Skeleton Horse

This article is about skeleton variant of horse. For zombie variant, see zombie horse.

Skeleton Horse

Health points	15 × 7.5
Behavior	Passive
Hitbox size	Adult: Height: 1.6 Blocks Width: 1.3965 Blocks Baby: Height: 0.8 Blocks Width: 0.6982 Blocks
Spawn	Skeleton traps
Items usable on	Saddle ‌[Java Edition only] Lead

Skeleton horses are undead variants of regular horses.

Spawning

"Skeleton Horseman" redirects here. For the mob in Minecraft Dungeons, see MCD:Skeleton Horseman.

A group of skeleton horsemen spawned by a "skeleton trap" horse.

A skeleton horseman consisting of a skeleton and a skeleton horse.

Skeleton horses spawn only from "skeleton traps”.

A "skeleton trap" horse is a skeleton horse spawned from a fraction of lightning strikes during a thunderstorm or by chance (0.75–1.5% chance on Easy, 1.5–4% on Normal, and 2.25–6.75% on Hard, depending on regional difficulty). It despawns after 15 minutes if not triggered.

When a player comes within 10 blocks of the skeleton trap horse, lightning strikes it. This lightning cannot start fires or damage nearby entities. When struck, the skeleton trap horse transforms into a skeleton horseman: a skeleton riding a skeleton horse. It also spawns three additional skeleton horsemen in the vicinity. Each skeleton is equipped with an enchanted iron helmet and an enchanted bow, and has damage immunity for 3 seconds after spawning (in Bedrock Edition both horse and rider are immune to lightning). Skeleton horsemen move fast and maneuver exactly like skeletons, strafing when attacking and backing up when the player moves toward them.

Other notes:

• The skeleton wears an iron helmet, unless it randomly spawned with some other headgear.
• The skeleton's bow and helmet are enchanted as if on an enchantment table at level 5–22. The exact level depends on regional difficulty; on Easy it is always a level-5 enchantment.
• The skeleton trap horse becomes fully grown if it was a baby, and the breeding cooldown is reset.
• The original horse is tamed when struck, and the additional three horses are spawned tamed.
• The skeletons do not despawn if PersistenceRequired is set.
• A trap horse may spawn in areas that a regular horse may not, such as the middle of an ocean.
• A trap horse can trigger normally in clear weather.
• The skeleton drops more experience orbs.
• If the difficulty is set to Peaceful, the skeleton rider despawns but the horse remains.

Drops

Upon death, a skeleton horse drops:

• 0–2 Bones. The maximum amount is increased by 1 per level of Looting, for a maximum of 0-5 with Looting III.
• 1–3 when killed by a player or tamed wolf.

If saddled, it drops a saddle.‌^{[Java Edition only]}

Usage

Tamed and saddled skeleton horses can be used as one of the fastest means of transportation in the game, though they are unable to fit through single block-wide openings. They can also be used to climb hills and jump fences because the skeleton horses can jump up to five block heights, versus the player's maximum of one (without a potion).

They can be ridden in water in any depth. Skeleton horses sink in the water and can be ridden along the ocean or river floor.

Skeleton horses can be pulled using a lead.

Equipment

Java Edition

Skeleton horses have the following slot available:

• Saddle Slot: For equipping a saddle.

Saddles can be placed on a skeleton horse by holding it and then right-clicking on the skeleton horse, or by accessing its inventory. A skeleton horse's inventory can be accessed by mounting the skeleton horse and opening the player inventory or by sneaking and then right-clicking on the horse.

Bedrock Edition

A skeleton horse does not have an inventory and cannot be equipped with a saddle or given armor.

Riding

See also: Transportation

Once a skeleton horse is tamed and saddled, the player can control it with standard directional controls, jump, and the mouse. The player dismounts using the dismount control.

In Bedrock Edition, skeleton horses can be controlled by the player without a saddle. However, in Java Edition, skeleton horses can be equipped with a saddle and then controlled.

