Horse Armor Smithing
Horse Armor Smithing lets players upgrade horse armor at a smithing table using a small number of ingots or diamonds, instead of crafting each armor piece from large amounts of material.
What it does
Horse armor is normally crafted at a crafting table, and in vanilla only one armor type can be made that way. The mod takes a different route: a horse armor is upgraded at a smithing table, spending two ingots or diamonds per step, so a suit does not have to be rebuilt from scratch each time. The author notes that crafting recipes for horse armor often cost five or six valuable materials, and this mod is meant as a cheaper option.
Installation is server-side in practice: the server needs the mod, while a client may leave it out. The mod is released under the MIT License and is not open source. Files are published for Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt, all for 1.21.4, with the 1+mod build dated 2025-01-19. The mod also works as a data pack, and the author notes that data packs can be used to allow crafting of other horse armor variants.
Key features
Smithing table upgrades
Horse armor is upgraded at a smithing table using two ingots or diamonds per step, rather than a full crafting recipe.
Cheaper armor tiers
The upgrade path is meant to cost far less than crafting armor at the crafting table, which the author describes as often five or six diamonds.
Beyond leather armor
Players are not limited to the single crafted horse armor type that vanilla allows, since upgrades reach higher tiers.
Data pack variants
A data pack form lets server owners allow crafting of other horse armor variants in addition to the smithing path.
Gallery
Compatibility
Latest build for each game version and loader.
Only full game releases are shown. This mod publishes no snapshot builds.
How it compares
Horse Armor Craftings is a server-side mod with 1.21 – 26.2 support, licensed as All rights reserved. Craftable Horse Armor by sumbaii999 is also server-side, covers 1.13 – 26.2 and is released under the MIT License. Smithing Upgradeable Tools is server-side with 1.21 – 26.2 support and is licensed as All rights reserved. Horse Armor Smithing is the only one of these that works through a smithing table upgrade path rather than a crafting recipe.
| Mod | Loaders | Game versions | Environment | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Horse Armor Smithing | Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt | 1.21.4 | Server required, client optional | 2025-01-19 |
| Horse Armor Craftings | Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt | 1.21 – 26.2 | Server required, client optional | 2025-12-26 |
| Craftable Horse Armor | Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt | 1.13 – 26.2 | Server required, client optional | 2026-07-22 |
| Smithing Upgradeable Tools | Fabric, Forge, NeoForge and Quilt | 1.21 – 26.2 | Server required, client optional | 2026-08-18 |
Questions
Does Horse Armor Smithing need to be installed on the client?
Which loaders does Horse Armor Smithing support?
Does Horse Armor Smithing change which horse armor can be crafted?
In the catalog
Horse Armor Smithing is one of 17,631 Equipment mods on ModsFinder, and one of 8,894 Equipment mods for Fabric. 17,979 mods support Minecraft 1.21.4.
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What the author says
So, as you may (or may not) know, there is only 1 type of horse armor that is craftable: Leather Horse Armor. A lot of people don't think that makes much sense, myself included, and a lot of people make datapacks to fix that and allow for crafting of other variants. The issue is, though, these recipes are oftentimes…
Official listing
- Modrinth page
- modrinth.com/mod/horse-armor-smithing
- Owner
- damiennesretrotech
- Published
- 2025-01-19
- Updated on Modrinth
- 2025-01-19
- Facts verified
- 2026-10-15