How to find a saddle in ‘Minecraft’ and use it to ride horses, pigs, and more

• You can find a saddle in “Minecraft” in treasure chests, by fishing, by trading, or by hunting.
• Saddles are one of the few items in “Minecraft” that can’t be crafted.
• Once you have a saddle, you can use it to ride horses, Striders, pigs, and more.

A saddle is one of the rare “Minecraft” items that can’t actually be crafted. Like the Elytra, one of the game’s other transportation-related items, you’ll need to find a saddle rather than make it.

Luckily, there are lots of ways to find saddles. And once you have one, using it is easy — although you might need to bring a treat or two for the creature you want to ride.

Here’s everything you need to know about the saddle in ‘Minecraft’: How to get one, which mobs can be saddled up, and the trick to controlling them once you do.

How to find a saddle in ‘Minecraft’

There are four different ways to find a saddle: by looting treasure chests, trading, fishing, and hunting.

Treasure chests

In both editions of Minecraft, you can find saddles in treasure chests at these locations: dungeons, bastion remnants, desert temples, End cities, jungle temples, Nether fortresses, strongholds, and villages.

Your chances at finding a saddle within a treasure chest will vary, but your best bets are with a Nether fortress chest (35.3 percent), a dungeon chest (28.3 percent), or a desert temple chest (23.5 percent).

For a Nether fortress chest, you’ll have to first reach the Nether by way of a Nether Portal crafted from obsidian. Dungeon chests, on the other hand, are found in the Overworld — you can simply start (carefully) digging down until you find a cave system. Dungeons are always adjacent to caves.

Finally, desert temples can be found in desert biomes, and the temple’s chests will be enclosed in a room within the pyramid. Just be careful, as the treasure chests are flanked by a TNT trap which, if stepped on, will destroy the chests, their contents, and possibly you as well.

Fishing

You can fish in any body of water, and whenever you do, there’s a chance that you’ll catch treasure instead of fish. However, by default there’s a less than 1 percent chance of reeling in a saddle.

If you’re willing to put in some work, you can increase the odds by blessing your fishing rod with a “Luck of the Sea” enchantment. Add a Tier 3 “Lure” enchantment for faster fishing, and you’ll be reeling in a saddle in no time.

All you need is a fishing rod and water. Any body of water is suitable, too, whether it’s standalone or part of a large river, an ocean, or just a manmade pond.

Trade with a Master Leatherworker

If you’ve accrued a good deal of emeralds, trade them with your friendly village Leatherworker in exchange for a saddle. If you can’t find a Leatherworker in the village, you can turn a non-employed villager into one by plopping a cauldron in their path.

Trade with the Leatherworker until they’ve reached “Master” status, and you should be able to exchange emeralds for a saddle.

The only catch here is that if you’re playing on the console-friendly “Bedrock” version of the game, there’s only a 50 percent chance that they offer you this trade.

Kill a Ravager

Finally, if you like the thrill of the hunt, you can kill a Ravager. These are strong enemies that look like bulls, and will accompany pillagers on raids.

Upon death, a Ravager will always drop a saddle.

How to use your saddle in ‘Minecraft’

Once you have your saddle, you’re ready to ride. But what animal should you pick?

There are the obvious options, like horses, donkeys, and mules. Each of these animals can be tamed by repeatedly mounting them until they stop bucking you off — how many times you’ll need to do this is randomly decided for each animal. Once they’re tamed, “use” the saddle on them and you’ll place it on them.

You can get the saddle back by hopping on the animal and pressing the inventory button. You’ll see that it has its own inventory, which you can take the saddle from.

But there are also a few more fun options, like pigs and Striders.

Using your saddle to ride a pig

You can get a pig’s attention with a carrot. Then, equip the saddle in your hotbar and “use” it on the pig.

Select the pig to start riding. However, you won’t be able to move it without using a Carrot on a Stick — hang it in front of the pig to make it run any way you please.

While riding a pig is definitely fun, you might find riding a saddled-up Strider even more practical, since they can walk across lava.

Using your saddle to ride a Strider

Striders are a newer mob in “Minecraft,” and can be found roaming all across the lava oceans in the Nether. Riding a Strider lets you cross the lava without any danger.

Similar to the pig, first you can get the Strider’s attention with a coveted cuisine: warped fungus.

When the Strider is close enough, equip the saddle in your hot bar and use it on the Strider to equip it. Then approach the Strider with your “use” action to mount.

Make sure you have a fishing rod on hand so you can create a warped fungus on a stick, which you’ll need to lead the Strider around.

Just don’t get too attached to your pig or Strider — once you’ve given them a saddle, the only way to get it back is to kill them.