Temper added | Health restored | Worth this many mount attempts |
|---|---|---|---|
 Golden Apple | +10 | 5 hearts | 2 |
 Enchanted Golden Apple | +10 | 5 hearts | 2 |
 Golden Carrot | +5 | 2 hearts | 1 |
 Apple | +3 | 1.5 hearts | just under one |
 Carrot | +3 | 1.5 hearts | just under one |
 Wheat | +3 | 1 heart | just under one |
 Sugar | +3 | 0.5 hearts | just under one |
 Hay Bale | none | 10 hearts | — |
Pro tip
A hay bale is the cheapest way to heal a horse but adds no temper at all — it is a healing item, not a taming one. If you are taming, bring apples, carrots or wheat; if you are repairing a horse you already own, bring hay. Carrots only became horse food in Java 1.21.6 and Bedrock 1.21.90, so older guides leave them off the list entirely.
Where Do Horses Spawn in Minecraft?
Horses spawn naturally in five biomes — Plains, Sunflower Plains, Savanna, Savanna Plateau and Windswept Savanna — in herds of two to six, with roughly one in five spawning as a foal. Every horse in a herd shares the same coat colour, though their markings vary. If you have searched a forest, a taiga or a desert and found nothing, that is why: horses do not spawn there on their own. The one exception is villages, which can generate horses in their animal pens regardless of the surrounding biome.
| Biome | Horse spawn weight | How common the biome is | Find it in your seed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plains | 4 — the highest | Very common | Plains Finder |
| Sunflower Plains | 4 — the highest | Rare | Sunflower Plains Finder |
| Savanna | 1 | Common | Savanna Finder |
| Savanna Plateau | 1 | Uncommon | Savanna Plateau Finder |
| Windswept Savanna | 1 | Rare | Windswept Savanna Finder |
Plains is where you want to look. Horses are four times likelier to spawn there than in any savanna, and plains is one of the most widespread biomes in the game, so it is usually the shortest walk from spawn. Sunflower Plains carries the same high spawn weight but is a much rarer biome — a great find, not a reliable plan.
Wandering until you stumble into a plains biome is the slow way. Drop your world seed into our Biome Finder and it maps every plains and savanna in your world — Java or Bedrock — so you can walk straight to the nearest herd instead of exploring blind.
Find horse biomes in your seed →Do not know your seed? Our guide to finding your Minecraft seed covers every platform, including Bedrock and Realms.
Do You Need a Saddle to Ride a Horse?
Yes — taming and steering are separate. Once a horse is tamed you can sit on it, but it will wander wherever it likes until you put a Saddle on it. You can craft one now: 3 leather and 1 iron ingot. That changed in Java 1.21.6 and Bedrock 1.21.90, and a surprising number of guides still tell you saddles are loot-only.
If you would rather find one than craft one, saddles appear in nether fortress chests (33.3%), village weaponsmith, tanner and savanna-house chests (11.3–17.3%), bastion hoglin stables (12–13.6%) and end city chests (12.7%). A ravager always drops one, and fishing turns one up as treasure about 0.8% of the time. Master-level leatherworkers sell one for 6 emeralds — always on Java, but only about half of them offer it on Bedrock.
Horse armor is optional, comes in six tiers, and — unlike player armor — has no durability at all. One piece lasts forever. Leather is craftable from 7 leather, netherite is made at a smithing table from diamond horse armor, and the middle four tiers are chest loot only.
| Horse armor | Armor points | Max damage reduction | How you get it |
|---|---|---|---|
 Leather Horse Armor | 3 | 12% | Craft from 7 leather, or trade a leatherworker |
 Copper Horse Armor | 4 | 16% | Chest loot |
 Iron Horse Armor | 5 | 20% | Chest loot |
 Golden Horse Armor | 7 | 28% | Chest loot — piglins will pick it up |
 Diamond Horse Armor | 11 (+2 toughness) | 44% | Chest loot |
 Netherite Horse Armor | 19 (+3 toughness) | 76% | Smithing table upgrade from diamond |
A Lead is the other thing worth carrying — it moves a horse you have tamed but not yet saddled.
Is Taming a Horse Different on Bedrock Edition?
The taming mechanic itself is identical on both editions — same temper value, same +5 per attempt, same hidden threshold. What differs is the handling around it, as of Java 26.2 and Bedrock 1.26.40:
| Behaviour | Java Edition | Bedrock Edition |
|---|---|---|
| Hand needed to mount | Must be completely empty | Any non-usable item is fine |
| Baby zombie jockeys | Do not occur | 15% chance on untamed adult horses |
| Riding through a Nether portal | Possible | Not possible while mounted |
| Horses in minecarts | Cannot enter | Can enter |
| Spawn eggs | Always produce adults | Produce foals about 20% of the time |
| Death message | None | Shown to all players |
How Do You Breed Horses in Minecraft?
