Minecraft: How To Get A Saddle

The saddle is a very unique item in Minecraft, in that it is one of the few pieces of equipment in the game that can not be crafted. Obtaining one is much more involved, but the payoff is very high, allowing players to ride horses, mules, donkeys, pigs, and even Striders around their worlds. This allows for much faster travel around the world, and negates the need for as much food as players aren’t using up energy.

To get saddles, players will have to find them. With every world seed being completely unique, it’s impossible to pinpoint exactly where one can be found in a player’s given world, so a little bit of luck will be involved on the player’s part. In general, there are four different means of finding a saddle.

Mob Loot

The first method of obtaining a saddle is to get one as loot from a killed mob. It requires players to kill one of two specific mobs, neither of which are particularly common. These two mobs are the Ravager and the Strider with a Zombified Piglin rider.

Ravagers are large, boar-like mobs that spawn exclusively in village raids. They begin spawning in the third wave, and up to five Ravagers can spawn in total throughout a raid. Each one is guaranteed to drop a single saddle, and this total is not affected by the Looting enchantment. Raids are, by far, the best way of getting large amounts of saddles. To trigger one, a player must kill an Illager Captain, which will induce the Bad Omen effect on the player, then enter a village.

Striders are the only passive mobs that spawn in the Nether, and have the unique ability of being able to walk on lava. They can appear in any Nether biome, and have a 1/30 chance of spawning with a Zombified Piglin riding atop them. If this occurs, slaying the Strider will drop the saddle that the Piglin is using.

Villager Trading

To obtain a saddle through villager trading, players require a Master Leatherworker villager. These villagers will always offer saddle trades on Java Edition, but will only have a 50% chance of offering saddle trades on Bedrock Edition. Either way, the villager will ask for six emeralds in exchange for the saddle.

To get a Master Leatherworker, players will need to make lots of trades with them, granting the villager experience as they do so. 250 XP is required to reach the Master level, so make use of the highest-experience trades you can afford to get the villager there quickly. Once Master level is reached, players will be able to trade for a total of 12 saddles before the trade becomes disabled.

Chest Loot

The most traditional way of getting a saddle is by finding one in a naturally spawning chest. In the days of classic Minecraft, this was the only way of obtaining one. With natural structures being more common nowadays, relying strictly on chest loot for saddles can actually suit players alright.

Saddles can be found in all of the following chests with roughly these spawn rates:

• Nether Fortress Chest – 35%
• Dungeons Chest – 28%
• Desert Temple Chest – 24%
• Tanner’s Chest (Village) – 17%
• Weaponsmith’s Chest (Village) – 16%
• Ancient City Chest – 16%
• Bastian Remnant Chest – 14%
• End City Chest – 13%
• Jungle Temple Chest – 13%
• Savanna House Chest (Village) – 11%
• Stronghold Chest – 2%

Fishing

Fishing is the least effective way of obtaining a saddle, though if all other options seem to have been exhausted, grinding for saddles through fishing can work. Retrieving a saddle on a catch will occur approximately 0.8% of the time, though that is without any fishing enchantments.

If a player enchants their fishing rod with Luck of the Sea, this will slightly increase their odds. Luck of the Sea I will increase the odds to 1.2%, Luck of the Sea II yields a 1.5% chance, and Luck of the Sea III maxes it out at a 1.9% chance.

Whichever method players opt for will depend on what sorts of structures they have nearby in their world, as well as the number of saddles that they require. If only a few are needed, it would be very safe to rely on chest loot or Strider spawns in the Nether. If a player needs a load of them, trading and raids should be the methods of choice.