Taming & Riding
Taming
SWEM horses are not interactive or able to be ridden until tamed. When untamed you cannot:
- Equip any tack or items such as halters.
- Feed, water or brush them.
To tame a SWEM horse you must ride it until it no longer refuses the attempts. A horse will either rear or buck when refusing an attempt to tame them; throwing the player off in the process. Rearing is harmless, whereas bucking can cause significant damage to both player and nearby entities if within their damage radius. It is recommended to tame horses in an open area such as an arena, as this allows room to quickly retreat from bucking and avoid harm to other players or entities.
Successful taming will result in heart particles being emitted from the horse, and the player will then be able to open the horse GUI (inventory) to equip tack.
Tacking Up
Tamed SWEM Horses have slots available for a Halter/Bridle, Blanket, Saddle, Girth Strap, Breast Collar, Leg Wraps, Horse Armor or Pasture Blanket, and Saddlebag. A Horse must have a Blanket, Saddle, and Girth Strap at minimum. A Bridle is necessary to steer the horse. Failure to equip a girth strap will cause both the player and the saddle to fall off!
Equipment can be placed on the Horse by right-clicking the Horse with the piece of equipment in hand, or by opening the inventory GUI (shift + right click a SWEM horse) and placing the item in its designated slot. Just like real life, tack needs to be equipped in a logical order: bridle first, saddle blanket, saddle then girth. Breastcollar and wraps are optional. If a horse is already wearing a tack piece and the player shift + right clicks holding an item to swap with a currently equipped tack piece, the item will be 'hotswapped' without opening the GUI.
A SWEM horse wearing adventure tack and a saddlebag.
Riding
Once a horse has all the necessary equipment on, it can be mounted (right click) and controlled with standard directional controls, jump (spacebar) and the mouse. The player can dismount by pressing shift.
Changing Gaits
SWEM Horses have five gaits (movements at different speeds and paces) the player can control when riding. By default, the gait is increased with H and decreased with G. If this does not work, check keybinds are not conflicting in settings.
| Gait | Speed | Universal | Notes |
| Walk | 3bps | Yes | |
| Trot | 5bps | Yes | |
| Canter | 11bps | Yes | Horses that are hungry or thirst will not be able to canter+. |
| Extended Canter | 13-17bps | No | |
| Gallop | 13-27bps | No |
Gallop can be used for a set amount of time, dependent on speed level. It has a cooldown after use, during which time the horse cannot gallop. |
| Swimming | N/A | Yes |
Horses will swim when the water depth is greater than 1 Block
|
Universal speed refers to a gait that is unaffected by the speed level. This is implemented to allow players to ride together (trails, team sports) on servers regardless of their horse's skills.
Dual Riding
Two players can ride a horse if the horse settings are set to all or trusted, which requires the player to be set as trusted via commands. When the primary rider dismounts, the secondary rider will take control of the horse.
Carrying Entities
A player can place a passive entity, such as livestock or villagers, on the back of their horse. To place an entity on a horse, the rider must be mounted and looking at the entity - press (default) Ctrl + Right-click to mount the animal on the back of a horse. To dismount an entity from your horse, stand on the ground and look at the entity again, repeat the same process (ctrl+RMB).
Ctrl + Right Click is the default keybind, if you set a different key for sprinting you would use [sprint key] + right click.
Frost & Lava Walk
Horses can safely be ridden across water and even lava if wearing horse armor of a specific tier or higher. For Frost Walker, gold tier horse armor must be used, which creates a layer of ice underneath them at the same y-level they were on if water is present. For Lava Walk, diamond tier horse armor must be used, which creates a layer of magma underneath them at the same y-level they were on if lava is present. Horses wearing diamond tier armor will take no damage from lava even if submerged, and the armor does not deteriorate in condition.
It is highly recommended to use trot when riding across water or lava. Lag spikes during chunk loading can cause the ice/magma layer to load slower and drop both rider and horse into the water/lava around them.
Leading
SWEM Horses can be led using a lead or lead & anchor. Leading mechanics are vanilla and are not altered by SWEM - more advanced leading AI is planned for V2 if possible.
Cross Ties
SWEM horses have a unique cross tie feature that is not possible with other entities; attach a SWEM horse to a fence or hitching post to tether them. Get a second lead and connect it to another nearby post - the horse will be pulled to a somewhat central position between the two connections. When right clicking the post to disconnect, both leads will be disconnected and drop nearby.
Other Information
Lungeing
SWEM horses cannot be lunged. This is a feature we hope to implement in future. Videos appearing to demonstrate lungeing with SWEM horses will include an invisible rider controlling the horse, and another holding the leadrope while appearing to lunge the horse unassisted.
View pages for:
SWEM Horse (Overview)
Obtaining
Needs & Horse Care
Reproduction
Known Issues
- [-] SWEM horses on a lead, and very occasionally when ridden, can get stuck in a swimming animation and cannot be creatively lifted out or led out of the water even with a step up or stairs placed under them. A very reliably solution to this is to temporarily drain/reduce the water with sponge. It is most successful when a second player is able to lead the horse out quickly, but can realistically be done with a single player if necessary.
- [-] Gaits not decreasing back to walk after horse is at a full stop, so when ridden they jump forward into a higher gait if the rider does not manually decrease the speed first before stopping.
- [-] Server or SP game lag can cause effects from various tiers of horse armor to load in too late, dropping the horse/rider into water or lava. Horses will suffer no ill-effects with adequate armor, but the rider might be at increased risk of damage or death. Additionally, if in the middle of a large body of water/lava, the horse will need to be ridden or lead to the closest area of land with a 1B step up to be able to get out. The best way to avoid this issue is to ride slowly across water/lava sources, especially if prone to lag, at no more than a canter.