Crimson Desert Horse Taming Guide — How to Catch and Train Mounts

Your First Horse Comes Free. Every Good Horse After That, You Earn.

The Prologue hands you Herspia, your starter mount. Herspia is fine. Functional. Gets you from point A to point B without complaint. But “fine” stops being enough once you leave Hernand and the world opens up.

Wild horses roam across every region in Pywel. Better horses. Faster horses. Horses with stats that make Herspia look like a pony. You want those horses. Here’s how to get them.

How Taming Actually Works

Approach on foot. Crouching helps. Move toward the horse while it’s grazing, head down, eating grass. When the horse looks up, stop moving immediately. Wait for it to go back to eating. Then move again. Classic stealth approach, same mechanic you’ve seen in a dozen games.

The timing matters more than the distance. You can be relatively close and still spook the horse if you move while it’s looking. Patience wins here. Don’t rush the approach.

Once you’re close enough, an interact prompt appears. This triggers the taming minigame. You need to align your left stick (or mouse direction) with the horse’s tail while managing a tension meter. Push too hard and the horse bucks you off. Too passive and you run out of time.

The taming minigame takes 20 to 30 seconds per attempt. Failed attempts don’t permanently scare the horse. It runs, calms down after a minute, and you can try again. Don’t get frustrated by early failures. The timing click takes practice.

Horse Stats Matter More Than You Think

Every horse has four base stats:

Speed determines top running velocity. Obvious. The difference between a low-speed and high-speed horse is noticeable on long cross-country rides.

Stamina controls how long the horse can sprint before needing to recover. Arguably more important than speed. A fast horse with bad stamina sprints for three seconds and then walks. A slightly slower horse with great stamina covers more ground over time.

Acceleration is how quickly the horse reaches top speed from a standstill. Matters most in combat situations where you need to quickly create distance.

Handling affects turning radius and responsiveness. High handling means tighter turns and faster direction changes. Low handling means wide turns that can run you into trees and rocks.

No single stat is the “best” one. It depends on what you’re doing. Exploration favors stamina. Combat favors acceleration and handling. Pure cross-map travel favors speed.

Horse Breeds by Region

Different regions produce different horses, and the regional differences are real.

Hernand horses are balanced. Middle-of-the-road stats across the board. Nothing exceptional, nothing terrible. Good early-game mounts before you know what you want from a horse.

Pailune horses have better stamina. Adapted to cold weather and long distances. If you’re doing a lot of open-world exploration, a Pailune horse lets you sprint for significantly longer stretches.

Crimson Desert region horses are the fastest. Highest base speed stats in the game. Less stamina than Pailune breeds, but when you need raw velocity, nothing else compares.

Demeniss and Delesyia horses fall somewhere between Hernand and the specialists. Decent picks if you find one with a good stat spread, but not worth traveling to those regions specifically for horses.

Legendary Horses

Three legendary horses exist in the world, each significantly better than standard breeds. Taming them uses the same approach and minigame mechanics, but the minigame is harder with tighter timing and a more aggressive tension meter.

Royler (Silverwolf Mountain)

• Health: 375 | Stamina: 315 | Attack: 12 | Defense: 50

High stamina, respectable health. Royler is the best exploration horse in the game. That 315 stamina means nearly infinite sprinting across open terrain. If you care about traversal more than combat, this is your mount.

Rokade (Steel Mountains)

• Health: 600 | Stamina: 240 | Attack: 15 | Defense: 65

The tank horse. 600 HP is absurd for a mount. Rokade survives hits that kill other horses outright. Lower stamina means you’re walking more, but you won’t lose your horse mid-fight. Best choice for mounted combat in dangerous areas.

Camora (Redtree Forest)

• Health: 450 | Stamina: 240 | Attack: 27 | Defense: 100

The combat horse. 100 defense and 27 attack make Camora the best horse for fighting from horseback. The defense rating means incoming damage barely registers, and the attack stat boosts your mounted strikes. If you plan to do mounted lance or bow combat seriously, this is the one.

Horse Leveling and Skills

Horses gain experience through use. Ride them, and they level up. Higher levels unlock mount skills: Dash, Drift, Back Kick, Sprinting boosts, and others.

This means sticking with one horse builds that horse’s capability over time. Constantly switching mounts spreads experience thin. Pick a primary horse, use it consistently, and let the skills compound.

Your horse takes damage in combat. Heal it with Force Palm when its health gets low. A dead horse means you’re on foot until you summon another or find a camp stable.

Horse Gear

Vendors like Annabella and Bruna sell saddles, stirrups, and horseshoes. Each piece provides passive effects: stamina recovery rate, sprint speed bonuses, defense boosts.

To equip horse gear, open your inventory and press R2 (or equivalent) to access the mount inventory tab. Slot items into the appropriate gear slots.

Horseshoes affect speed and handling. Saddles affect stamina recovery. Stirrups affect combat stability. Mixing and matching lets you customize your horse’s performance for different activities.

Horse armor exists through the Blacksmith. It adds defense for mounted combat but slightly reduces speed. Worth equipping if you’re running into dangerous areas. Skip it for pure traversal rides where speed matters more than survival.

Mounted Combat

You can fight from horseback, and certain weapon types are significantly better at it.

Bows are the best mounted weapon. Ride past enemies, fire, create distance, loop back. The mobility advantage is massive, and aiming from horseback gets comfortable after a few fights.

Lances/Spears give you reach. Jousting charges deal heavy damage, and the spear’s length compensates for the awkward angles of hitting ground targets from a moving horse.

Swords work but feel limited. The reach is short, and you’ll whiff attacks that felt like they should have connected. Sword mounted combat is viable but frustrating compared to bow or lance.

Greataxes and hammers (Oongka) are too slow for effective mounted use. Dismount for heavy weapons.

Back Kick is an underrated mount skill. When enemies close in behind you, the horse kicks backward and creates separation. It’s a defensive move that saves you from getting swarmed.

Legendary Mounts Beyond Horses

The endgame adds non-horse legendary mounts obtained through a ritual: defeat the creature, skin it, craft a Sigil with a Witch, then activate the mount permanently.

Silver Fang is a wolf that fights alongside you even after dismount. White Bear has 1,500 HP and 180 attack. Snowwhite Deer has 300+ stamina for long-distance traversal. Alpine Ibex requires a two-phase boss fight. Rock Tusk Warthog is an armored boar that plows through enemies.

And the Blackstar Dragon from Chapter 11? Fifteen minutes of flight time, 50-minute cooldown. It doesn’t replace horses for ground travel. It replaces everything else.

Multiple Horses, One Camp

You can own multiple horses. Store extras at your Greymane Camp stables and switch between them freely. Have a fast horse for travel, a tanky horse for combat zones, and a legendary mount for special occasions.

Summon your active horse with a whistle (H key on keyboard, D-pad on controller). The horse appears nearby within seconds. You’re never more than a button press away from your mount.

Fast Travel Exists But Horses Still Matter

Abyss Nexus points give you instant fast travel between discovered locations. So why bother with horses?

Because fast travel only connects discovered points. Everything between them requires riding. And after Hernand, the distances between points of interest get long. A bad horse turns a 2-minute ride into a 5-minute ride. Do that fifty times and you’ve wasted hours.

Invest in a good horse early. Tame a Pailune breed for stamina if you like exploring. Grab a Crimson Desert breed for speed if you like efficiency. Either way, stop riding Herspia past Chapter 3. Your horse is your most-used tool in the game. Make it a good one.