How To Get And Use Saddle In Minecraft 2023

There are a lot of ways to interact with mobs in Minecraft, and among them, riding is probably the most popular. By riding a horse or a donkey, players would be able to travel long distances faster - this is even more important in the 1.20 update where players would be able to breed horses for speed.

In order to control horses, players must put a saddle on them. This can be tricky as saddles cannot be crafted. In this article, Gurugamer is going to showcase how to get and use saddle in Minecraft 2023.

1. How to get a Saddle in Minecraft?

Chest loot

Players can get saddles from treasure chests in various structures in the Minecraft world.

Craft Saddle Minecraft On Horse — Having a horse early on allows players to travel far without consuming too much food.

Amongst them, Village, Dungeon and Nether Fortress are the three best locations. The Nether Fortress' chest has the highest spawn chance for saddles in the game, at 35.3%, while the Dungeon chest has the second highest at 27.9%. Players should be able to get a saddle for every 3 or 4 chests they open in these 2 locations.

In villages, saddles spawn in savanna house chests, tanner chests and weaponsmith's chests, with an 11-17% chance. This gives players the chance to acquire the item they want very early on without having to fight.

Aside from these 3 locations, saddles also spawn in chests from Ancient City, Bastion Remnant, End City, Desert Temple, Stronghold and Jungle Temple.

Fishing

Saddles can be obtained as a "treasure" item from fishing with a base chance (without fishing rod enchantments) of 0.8%.

Each level of the Luck of the Sea enchantment increases the chance of catching a treasure at the expense of reducing the chances of catching fish and junk. The Luck status effect grants the same benefit. This means players should be able to get rare items like saddles much more easily with an enchanted fishing rod and a luck potion.

Trading

Players can get saddles in trading with Master-level leatherworker villagers. They have a 50% chance to sell a saddle for 6 emeralds in Bedrock. On the other hand, this trade is always offered in Java Edition.

Mob loot

Any mob that the player equips with a saddle drops the saddle upon death.

Ravager In Minecraft 1 1024x576 — Ravager In Minecraft

A strider may spawn being ridden by a zombified piglin, which causes it to spawn wearing a saddle. This saddle always drops when the strider is killed.

A ravager always spawns with a saddle and always drops the saddle upon death. Looting enchantment does not increase the number of saddles dropped, however. Players cannot ride a ravager - only an illager can do it.

Get Saddle with Console Command

In case you don't feel like going out to find a saddle, turn on the Command Console and spawn it. It's technically cheating, but it will save you a lot of time and effort. You need to enable cheats before creating the world to be able to use the console.

Take note that enabling cheats would disable the ability to earn achievements/advancements.

Here's the Give Command for saddles: /give saddle [amount]

2. How to use a Saddle in Minecraft

While camels‌, horses, donkeys, mules and skeleton horses‌[Java Edition only] can always be ridden, a saddle is required to control them. Saddles are required to ride pigs and striders, but even with a saddle their movement cannot be controlled like other mobs.

Horse

First, you need to tame the horse. Just repeatedly trying to mount the horse and getting bucked off... until it stops. This works with other ridable mobs as well.

Afterward, select the saddle in your hotbar. For Java Edition (PC/Mac), right-click on the horse to mount it and then press E for inventory.

Donkey

The Donkey is very similar to Mules, however, they spawn naturally. This makes the Donkey a more convenient choice, as you don't need to breed them to create a baggage train. Their slow speed is pretty inconvenient, however, especially when you are exploring the map.

Skeleton Horse

The Skeleton Horse is identical stat-wise to a normal horse overall. However, they are much, much rarer - you can only get one skeleton horse in Minecraft when lightning strikes a horse. Furthermore, it becomes a skeleton trap horse.

When struck, the skeleton trap horse transforms into 4 skeleton horsemen. Players need to kill the skeleton riding the horse to acquire it. The reason why skeleton horse is better than a normal horse is that it can be used underwater.

Strider

The Strider is a unique mob that spawns only in the Nether. Because of that, when it comes to Nether travel, nothing beats it because of their immunity to lava. This allows players to navigate the Nether as they see fit, without having to worry about falling to their deaths.

They eat warped fungus, therefore, to control Striders, players need to put warped fungus on a stick and dangle it before their eyes.

Llama

Llamas are the worst among rideable mobs in Minecraft. Similar to a real-life Llama, the Minecraft version can't be tamed properly. There is no way to steer when riding a llama or direct them in any certain direction. However, players can just use them as chest carriers and lead them around with a rope.

Pig

Surprisingly, players can ride a pig by equipping a saddle on it. However, they will need a literal "carrot on a stick" to guide it around. To get the item, just combine a fishing rod and carrot. While this method of travel can be fun, Minecraft pigs are not really suitable for long range adventures. Because of their slow speed and low jumping capability, you will have problems moving around, especially on bad terrains.

Pig riding — Interestingly, you can ride a pig in Minecraft just like a horse.

Mule

Mules are infertile offspring of horses and donkeys that, when tamed, can be ridden and equipped with chests. They do not spawn naturally - you can only get them by breeding horses and donkeys. Despite being similar to the donkey, mules can actually jump higher and run faster. This makes them the best candidate for carrying your loot chests.