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Ride away with a saddle
Can’t craft a saddle in Minecraft? Learn every way to get one, from looting chests to villager trades, and start riding horses, pigs, and striders in no time.
Wordsmith at SteelSeries. Enthusiastic about Dota 2 and fighting games. A cat dad.
Got your eye on that perfect horse, but no way to ride it? You’re not alone. Saddles are essential for riding horses, pigs, and striders in Minecraft, but if you’ve searched your crafting table top to bottom and still can’t find a recipe, there’s a reason.
Here’s the truth: you can’t craft a saddle in Minecraft. That’s right — unlike most gear in the game, saddles can’t be made at a crafting table or furnace. But don’t worry! There are several tried-and-true ways to find one.
Below, we’ll show you how to get a saddle in Minecraft, how to equip it, and what mobs you can ride once you’ve got one.
No, saddles are not craftable in Minecraft. You can’t make one with leather, iron, or any combination of materials. Whether you’re in Creative Mode or Survival, there’s no saddle recipe—it must be found or obtained through other methods.
There is no recipe for a saddle in vanilla Minecraft. Any online guides or mods that claim to offer one are either using custom data packs or third-party modifications. If you're playing the standard game, you'll need to explore or trade to get one.
Your best bet for finding a saddle is exploring generated structures:
Dungeons (spawner rooms)
Bastion Remnants
Desert Temples
Jungle Temples
Nether Fortresses
End Cities
Strongholds
Ancient Cities
These structures often contain chests, and many have a decent chance of including a saddle.
With a regular fishing rod, there’s a small chance (~0.8%) to fish up a saddle as a treasure item. Increase your odds with:
Luck of the Sea enchantment
An AFK fishing farm (Java Edition only)
Locate a Leatherworker Villager
Level them up to Journeyman
You’ll have a chance to trade 6 emeralds for 1 saddle
Sometimes, you’ll spot a strider already wearing a saddle. Use a warped fungus on a stick to ride it across lava.
In Creative Mode or with cheats enabled, just enter:
/give @p minecraft:saddle 1
Once you’ve got a saddle, here’s how to use it:
Tame the horse: Right-click (or use the action button) with an empty hand. The horse will try to buck you off. Keep trying until it accepts you.
Open the horse’s inventory: While riding the tamed horse, open your inventory. You’ll now see the horse’s equipment slots.
Drag the saddle into the saddle slot.
Now you can control the horse’s movement!
Pro Tip: Saddles are also used to ride pigs (with a carrot on a stick) and striders in the Nether.
You can’t craft a saddle in Survival Mode, but here are the best ways to get one while playing legit:
Prioritize looting dungeons, fortresses, and desert temples
Level up a Leatherworker for trading
Use a fishing rod with Luck of the Sea
Search the Nether for striders wearing saddles
Always bring a pickaxe and torches when exploring for loot chests
Fishing is a chill, low-risk way to farm saddles early game
Trade emeralds with Leatherworkers when you’re sitting on village resources
Keep an extra saddle for backup—you never know when you'll run into a fast horse
To get even more Minecraft tips, check out our other guides here.
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No, just like regular saddles, horse saddles cannot be crafted. However, you can acquire a saddle by looting chests, fishing for treasure, or trading with other villagers.
Dungeons, Nether fortresses, and bastion remnants have some of the highest saddle drop rates from chests.
Good news – saddles don’t have durability. Once you have one, it’ll last forever (unless you lose it).