[!IMPORTANT] GECKOLIB IS REQUIRED DEPENDENCY FOR THIS MOD.

Support the project on Patreon and join the Discord Community to help make Better Horses even better.

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Icy’s Better Horses

A complete overhaul of horse progression, travel, breeding, ownership, and mounted gameplay for Minecraft.

Icy’s Better Horses transforms horses from disposable transport into true long-term companions. The mod expands nearly every part of vanilla horse gameplay: movement, breeding, genetics, ownership, bonding, utility equipment, mounted controls, traversal, and multiplayer riding.

Ownership & Horse Commands

Once a horse is fully tamed, it becomes permanently tied to its rider through an ownership system.

Owned horses gain access to advanced control mechanics designed to make them feel reliable and persistent instead of temporary.

Horse Whistle

Press P to whistle for your horse.

Your owned horse will respond and return to you, even at range.

The whistle system is multiplayer-safe and correctly tied to the owner’s UUID.

Pressing the whistle key also clears previous command states like Stay, returning the horse to normal follow behavior.

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Radial Command Wheel

Open the command wheel with: R (can be changed in configs!)

Available commands:

• Follow — horse follows the player
• Stay — horse remains in place
• Return Home — horse returns to its assigned home position
• Set Home — assigns a new home location
• Wander — wander in a 32x32 radius

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Bonding System

Every horse now has a persistent Bond stat ranging from:

0 → 100

Bond represents trust, training, and familiarity between rider and horse.

As bond increases, the horse gains measurable stat bonuses.

Bond Bonuses

Every 20 bond levels improves:

• Movement speed
• Jump height

At maximum bond, horses can significantly outperform vanilla movement values while still remaining balanced within hard stat ceilings.

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Increasing Bond

Name Tag

Using a Name Tag on a horse grants:

+10 Bond

Golden Apples

Feeding Golden Apples grants:

+2 Bond

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Horse Information Screen

While mounted, pressing P now opens a full horse profile screen.

If the player is not mounted, the whistle still activates normally.

The info screen displays:

• Gender
• Breed
• Coat
• Bond level
• Movement speed
• Jump height
• Health

All stats are shown with progress bars and exact values.

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Stat Displays

Speed

Displayed in:

blocks per second

Maximum attainable bonded speed:

25.52 blk/s

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Jump Height

Displayed in:

blocks

Maximum attainable jump:

9.50 blk

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Health

Displayed in:

HP

Maximum health:

30 HP

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Horse Genetics & Breeding

The breeding system has been completely rebuilt around persistent genetic traits.

Every horse now stores:

• Gender
• Breed
• Mixed-breed state

These values persist through saves, multiplayer syncing, and breeding.

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Gender System

Every horse now has a biological gender:

• Male
• Female

This includes:

• Horses
• Donkeys
• Mules

Gender is synced, saved to NBT, and visible through the info UI and HUD systems.

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Gender-Gated Breeding

Two horses of the same gender cannot breed.

Attempting to breed incompatible horses will:

• Consume the Golden Apple
• Reset love mode
• Notify the player with a chat message

This system applies specifically to horse-type entities and leaves vanilla animal breeding untouched.

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Horse Breeds

The mod introduces 15 persistent horse breeds, each with biome spawning rules and breed-specific coat pools.

Breeds include:

• Thoroughbred
• Arabian
• Quarter Horse
• Friesian
• Andalusian
• Percheron
• Clydesdale
• Shire
• Belgian
• Icelandic
• Mustang
• Haflinger
• Morgan
• American Paint
• Appaloosa

Donkeys, mules, skeleton horses, and zombie horses use species placeholders instead of true breed types.

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Mixed Breeds

Foals born from two different breeds inherit:

• One parent breed at random
• A persistent (mix) flag

Mixed-breed horses are visibly marked in the UI.

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Breed-Based Coat System

Breeds are now tied directly to realistic coat pools.

Every breed only spawns with specific vanilla coat + markings combinations.

Examples:

Friesian

• Black only

Arabian

• Gray
• White
• Chestnut
• Brown
• Black

Clydesdale

• Brown + White Field
• Black + White Field
• Dark Brown + White Field
• Chestnut + White Field

Appaloosa

• White + Black Dots
• Gray + Black Dots
• Chestnut + White Dots
• Brown + White Dots
• Black + White Dots
• Dark Brown + White Dots

Existing horses from older worlds retain their current appearance and automatically receive an inferred breed.

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Biome-Locked Breeds

Wild horses now spawn according to biome regions.