In Java Edition, when riding a horse, the hunger bar is replaced by the horse's health in survival or adventure mode. It uses a slightly different heart texture than the player's health bar having a brown appearance. The experience bar is replaced by the horse leaping bar.

A player can use any item while riding a horse, including drinking or throwing potions; activating doors or redstone devices; using chests, crafting tables, and furnaces; breaking and placing blocks; and attacking with melee weapons or bows.

A ridden horse automatically runs up any one block high slope. The horse and rider can safely fit through a space as low as 2.75 blocks high. Lower clearance risks suffocating the rider if the rider's head enters a non-transparent block. The horse itself can enter gaps as low as 1.625 blocks high, but may itself take suffocation damage when clearance is less than 1.75 blocks. Horses cannot fit through a 1-block-wide gap.

It is impossible for a player to use a Nether portal while on a horse. It is possible, however, to enter the portal on the horse and then dismount, sending the horse through the portal on its own, or use a lead to position the horse, then push it through the portal.‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]}

Unlike normal horses, a skeleton horse does not force the player to dismount when it enters water deeper than two blocks; rather, it can be ridden underwater without drowning. The player can still drown underwater without the proper potions or enchantments, even when mounted on the skeleton horse. When underwater, its running speed and jump remain the same although it has a slower rate of descent.

Behavior

Skeleton horses, like most mobs, can ride in minecarts and boats. They can also be tamed by the player.

Unlike other passive mobs, skeleton horses slowly regenerate health evident by their health bar while riding a tamed horse. This is the same case for normal horses. However, they cannot be bred or fed.

Statistics

See also: Tutorials/Horses

All horses have three "equine stats" that vary from horse to horse: health, maximum movement speed, and jump strength. These stats are created once the horse is born or spawned, and are not affected by food.

Spawned values

When spawned in any way except breeding – for instance, using commands, spawning naturally, spawning as part of a skeleton trap, or using spawn eggs – horses are assigned their stats within certain ranges, specific according to their horse type.

Health

Skeleton horse's health is always 15. Displayed hearts are health, divided by two, rounded down. A horse with an odd number of health points (15, 17, 19, etc.) does not show the last half-heart. You may strike a horse to test this. If the horse has lost one health point lower than the inflicted damage and did not regenerate, it has an odd number of health points, otherwise, it has an even number of health points.

Movement speed

Skeleton horse's speed is always 0.2; the player's normal walking speed is 0.1. The speed listed does not include any status effect that affects the speed of a horse or a player.

See transportation to compare the speeds of various transportation methods.

Jump strength

Jump strength ranges from 0.4–1.0, averaging 0.7.

A jump strength of 0.5 is enough to clear 1 ⁹⁄₁₆ blocks, while 1.0 is enough to clear 5 ¹⁄₄ blocks.

The following derived equation can be used to calculate a horse jump height, with x its jump strength attribute (with an rss of 5.510e-19). This function was fit to the data found in the table below and is therefore most accurate around these values.

JumpHeight = -0.1817584952 * x^3 + 3.689713992 * x^2 + 2.128599134 * x - 0.343930367

The exact jump strengths, to 15 digits, required to clear several block heights are listed below.

Jump Strength	Blocks
0.966967527085333	5.000
0.847552919762898	4.000
0.715301016726230	3.000
0.564380127487889	2.000
0.432084373616155	1.250 (player's jump height)

