Skyrim talk:Horses

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Archive 1: Nov 2011 - Oct 2012
Archive 2: Jan 2012 - Feb 2016

Dead horses?

I think some horses might respawn but not without bugs. I have my Riften horse killed for more than it should. And after some time at one point, the original Riften horse respawned (it has the original refid), and then another horse under my name is standing in Riften stables, and then another one just outside Dayspring Canyon. The original horse (original refid) is named under me, but it returns to the stables when I dismount. But the newer horses (refid ffxxxxxx) are named and behave normally. I wonder how, why, and should we document it. -Joshua.yathin.yu (talk) 06:10, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

I assume from what you have said that when your horse died you used the console to resurrect it? In this case any following bugs are not noteworthy on articles by our standards, however, it can be noted here on the talk page. When your original horse died it activated many scripts, including the one to spawn a new horse in Riften Stables. Resurrecting your horse doesn't fix the scripts that apply when it (or any npc/creature) dies, which include deactivating or transferring them to another npc/creature. There are ways to restore them (see the console page), but it would be easiest in your case to just use the new horse. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 18:41, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Nope. I did not use the console to resurrect any of my horses. Just that when one dies, I used Arvak to reach my destination. After a few days, 2 in the case of Riften, I returned and bought a new horse. Then I left for another city and returned nearly a month later, I had already lost track of how many horses I bought and just discovered there were a few horses named as my horse. -Joshua.yathin.yu (talk) 10:31, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

I misunderstood. So your horse died (1), then you bought a new one (2), but after a while another new one appeared in the stables (3) and the script to be your horse switched from horse 2 to horse 3. That is a weird bug, but a notable bug nevertheless. I see one similar bug in the archive, horses owned in all cities, horse died so took another, but it is behaving like a borrowed horse (walks home). Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 19:31, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

It is an accurate recount. -Joshua.yathin.yu (talk) 15:10, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

I was going through the USKP log on an unrelated issue and came across a fix (and an explanation) for this from last February, so its now on the page. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 06:49, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I hope you don't mind I have added supplementary information. -Joshua.yathin.yu (talk) 09:38, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Horse can't sprint

My character is a vampire, and when I'm out of stamina I usually ride a horse. But I've found the horse can't sprint while I'm out of stamina. — Unsigned comment by 98.28.235.254 (talk) at 17:08 on 12 November 2017

Horses have their own stamina pool, so it's odd that this would happen. There may be a bug with vampirism that makes it affect your horse as well. Indicating which platform you're on and if you have any mods is helpful for determining if there is actually a bug with the game. —Dillonn241 (talk) 18:06, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

The Shadowmere Slide

I reached the point of the DB quest where you get Shadowmere, mounted him for the first time, then saved and quit the game. The next time I loaded the save file, Shadowmere and I were rapidly sliding all over the place - left, right, backwards, forwards, and mostly up into the treetops. Trying to move forward brought him closer to the ground, but it didn't really get us moving in the direction I was trying to go, and as soon as I stopped pressing W the random sliding started all over again. The sliding only stopped when I dismounted (I don't remember if we happened to be close to the ground at that moment or if dismounting brought us back to ground, but I suspect the second), and when I remounted we were able to proceed as normal. My questions are (A) has anyone else had this experience and (B) if so, can it happen with any horse or is this specific to Shadowmere? --Shahrazad the Listener (talk) 16:32, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Horse with Dead Owner

The article states that if a horse's owner dies by a hand other than your own, then the horse will become free to ride. This has not been my experience. If I've come across a hunter that got killed by someone else, it happened too long ago for me to recall the status of the horse, but I have come across the horse owned by a merchant after the merchant had been killed by the bandits that spawned with him, and the horse was not free to ride, even after I finished killing all the bandits. I wonder if the person who wrote that mistook the dead bandit spawning in with an unowned horse for an owned horse becoming unowned after the horse's owner died. I have also never seen a horse that was free to ride at either a Stormcloak or an Imperial camp, so I'm wondering if that only happens once you pick a side in the civil war. Valeria (talk) 05:10, 30 March 2020 (GMT)

I'll add a "Verification needed" tag. Werewolfvampire 20:58, 30 March 2020 (GMT)

Thank you! Valeria (talk) 03:26, 31 March 2020 (GMT)

Your welcome. Werewolfvampire 03:29, 31 March 2020 (GMT)

Unowned Horse by Bleakcoast

Would it be helpful to have a picture of the unowned horse that is in the hunter camp near Bleakcoast Cave? Valeria (talk) 03:30, 31 March 2020 (GMT)

Random Encounters don't encounter when on horseback

Could or should it be added that certain encounters don't start when you're on horseback, or at least that some people don't talk to the player?

