Bad Horse Fix
by HiiJax
Bad Horse Fix stops horse markings from drawing above horse armor when a player runs the Iris or Oculus shader mods.
What it does
The mod targets a rendering bug in which the markings of a horse appeared on top of its armor while shaders were active. It checks what is drawn and, when a piece of the rendered output contains horse, armor or markings, it reorders that output so the armor is drawn last, above the markings. Version 4.0.0 narrows the check to vanilla horse armor only and moves that armor to the end of the shader batch, which leaves fewer conflicts with other rendering code.
Optional dependencies are Iris Shaders and Oculus; the mod is useful when one of them is installed, since the bug only appears with those shader loaders. Files exist for Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt, and the current builds cover 1.16.5 – 1.21.1 with 4.0.0 as the latest release for 1.21.1. The author notes that the bug appears to be fixed in later Minecraft releases, and that 4.0.0 should work with every shader build that still shows it. The mod is client-side only, so only the client needs it, and the code is open source under the GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 only.
Key features
Armor drawn above markings
Vanilla horse armor is sent to the end of the shader rendering batch, so it appears above the horse markings.
Narrow matching
From version 4.0.0 the mod targets only vanilla horse armor rather than every rendered element containing the same words.
Public source code
The source code and issue tracker are publicly linked, so bug reports and changes can be followed by players and developers.
Gallery
Compatibility
Latest build for each game version and loader.
1.21.x2 of 2 versions with builds
1.20.x7 of 7 versions with builds
1.19.x5 of 5 versions with builds
1.18.x3 of 3 versions with builds
1.17.x2 of 2 versions with builds
1.16.x1 of 1 version with builds
Only full game releases are shown. This mod publishes no snapshot builds.
Requirements
Dependencies declared by the latest file for each loader.
Optional 1
How it compares
Craftable Horse Armor is a server-side mod for Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt, published for 1.20 – 1.21.1 under All rights reserved and not open source, so it adds horse armor on the server while players need nothing extra. Oculus is client-side only and open source under the GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 only, with files for Forge and NeoForge across 1.16.5 – 1.20.1, so it is the shader loader that Bad Horse Fix supports rather than a replacement for it. Iris Shaders is client-side only and open source under the GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 only, published for Fabric, NeoForge and Quilt across 1.16.5 – 26.3.
| Mod | Loaders | Game versions | Environment | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bad Horse Fix | Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt | 1.16.5 – 1.21.1 | Client-side only | 2026-09-20 |
| Craftable Horse Armor | Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt | 1.20 – 1.21.1 | Server required, client optional | 2026-01-04 |
| Oculus | Forge and NeoForge | 1.16.5 – 1.20.1 | Client-side only | 2024-12-24 |
| Iris Shaders | Fabric, NeoForge and Quilt | 1.16.5 – 26.3 | Client-side only | 2026-09-30 |
Questions
Does Bad Horse Fix need Iris Shaders or Oculus?
Which loaders have files for Bad Horse Fix?
Does the fix still apply to newer Minecraft releases?
In the catalog
Bad Horse Fix is one of 3,545 Optimization mods on ModsFinder, and one of 2,575 Optimization mods for Fabric. 32,366 mods support Minecraft 1.21.1.
Similar mods
What the author says
NOTE: As of Minecraft 1.21.2 this bug appears to be fixed! The latest version of the mod (4.0.0) should be compatible with EVERY version of Iris/Oculus that includes the bug. Basically, this mod checks everything being rendered to see if it contains "horse", "armor", or "markings" and if it finds anything, it forces…
Official listing
- Modrinth page
- modrinth.com/mod/bad-horse-fix
- Owner
- HiiJax
- Published
- 2024-04-05
- Updated on Modrinth
- 2026-09-20
- Facts verified
- 2026-10-15