Sounds

Sound	Subtitle	Namespaced ID	Subtitle ID	Source	Pitch	Volume	Attenuation distance
	Skeleton Horse cries	entity.skeleton_horse.ambient	subtitles.entity.skeleton_horse.ambient	?	?	?	16
	Skeleton Horse cries	entity.skeleton_horse.ambient_water	subtitles.entity.skeleton_horse.ambient	?	?	?	16
	Skeleton Horse dies	entity.skeleton_horse.death	subtitles.entity.skeleton_horse.death	?	?	?	16
	Horse gallops	entity.skeleton_horse.gallop_water	subtitles.entity.horse.gallop	?	?	0.45	16
	Skeleton Horse hurts	entity.skeleton_horse.hurt	subtitles.entity.skeleton_horse.hurt	?	?	?	16
	No subtitle	entity.skeleton_horse.jump_water	(Presumably when jumping underwater)	?	?	0.8	16
	No subtitle	entity.skeleton_horse.step_water	(Presumably when walking underwater)	?	?	0.6	16
	Skeleton Horse swims	entity.skeleton_horse.swim	subtitles.entity.skeleton_horse.swim	?	?	9, 10, 11, 12 = 0.4; 14, 15, 16, 17 = 0.6	16

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Translation key
Skeleton Horse	skeleton_horse	entity.minecraft.skeleton_horse

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Namespaced ID	Numeric ID	Translation key
Skeleton Horse	skeleton_horse	26	entity.skeleton_horse.name

Entity data

See also: Chunk format

Skeleton horses have entity data associated with them that contain various properties.

• Entity data
  • Tags common to all entities see Template:Nbt inherit/entity/template
  • Tags common to all mobs see Template:Nbt inherit/mob/template
  • Additional fields for mobs that can breed see Template:Nbt inherit/breedable/template
  •  Bred: 1 or 0 (true/false) – Unknown. Remains 0 after breeding. If true, causes it to stay near other horses with this flag set.
  •  EatingHaystack: 1 or 0 (true/false) – true if the horse is grazing.
  •  Tame: 1 or 0 (true/false) – true if the horse is tamed.
  •  Temper: Ranges from 0 to 100; increases with feeding. Higher values make a horse easier to tame.
  •  Owner: The UUID of the player that tamed the horse, stored as four ints. Has no effect on behavior. Does not exist if there is no owner.
  •  ArmorItem: The armor item worn by this horse. May not exist.
    • Tags common to all items see Template:Nbt inherit/item/template
  •  SaddleItem: The saddle item worn by this horse. May not exist. (Non-player mobs cannot control a tamed horse if it has no saddle.)
    • Tags common to all items see Template:Nbt inherit/item/template
  •  SkeletonTrap: 1 or 0 (true/false) - true if the horse is a trapped skeleton horse. Does not affect horse type.
  •  SkeletonTrapTime: Incremented each tick when SkeletonTrap is set to 1. The horse automatically despawns when it reaches 18000 (15 minutes).

