How To Use A Saddle in Minecraft

Minecraft is a game where players can interact with the different living creatures—that are called mobile entities or mobs for short—in the game. Almost all mobs have a use for the player one way or another. The player can benefit from these mobs by using their unique interactions, mob loot, and more. And the same as the mobs, each item in the game also has a unique use. The items can then be used in various ways, and some of them can even be used on mobs. One of these so-called items in the game is the saddle.

The saddle is a rare and unique item in Minecraft, for it is one of the few items in the game that cannot be crafted and used as an ingredient for other crafting purposes. And like other rare items in the game, the saddle can only be obtained by finding one rather than making one on a crafting table. Fortunately, a saddle is not as rare as the elytra, making them much easier to acquire. And saddles have a specific chest location in which they have a percentage of generating. This means that players can get a saddle in no time at all by locating these places where they are likely to be obtained.

And once you have acquired a saddle, using it on specific mobs will be pretty simple—although some mobs might take more than just a saddle to be fully utilized. This article will show you everything you need to know about how to use the saddle in Minecraft, including how you can obtain one, which mobs can be equipped with one, what you have to do once the mob is saddled up, and what items you will need to control each specific mob.

How To Obtain A Saddle in Minecraft

There are four ways a player can try to obtain a saddle in the game. These are through looting chests in specific locations, fishing for treasure, trading with villagers, and dropping a certain mob. Note that obtaining one using some of the given ways is not a hundred percent guarantee. Therefore, you will likely need to repeat doing each possible way more than once to obtain one.

Looting chests in naturally-generated structures

A saddle may be obtained as a treasure loot from chests located in certain naturally-generated structures in the game. And for each location, there is a certain percentage in which it is likely to spawn more than the other chests in the structure. Here is a list of all the possible places in which the chest containing a saddle may spawn and their corresponding percent chance:

Fishing for treasure items

In any body of water—including one as small as a single block of water—a player can use a fishing rod to catch fish. However, apart from catching fish, players may obtain treasure items instead. A saddle may be obtained as a treasure loot from fishing. In fishing for treasure, the saddle has a base chance of 0.8% in being obtained. To increase the chances of obtaining a saddle through fishing, the player must equip their fishing rod with the Luck of the Sea enchantment. Each level of the Luck of the Sea enchantment will increase the base percent chance of obtaining a treasure item and make the chances of getting a saddle higher.

Trading with leatherworker villagers

If you have some emeralds to spare, you can use them to trade with a villager in exchange for a saddle. But not all villagers sell saddles. You must only trade with a leatherworker villager with a master-level in its profession to gain a chance of obtaining the saddle. If a leatherworker villager is unavailable inside a village, you may use a cauldron to change an unemployed villager into a leatherworker. Then, you must constantly trade with the leatherworker villager until it reaches master level by profession. Only then will it offer a saddle as an item in its trade menu.

Dropped loot from killing mobs

There is a specific mob that will guarantee you a saddle as a drop when it is killed. The ravager—a large four-legged hostile mob that raiders often mount—will drop one saddle when killed by the player or a tamed wolf. The ravager is extremely tough to go against as it can deal massive damage at close range due to its high maximum health value. Players who seek to fight a ravager as an option to obtain a saddle may have to trigger a raid fight first before getting one. This option will not be easy as ravagers will spawn along with a group of pillagers and other raiders such as witches, vindicators, and evokers. But if a player can conquer and complete a raid, they will most likely obtain more than one saddle during the skirmish.

How To Use A Saddle in Minecraft

Riding tamed horses

Saddles can be used to ride tamed horses in Minecraft. Taming the horse is a simple thing and only takes the player a few seconds to complete. Once the horse is tamed, the player can mount the horse just as quickly. And although the horse can be mounted even without a saddle, the player will not be able to control the horse. This is where the saddle comes in. The saddle will be used to control the horse’s movement and make it walk in any direction the player chooses. This will make horses a great and efficient way to travel as they are the fastest mobs in Minecraft that players can ride.

Riding pigs

Like horses, pigs can be ridden by the player. However, the trick to riding a pig is not using a saddle but rather using a carrot on a stick. Although the saddle will allow the player to mount the pig, this does not assure that the player may control the pig’s movement. By using a carrot on a stick, the player can bait the pig using the carrot into walking in any direction that the player wants to go. Though they might be slow and inefficient when it comes to speed, they can still be helpful to the player, especially when the player gets tired of walking.

Riding striders

Striders are passive mobs who swim fast in lava and walk slowly on land. As striders are meant to be used as the player’s main transportation in the Nether, they can only be ridden by using a saddle. Hence, players can use the saddle to ride the strider into crossing large pools of lava, especially inside the Nether. And similar to pigs, the only way to control the movement of a strider is by using a fungus on a stick as bait.

Riding mules and donkeys

Like horses, donkeys and mules are their inferior versions in the game. Although donkeys and mules run slower than horses, they can be used as more than just a means of transportation. They can be saddled and ridden, but they can also be used as storage for items when equipped with a chest. Donkeys and mules are both tamed the same way horses do and placing a saddle on them allow the player to control them to walk in any direction.