The Sims 4 Horse Riding Skill Guide
Adding horses to the game is great and with the sims 4 horse riding skill your sims can be the best rider out there.
This skill comes to the game with The Sims 4: Horse Ranch and is such a funny hobby skill!
What is the Horse Riding Skill Good For?
The horse riding skill is a fun one, it lets your sims train their horses with barrels, jumps and running around.
Eventually with this skill your sims can start joining their own horse competitions and try and be the best!
How to Gain The Sims 4 Horse Riding Skill
The first way your sims are able to gain the horse riding skill is with skill books. There are three books your sims can purchase from any bookcase in the game:
- Horse Riding Vol 1: Get Off Your High Horse, You’re Still a Beginner
- Horse Riding Vol 2: Jockey Jargon
- Horse Riding Vol 3: From Pedestrian to Equestrian
With skill books you read volume 1 of the books from level 1 to 4, then read volume 2 from level 4 to 7 and finish off with volume 3.
If you want to be more active with your horse riding skill gains you’ll start off by mounting a horse that’s in your sim’s family. You can first go for rides, it’s best to start with a relaxed ride so your sim can get used to riding before moving onto energetic or intense.
The next thing you can do is practice jumps with your horse. To do this you’ll need to purchase one of two items from the build catalog:
- Heritage Vintage Horse Jumps
- Champ Certified Horse Jump
You can place these items on your sim’s lot and choose to practice basic jumps until your sim and your horse have a high enough skill to do more advanced moves.
The final way you can gain the sims 4 horse riding skill is to practice barrels. You can purchase one of two sets of barrels from the build catalog:
- Heritage Vintage Horse Barrels
- Champ Certified Horse Barrels
Once you have these on your lot you can choose to practice barrels until you and your horse have a high enough skill to start racing them instead.
Ideal Mood for Riding Horses
A lot of players don’t know that there are certain moods that help your sims gain skills faster. Each type of skill has different moods, like creative skills are best when a sim is inspired.
Well, the sims 4 horse riding skill is best earned when a sim is feeling confident. You can get your sims to feel confident easily by getting them to head to their bathroom and brush their teeth at a sink and psych themselves up in the mirror!
Best Traits for Horse Riding
When you create-a-sim you should consider the traits you give your sim so that they align with the types of skills you want them to learn. For horse riding a sim should have traits like:
- Self-Assured: A sim with the self-assured trait is going to get random confident moodlets that can help them gain the skill more quickly.
- Cheerful: Cheerful is great for any sim because it gives them happy moodlets that can stack with confident.
- Loves The Outdoors: Horse riding is mostly done outdoors, so a sim with this trait will get happy moodlets when spending time outside.
You can also add lot traits to make a sim gain skills more quickly, a good option for the horse riding skill is:
- Study Spot: This comes with The Sims 4: Discover University and gives a boost to all skill gains.
How to Cheat The Sims 4 Horse Riding Skill
If you want your sims to immediately be a great horse rider but don’t want to put in the effort you may want to just go ahead and cheat it instead. You just need to know stats.set_skill_level adultmajor_equestrianskill 10 to max the skill.
If you want a different level of the skill you’ll just want to change the 10 at the end to a level from 1-9 instead.
Levels of the Skill
There are ten levels of the horse riding skill for your sims to gain and as you gain them you’ll see new abilities and a more confident rider!
| Skill Level | Level Unlocks |
|---|---|
| Level 1 | Your sim’s newfound horse riding skill will grow as they ride. |
| Level 2 | Your sim can now go for intense ride or choose to canter here when riding a horse. |
| Level 3 | Your sim can now direct horse to practice basic and advanced jumps by themselves at the horse jumps. At the horse barrels, they may now direct horse to practice barrels and race barrels by themselves. |
| Level 4 | Your sim can now discuss horse riding with other sims and is less likely to get bucked off of horses while riding. |
| Level 5 | Your sim will no longer become tense from being too high up on the horse when riding. They can also intensely train with horse jumps and barrels, which will increase a horse’s skill more quickly but will fatigue a horse more quickly as well. |
| Level 6 | Your sim is gaining confidence in their riding abilities, which will affect their mood when riding. |
| Level 7 | Your sim will no longer be bucked off the horse when mounting or dismounting. |
| Level 8 | Your sim can now share horse riding tips with other sims to help them improve their horse riding skill. |
| Level 9 | Your sim is now likely to become very confident when riding a horse due to their riding abilities. |
| Level 10 | Your sim has mastered horse riding. The Iron Works Signage: Horse Riding object can be found in the household inventory. It sure would look great on a ranch sign! |
How to Get a Horse to Ride
There are three ways that you can get a horse in your sim’s household that you’ll be able to ride to gain the sims 4 horse riding skill. The first way is to create a beautiful horse from scratch in create-a-sim when you create your sim’s family.
The next way is to adopt a horse using your sim’s phone and choosing call animal ranch exchange. You can either rescue horses or purchase horses, but when you rescue them they’ll have less desirable personalities.
The final way is to breed your own horses by having a mare and a stallion breed together. You’ll need to wait a few days for a mare to give birth to a foal, and then wait until they age up to an adult horse before you can ride!
Competing in Competitions
When both your sim and your horse have high levels of the skills they need, you can start competing in competitions for money! There are a few things that impact your sim’s performance in competitions including:
- Your sim’s level in the sims 4 horse riding skill
- Your horse’s level in the horse skills (i.e., agility, endurance, etc.)
- The mood of both your sim and horse when competing
There are a few different competitions you can do including endurance racing, barrel racing, show jumping and western pleasure.
You’ll want to make sure that your horse and sim have the right skills to join the competition you want, and at the level you want. Joining something without high skills is a recipe for a loss!
Kids Can Gain The Sims 4 Horse Riding Skill
I love when EA decides to let kids do fun things too, and children are able to ride horses. When a child does this they are going to gain both the horse riding skill and the motor skill at the same time which is awesome.
I love that they changed it up and let kids gain skills at the same time as their fundamental skills instead of waiting until they max skills to do so.
Improving The Skill With DLC
Adding DLC lets you find new ways to gain skills and it makes the game feel more interesting and rich!
Discover University
With The Sims 4: Discover University your sims are able to take horse riding classes at the University (or from their phone). This is a rabbit hole event and will cost your sims 250 simoleons!
