Realistic Horse Genetics

 Realistic Horse Genetics adds biologically accurate genetics for Minecraft horses.

SEE AVAILABLE FILES HERE, and you can also search by Minecraft version from there. If this is your first mod, here's a guide on how to install.

Colors:

Horses can be dun, palomino, bay, black, buckskin, chestnut, gray, roan, white, pinto, leopard spotted, and many other colors. If this is all new to you, don't worry, just breed the colors that you like and there's a good chance you'll get more of them. You may even get an unexpected color from recessive genes.

The color genes include extension, agouti, dun, cream and pearl, gray, silver dapple, tobiano, roan, frame overo, splashed white, sabino and dominant white, leopard complex, mushroom, champagne, and tiger eye. These genes are testable in real life and likewise they can be tested in game by using a book on a horse. There are also hidden genes, not testable, controlling traits with genetics that are not known in real life. Flaxen, seal brown, sooty, rabicano, shade variation, and how quickly or slowly a gray horse changes color are all affected by these hidden genes.

Speed, health, and jump strength:

In vanilla Minecraft, it is sometimes easier to just find a good horse than to breed one. With genes controlling the stats, there is actually a reason to breed. Horses will typically spawn with stats that are pretty close to average. However, foals are just as likely to be better than their parents as they are to be worse. This is an important difference from the vanilla system, where once the parents are very good their foals are almost always worse than them. That means once you have good horses, it is easier to breed very good horses with genes than with the vanilla system. In exchange, you need to be careful – there are some pairs of horses that will always produce foals that are exactly as good as them, never better nor worse. This happens if horses are too inbred. You can avoid inbreeding by keeping a larger population of horses, or if your horses are already too inbred you can reduce it by breeding them to an unrelated horse.

All of the usual ways to measure stats still work, plus you can get more detailed info by right clicking a tame horse with a book.

If for whatever reason you want to use the vanilla system, just set "useGeneticStats" to false in the config.

Sizes:

Horses can have a wide range of sizes. Most that spawn will be 12-15 hands high, but you can breed to get miniature horses, draft horses, or any size in between. Smaller horses can fit in smaller spaces (sometimes even on boats!) while larger horses have more health and can carry heavier riders. (Here's a cute video of breeding for larger horses.)

Sizes were added in version 1.5.0, available for MC 1.15 and 1.16. If for whatever reason you want all horses to be the same size, set "enableSizes" to false in the config.

Features:

– Genes control color, speed, health, jump height, and size, as described above

– Non-mendelian genetics including chromosome linkage where applicable (read more here)

– Put a carpet in the horse armor slot to use it as a decorative saddle cloth (since version 1.2.1)

– Genetic testing, right click on a horse with a book (since version 1.2.4)

– Peaceful creatures and villagers can also ride the horses. Mount/dismount them using Ctrl + right click. (new in version 1.5.0)

– Horses spawned in village pens have a small chance to start off tamed and saddled (since version 1.2.5)

– Netherite horse armor (for Minecraft 1.16.3+ only)

– Highly configurable

Opt-in features, not included by default but edit the config if you want them (see here for how, if multiplayer make sure client and server configs match):

– Genders, including pregnancy. Stallions can be bred much more often than mares. Gender is visible from the horse's inventory screen. (new in version 1.3.2, set "enableGenders" to true)

– All horses are trained to ground tie and will stay still while saddled (since version 1.2.1, set "enableGroundTie" to true)

– Foals can grow gradually into their adult size and shape (since version 1.2.6, set "foalsGrowGradually" to true)

– Change how long foals take to grow up. By default it's one day as in vanilla, but I think two days works nicely. (new in version 1.2.6, change "growTime" to the desired value)

For tack, I recommend Misteriawolfe's Horse Tack mod.

Right clicking a horse with a book allows you to see detailed information. The first two pages show estimates of traits affecting speed, health, and jump strength. To get more exact info I would recommend also measuring like you would without this mod, by jumping horses over different heights of blocks, racing them against each other, etc.

This page shows genetic test results for the color genes.

Note some color genes have not been described in scientific literature and do not have a genetic test available; these of course do not show up here.