Entire natural spawn groups share the same breed for more believable herds.

Examples:

Arabian

Found in:

• Deserts
• Badlands
• Savannas

Icelandic

Found in:

• Snowy Plains
• Frozen Peaks
• Ice Spikes
• Jagged Peaks

Friesian

Found in:

• Dark Forests
• Taiga variants
• Old Growth forests

Mustang

Found in:

• Plains
• Badlands
• Windswept terrain

This creates region-specific horse populations across the world.

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Inherited Stats

Foals inherit stats from their parents through a controlled inheritance system.

Inherited stats include:

• Health
• Speed
• Jump strength

The child receives:

max(parent stats) + randomized bonus

Values are capped at the mod’s maximum attainable limits, preventing infinite breeding escalation.

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Travel & Mounted Gameplay Improvements

Vanilla horse travel has been heavily redesigned to remove friction and terrain frustration.

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Water Traversal

Horses:

• No longer sink in water
• Move far faster across rivers and oceans

Mounted travel no longer completely stops at every shoreline.

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Forest Traversal

While mounted:

• Leaves become passable
• Dense forests are far easier to navigate

This prevents horses from constantly snagging on leaf blocks.

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Auto-Ride System

Double-tap:

W

to enable Auto-Ride.

While active:

• The horse automatically continues forward
• Steering is controlled with the mouse
• Continuous WASD input is unnecessary

Pressing any movement key disables Auto-Ride.

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Improved Mounted Controls

Mounted movement has been reworked for smoother handling.

Changes include:

• Increased horse step height to 1.1 so horses can step up from path blocks
• Independent camera movement while stationary
• Up to 90° free-look before the horse turns
• Improved downward visibility while riding, making the horse transluscent
• Lowered and repositioned horse head while mounted

Mounted mining speed penalties were also drastically reduced.

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Multiplayer Riding

Two players can ride the same horse simultaneously.

Useful for:

• Multiplayer exploration
• Transporting teammates
• Cooperative travel

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Upgraded Saddle

The Upgraded Saddle expands horse utility far beyond vanilla functionality.

Features include:

• 5 additional equipment slots
• Horse inventory expansion
• Cosmetic and utility customization

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Ender Chest Support

Placing an Ender Chest into the upgraded saddle grants access to the player’s global Ender Chest inventory directly from the horse.

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Horse Stats HUD

Holding an upgraded saddle while looking at a horse displays an in-world HUD:

• Gender
• Breed
• Speed
• Jump height

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Horse Equipment

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Horse Hooves

Craftable horse hooves improve environmental traversal.

Effects:

• Prevent sinking in powdered snow
• Improve terrain stability
• Reduce fall damage

Horse hooves can also receive:

Frost Walker

At high movement speeds, ice generation was specifically optimized to avoid performance problems.

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Stabilizer

The Stabilizer is advanced survival equipment for dangerous terrain.

During major falls:

• Steam jets activate
• Mechanical wings deploy
• Fall damage is heavily reduced or fully negated

Designed for mountain travel and cliff traversal.

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Medkit

The Horse Medkit automatically activates when horse health drops below 50%.

Applies:

• Regeneration
• Instant Health
• Resistance

This provides emergency survivability during combat or accidents.

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Hitch Post

The Hitch Post allows owned horses to be tethered to a fixed location.

Restrictions:

• Only works on owned horses
• Cannot tether random wild horses

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Horse Exclusivity System

Horses can reject unauthorized riders.

If a non-owner attempts to control the horse:

• The rider may be bucked off
• Owners retain riding priority

This prevents accidental horse theft in multiplayer environments.

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Configuration System

The mod includes a configurable JSON file:

betterhorses-common.json

Configurable systems include:

• Stabilizers
• Medkits
• Hitch Posts
• Horse Hooves
• Horse Exclusivity
• Multiplayer Riding

Items can also be placed into dummy mode, allowing them to remain as decorative models without gameplay functionality.

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Technical Systems

The mod adds:

• Persistent NBT-backed horse data

• Synced multiplayer horse traits

• Breed-based spawning

• Spawn-group inheritance

• Coat restriction systems

• Advanced breeding inheritance

• Custom GUI systems

• Server/client mixins

• Translation support for:

  • breeds
  • genders
  • coats
  • UI labels
  • HUD text
  • breeding messages

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Developer Notes

Icy’s Better Horses is one of my first large-scale modding projects, and the mod continues to evolve with every update. Some models and textures are still being improved as I continue learning 3D modeling and animation workflows. Community feedback, testing, suggestions, and contributions are always welcome.