How to Make a Saddle in Minecraft: A Step-by-Step Guide

You’ve managed to tame a horse in Minecraft, but it’s still not responding to your commands. While enclosing it in a pen is fine, riding it doesn’t seem to work as you’d hoped. Horses are among the fastest means of transportation in the game—aside from flying—but to exert control, you’ll need a saddle. In the past, saddles couldn’t be crafted and had to be acquired through trading, exploration, or fishing. However, after much anticipation, crafting a saddle is finally possible, and we’re here to guide you through the process.

Crafting a Saddle

Step 1: Gather three pieces of leather.

Step 2: Obtain one iron ingot.

Step 3: At a crafting table, position the iron ingot in the center of the bottom row, placing the three leather pieces around it as depicted above.

Step 4: Retrieve the saddle from the output area.

Step 5: You can now place your saddle on any compatible mount. Additionally, there's a new feature allowing you to safely remove a saddle from a pig without harming it. Simply use shears on the pig to collect the saddle for use on another animal.

Trading for a Saddle

While crafting is the easiest route, you can also obtain a saddle through trading.

Step 1: Locate a village and find the leatherworker.

Step 2: Level up the villager to Level 3, as saddles won’t be offered until then. You can do this by trading emeralds, leather, rabbit hides, flint, or other items the villager desires.

Step 3: Once the leatherworker reaches Level 5 (Master), your odds of receiving a saddle increase to 50%.

Finding Saddles in Chests

If crafting isn’t your preferred method and you’d rather not invest time into leveling up a leatherworker, you can search for saddles in chests. While there are numerous places to explore, finding a saddle isn’t guaranteed. Below are some potential locations and their chances of containing a saddle:

• Abandoned mineshafts (percentage unknown)
• Desert temples (23.5%)
• Dungeons (27.9%)
• End Cities (13.3%)
• Jungle temples (12.9%)
• Nether Fortresses (35.3%)
• Strongholds (2.5%)

Fishing for a Saddle

This method is the least likely to succeed, with only a 0.8% chance. Simply fish as you normally would, hoping to reel in a saddle instead of a fish.

Using a Saddle

You didn’t go through all that effort just as a decorative item! It’s time to put that saddle to good use!

Step 1: Ensure your hands are empty and approach the horse.

Step 2: The horse may try to buck you off. If that happens, repeat Step 1 until you’re able to stay on.

Step 3: While mounted, access your inventory. You should see the horse's inventory alongside yours. Move the saddle up to the square with the saddle icon. Once applied, the horse's icon will change.

With the saddle in place, you can now steer the horse wherever you want.