History

Java Edition
4 April 2013					Jeb hinted at adding horses when Minecraft hit 10,000,000 sales.
1.6.1		13w16a			Added skeleton horses.
					The addition of skeleton horses, along with other horses, has been assisted by DrZhark (John Olarte), creator of the Mo' Creatures mod, whose horses are a baseline for Minecraft's horse models.
					Skeleton horses are not available yet without the use of third party commands.
		13w21a			Added new GUI for horses, including skeleton horses; to control saddles, armor and inventories.
		13w22a			Added new sound effects for skeleton horses.
1.7.2		13w36a			Skeleton horses are now available without third-party tools, with the introduction of the /summon command.
1.9		15w38a			Added "skeleton trap" horses.
					There is a chance (depending on regional difficulty) that a lightning strike spawns a "skeleton trap" skeleton horse.
		15w43a–44b			The drops of skeleton horses have been changed several times. The end result is that skeleton horses now always drop one bone, not affected by Looting.
1.10		16w20a			Added spawn eggs for skeleton horses.
		pre2			The spawn eggs for skeleton horses have been removed.
1.11		16w32a			Horses now have separate IDs and the ID for skeleton horses has been changed to skeleton_horse.
					The spawn egg for skeleton horses has been re-added.
					Skeleton trap horses' chance to spawn during lightning strikes has been reduced to 1⁄5 of what it was.
		16w38a			Skeleton horses now drop 0–2 of bones or rotten flesh, affected by Looting.
1.13		17w45a			The models of skeleton horses have been changed.
		17w46a			The new models for skeleton horses have been slightly tweaked.
		18w03a			The models of skeleton horses have been updated again and the textures have been slightly altered.
		18w19a			Skeleton horses now sink in water, due to being an undead mob. Zombie horses, curiously, do not.
					The player can now ride skeleton horses when underwater.
		pre2			The model of skeleton horses has been updated to fix serious Z-fighting, which has changed the model from to .
1.14		19w08a			The textures of skeleton horses have been changed.
					The textures of "skeleton trap" horses have been changed.
1.16		20w09a			Skeleton horses can now be leashed.
Pocket Edition Alpha
0.15.0		build 1			Added "skeleton trap" horses.
Pocket Edition
1.1.0		alpha 1.1.0.0			The entity ID for skeleton horse has been changed from skeletonhorse to skeleton_horse.
Bedrock Edition
1.2.6		beta 1.2.6.2			The models of skeleton horses have been changed to Java Edition 17w45a's skeleton horse models.
1.5.0		beta 1.5.0.0			Skeleton horses can now be ridden underwater.
1.8.0		beta 1.8.0.8			Skeleton horse foals now have a chance of being spawned using a spawn egg.
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3			The textures of skeleton horses have been changed.
					The textures of "skeleton trap" horses have been changed.
Legacy Console Edition
TU46	CU36	1.38	Patch 15		Added "skeleton trap" horses.
TU54	CU44	1.52	Patch 24	1.0.4	Skeleton horses are now able to be spawned with a spawn egg found in the creative inventory.
TU57	CU49	1.56	Patch 27	1.0.7	Skeleton horses can now be tamed and leashed.
TU60	CU51	1.64	Patch 30		The models of skeleton horses have been changed to Java Edition 17w45a's skeleton horse models.
PlayStation 4 Edition
1.90					The textures of skeleton horses have been changed.
					The textures of "skeleton trap" horses have been changed.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0					Added "skeleton trap" horses.

Issues

Issues relating to "Skeleton horse" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

• Dr. Zhark appears in the credits after the End Poem as the creator of the horses, including skeleton horses.
• On multiplayer, it is possible to find out which of two skeleton horses (owned and ridden by different players) is faster. Each rider needs to apply a lead to the other horse, then play 'tug of war'. The stronger horse is faster.
• It is possible to summon a rideable skeleton horse using the command /summon skeleton_horse ~ ~ ~ {Tame:1, SaddleItem: {id: saddle, Count:1}}. This spawns a horse wearing a saddle, which the player can then mount. Like a donkey, there is no armor slot, but also no way to equip a chest.
• In Bedrock Edition, skeleton horses can be transported in a boat by riding the skeleton horse and jumping into the boat then dismounting (leaving the horse behind in the boat) and activating the boat from underneath/underwater. Attempting to activate the boat in order to pilot it from above results in the player being mounted on the horse again rather than being placed inside the boat to pilot it.
• Skeleton horses, along with zombie horses, are the only passive mobs to be considered undead.

Gallery

• 

  A skeleton horse spawned in.

• 

  The four variations of skeleton traps using "Grumm" or "Dinnerbone" name tags.

• 

  Skeleton horses spawned from a trapped skeleton horse.

• 

  A player riding a skeleton horse, having killed the skeleton rider.

• 

  A player riding a skeleton horse underwater. It can run and jump.

• 

  A skeleton horse interface, with no place for horse armor.

• 

  Skeleton horse with saddle‌^{[Java Edition only]} in survival after defeating the skeleton horse trap.

• 

  A skeleton horse in Education Edition.

• 

  A stray riding a skeleton horse.

• 

  A wither skeleton riding a skeleton horse.

See also

• Horse
• Donkey
• Mule
• Llama

References

Entities

View at: Template:Entities/content [edit]