When were horses added to Minecraft?

Horses are some of the most beloved and useful pets players can have in Minecraft. These are some of the best modes for land transport since they can automatically climb blocks and jump significantly higher.

These days, players almost always need horses to explore the overworld. Many players have a close relationship with their pet horses as they go on several adventures together. They can also be given special horse armor that protects them in dire situations. Weirdly enough, these mobs were actually featured as a joke in the early days of Minecraft.

Considering how useful they've become, looking back at how and when they were added to the game makes for interesting trivia.

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How horses were added to Minecraft and a brief history of the mob

April fool's concept and first release

The first concept of a horse skin retextured on a cow as an April Fools joke (Image via Minecraft Wiki)

The first concept of the mob was released as a joke on April 1, 2013, when Mojang released 'Minecraft 2.0.' In this version, they essentially retextured two older mobs, cows and pigs, to look like horses and ponies respectively. However, a few days later, Jeb, the lead creative director of Mojang, said that the game would get a horse mob when the game hit 10 million sales worldwide.

Fast forward to the first snapshot for the 1.6.1 version on April 13, 2013, horses were officially introduced and released as a separate mob. They were controlled by saddles right from the start and could be tamed and healed by feeding them bread.

Horse GUI was added where players could overview saddles, armor, and their own inventory (Image via Minecraft 1.19 update)

Later on, their GUI was added for inventory, saddles, and armor. Additionally, players could no longer feed them bread for taming. Gradually, horses underwent several changes where the textures of different horses changed, and the sounds they made were refined.

Players were delighted to get these mobs in the game since they were brilliant for traveling and taming. Horse armor was also added to the game with the 1.6.1 update as rare chest loot.

In the latest 1.19 update, horses will follow players who are holding a golden carrot, golden apple, or enchanted golden apple.

These mobs have come a long way since they were first introduced as a joke. They have been refined over the years and have become one of the favorite and must-have pets in the game.

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As of the current update, if players want to tame the mob, they must keep mounting the horse until the mob stops bucking them off. The taming depends on the mob's temper, which varies from 0 to 100.

If the temper exceeds the threshold, the horse becomes tame. This can be increased by riding them again and again or feeding them wheat. 'Temper' in this case is the opposite of its normal definition. Simply put, the higher the temper level, the better.