Here's some examples of a select few coat colors:

Bay:

Bay is the most common color horses come in. Bay horses have a brown body and a black mane, tail, and lower legs.

Chestnut:

Chestnut, sometimes called sorrel, is another common color. Fur across the whole horse is a coppery reddish color, while the skin is still black.

Black:

Black horses are not as common as bay or chestnut, but not uncommon. The whole body is black.

Bay dun:

Before domestication, almost all horses were bay dun. Bay dun horses have black and brown in almost the same pattern as bay horses, but instead of being dark the brown is a much lighter tan. There is also a dark stripe down the back, which is characteristic of dun.

Gray:

Gray horses are born a darker color and lighten to white as they age. Even when they have turned fully white, you can still tell them apart from a true white horse because the nose is black, not pink.

A seal brown tobiano (left) and bay with white socks (right) horse graying. The color change shown here happens over the course of 5 Minecraft days (configurable). Gradual graying was added in version 1.2.0.

Black frame overo:

A black horse with white in the frame overo pattern. Frame overo tends to have white areas on the face, neck, and sides, but generally leaves a darker "frame" of color around the white, as seen from the side. It's not a good idea to breed two horses together if they both have the frame overo pattern because there is a 25% chance the foal will have Lethal White Syndrome.

Quick overview of the genes you can see in the book:

Supported languages

English (US) — Realistic Horse Genetics — all versions
English (UK) — Realistic Horse Genetics — v 1.5.5+
Danish — Dansk — Realistisk heste gentik — v 1.5.3+ — Thanks to KevinBevin and Thea2176
Dutch — Nederlands — Realistische Paarden Genetica — v 1.5.4+ — Thanks to Robbie2345
German — Deutsch — Realistische Pferde-Genetik — v 1.5.5+ — Thanks to Regenherz and Hufflepp
Polish — Polski — Realistyczna Końska Genetyka — v 1.5.4+ — Thanks to Endless
Portuguese — Português (Brasil) — Genética Realista de Cavalos — v 1.5.10+ — Thanks to shoji_sl
Spanish — Español (España) — Caballos Genéticos — v 1.5.9+ — Thanks to 16N1C0

Thanks to faainleog for many lovely textures!

Thanks to RosaNera for drawing the rabicano texture

Thanks to Rambonata for drawing the sabino tobiano texture

Thanks to Mnesikos for helping back port changes to 1.12

The horse model is based on Minecraft's 1.12 model, originally created by DrZhark

 FAQ:

Where can I learn more about horse genetics?

UC Davis has a good overview here, and Wikipedia has an overview of coat colors here and more about the genetics here.

This interactive website shows what the different genotypes look like, but beware because they do include some genes that are speculated but not proven to exist.

The Appaloosa Project is one of the most reliable sources of information about the leopard complex patterns.

Will this mod be updated to [whatever the next Minecraft version is]?

Yes, for as long as I mod I will always focus on the latest version.

How can I make the horses pull the Astikor carts?

As of Minecraft 1.16.3, Astikor carts accepts these horses by default with no configuration needed. For earlier versions, edit the astikor carts config file and add horse_colors:horse_felinoid to the lists of entities that can pull the carts.

How can I summon a horse with custom stats?

See the explanation on the wiki.

What genetic diseases can the horses have?

Why do inbred horses have less variable offspring?

It's a logical consequence of the way genes work, not something specially coded in. If two horse are related, they will have more similar genes, and if they are bred together there's a greater chance the foal could inherit the same version of a gene from each parent. In biological terms, inbreeding increases homozygosity. When that foal grows up and has its own children, it will give all of them the same variant of that gene, because both of its copies are the same. This happens for all genes – color, size, stats – even in other games/mods, even if the creator didn't think of it, as long as breeding is based on genes.

Videos

Brief Mod Overview: Realistic Horse Genetics – by Rogue Rowan shows Realistic Horse Genetics and how it interacts with a few other mods, very detailed. A lot of the settings are changed from the default, so be aware not everything will be as shown unless you make those same changes.

Minecraft mods: realistic horse genetics – by Entity No.8 shows off both Realistic Horse Genetics and Misteriawolfe's Horse Tack mod

Realistic Horse Genetics has a discord! Join to show off your horses, ask questions, or share stable designs.