Feed a golden carrot, a golden apple or an enchanted golden apple to two tamed adult horses standing near each other and they enter love mode, producing a foal. Both parents must already be tamed — this is the one thing you cannot do with wild horses.
The foal is not an average of its parents. Health, speed and jump strength are each rolled from a spread around the parents' average that is wider than the gap between them, so a foal can genuinely outrun both parents. Spawned horses range from 15 to 30 health, and jump anywhere between roughly 1.2 and 5.9 blocks — which is why breeding for a good jumper is worth the golden carrots. Appearance follows its own rule, and colour and markings do not use the same odds: a foal has an 11% chance of a random base colour and a 20% chance of random markings, otherwise taking each from one of its parents.
Breeding a horse with a Donkey produces a Mule, which carries chests like a donkey but cannot be bred any further.
Which Other Mobs Can You Tame in Minecraft?
Only a handful of mobs can be tamed, and they split into two groups: the ones you tame with an item, and the ones you tame by climbing on repeatedly like the horse.
| Mob | Tamed with | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|
| Horse | Repeated mounting | Plains, Sunflower Plains, the three savannas |
| Donkey | Repeated mounting | Plains, Sunflower Plains, Savanna, Meadow |
| Llama | Repeated mounting | Windswept Hills, Savanna Plateau (plus Savanna on Bedrock) |
| Wolf |  Bone | Forest, Taiga, Grove and 6 more |
| Cat |  Raw Cod or  Raw Salmon | Villages and swamp huts |
| Parrot |  Wheat Seeds (any seeds) | Jungle, Bamboo Jungle, Sparse Jungle |
| Nautilus | .png) Pufferfish (Item) | All ocean biomes |
Cats are the exception worth calling out: they have no spawn biome at all, because they come from villages rather than terrain. Our Village Finder is the shortcut there.
Two more joined the list recently and most guides have not caught up. Since the Mounts of Mayhem update (Java 1.21.11), the Zombie Horse can be tamed in Survival by repeated mounting — exactly like an ordinary horse — where it previously needed commands, and the Zombie Nautilus is tamed with pufferfish like its living counterpart. A zombie horse has its own feed item: a red mushroom heals it 1.5 hearts, leads it, and adds +3 temper to an untamed one, so it plays exactly the role an apple plays for an ordinary horse.
Mobs you cannot tame (but can breed)
This is where most guides get it wrong. Several popular mobs are frequently described as tameable and are not — you can breed them, lead them and keep them, but they never become *yours* the way a wolf does.
| Mob | Can it be tamed? | What you can do instead |
|---|---|---|
| Fox | No | Breed two with  Sweet Berries — the kit trusts you |
| Panda | No | Breed with  Bamboo nearby |
| Axolotl | No | Catch in a bucket; breed with  Bucket of Tropical Fish |
| Bee | No | Breed with any flower; keep them in a hive |
| Ocelot | No longer | Feed raw fish to gain trust — tameable ocelots were replaced by cats |
The fox is the one people ask about most. A wild fox will never trust you, but a fox *born* near you will — so the trick is to breed two adults with Sweet Berries and keep the kit.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q: Why does my horse keep bucking me off?
A: Because its hidden temper has not passed the threshold yet. Each attempt adds 5 temper against a threshold rolled randomly between 0 and 99, so the worst case is 21 attempts and the first attempt on an unfed horse always fails. Feeding it apples, carrots, wheat or sugar adds temper directly and cuts the number down.
Q: Can you tame a fox in Minecraft?
A: No. Foxes cannot be tamed at any point. Breeding two adult foxes with sweet berries or glow berries produces a kit that trusts the player, which is the closest equivalent — but the adults you find in the wild will always flee from you.
Q: Can you tame an axolotl?
A: No. Axolotls are caught in a water bucket and bred with a bucket of tropical fish, but they are never tamed and will not follow you the way a tamed wolf does.
Q: Can you tame a panda or a bee?
A: Neither. Pandas are bred with bamboo nearby and bees are bred with flowers, but both stay wild mobs. No item tames either of them in any edition.
Q: Do you need a saddle to tame a horse?
A: No — a saddle has nothing to do with taming. You tame the horse first by mounting it, then add a saddle so you can steer it. You can tame a horse without ever owning a saddle.
Q: Can you tame a skeleton horse?
A: Not in the normal sense. A Skeleton Horse that spawns from a skeleton trap becomes rideable once its skeleton rider is killed, and it accepts a saddle, but it is not tamed through the temper mechanic that applies to ordinary horses.
Q: What is the fastest way to tame a horse?
A: Feed it golden apples, which add 10 temper each — the same as getting bucked off twice. Food cannot guarantee a fast taming, because the threshold is rolled per horse and can be as high as 99, but every point you feed in is an attempt you do not have to spend.