There's the highwaywoman at the Valtheim Towers, although she isn't random. She never approaches me to demand her toll. Patrols (Legion, Stormcloaks, or Thalmor, doesn't matter) they all don't talk to me even if they're the aggressive sort when dismounted. The thief doesn't approach me. The commercial courier ignores me, as does Faldrus, and the farmer refugees. The reveller with the Honningbrew mead doesn't talk to me.

However, the scavenger, the vampire masquerade, hostile people named for their race, or necromancers still attack me. Attacks seem to work, just dialogues don't. 109.41.130.48 02:56, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Horse for Followers?

If I buy a horse, how does that work for followers? Do they just run along behind, can I buy them a horse? — Unsigned comment by 73.149.58.66 (talk) at 18:12 on 1 March 2023

Whiterun horse disappeared from Ship Windhelm

Took horse on ship leaving Windhelm going to Raven Rock hoping it would travel with me, it doesn’t. On return no horse, almost bought another one but took the cart back to Whiterun and the horse was past the stable on the path to the Whiterun gate. Zeus2 (talk) 20:08, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, the game doesn't actually move what's on the ship over there. It's just the same ship and actors pasted in the new region. You can't take horses with you via fast traveling to Solstheim. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 21:36, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Whiterun horse is not dark brown

I changed the colour from the Whiterun horse to black but explanation doesn't fit in the summary there. I think it also was so in the past, not sure why it changed. The horses are clearly black and not dark brown. Black horses often gain a brown glow/discolouration due to the sun. Only way to prevent that is keep them indoor all the time, have them wear a blanket all the time, or commonly done in modern times: use special shampoo (such shampoo also exist for white horses to keep them shiny white).

Dark brown would indicate a dark bay horse. Just like bay horses they carry the agouti-gen that causes their body to be brown (technically bay horses are genetically black + agouti, where the agouti-gen pushes the black away from the middle, causing manes, tail, legs and eartips to be black. Other than a sorrel horse which has no black genes and even the darkest sorrels wouldn't be near-black). While dark bay horses are darker than a regular bay horse and can in winter look nearly black, they are clearly still brown also tend to have a lighter brown mouth as well has sometimes having some lighter area around the stomach-tights.

There are some other words also used wrongly (wild horses prance for example, not buck) and the Lakeview Manor horse doesn't show any signs of being genetically dun (like a black line on the back) but as those are official descriptions I won't touch those. However I don't think that the Whiterun horse is called dark brown anywhere official. — Cambionn (talk) 13:10, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

This can more easily be confirmed by looking in the Creation Kit, as the base horses are all labeled by their coat color. The Whiterun horse is clearly the black horse when you look at them side by side. --AKB ^{Talk Cont Mail} 12:56, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Nice to know CK agrees with me, I agree that would be leading even if they use incorrect names there. It's just that I remember it being called black before while there haven't been any changes where the colour is mentioned that I dared change this. While I think the rest of the names have always been like they are now (which I think originally may have been from the CK), it may be worth confirming the rest with CK just in case as some names don't make sense (like the Lakeview Manor one being dun). Although I kinda expect Bethesda to just not know horse genetics and using the wrong naming for some colours. Sadly, I don't have it installed as I've been playing on Switch nowadays so I can't do it myself now. — Cambionn (talk) 13:16, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Just on the prance vs buck point, "prancing" is not the right word to use here. In real life, a horse can buck a rider by kicking its back legs. In Skyrim, with its limited vanilla animations, this is instead implemented as the horse rearing (i.e. raising its front legs to knock you off). However, the article goes with the language that is used in-game. I've added a small note about the accuracy of this terminology. —⁠Legoless (talk) 13:34, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Good to know! In my native tongue, prancing and rearing uses the same word (only things like a levade would be named seperatly) and my horse-vocabulary isn't as big in English I fear. I figured the mismatch between the animation and text is due to using vanilla animations, but it's always been a pet-peeve of mine that they call it bucking while it's so clearly not doing that. I know it's the word they use in-game so I have to deal with it, but I like the little note! — Cambionn (talk) 13:46, 23 July 2024 (UTC)