How do you get a horse in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2? Depending on how honorable you are, there are several ways to get a horse at the beginning of the game. Horses are the way to travel in Bohemia; with bandits and vicious wildlife littering the roads, you’re offered a level of safety with a mount that cannot be found anywhere else.
Once you’ve got your horse in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, check out all KCD2 quests to make sure you don’t miss any as you ride about Bohemia. With two huge KCD2 maps and too many interesting characters to count, it’ll help make sure you don’t miss anything. With that said, let’s take a look at how you nab a horse and which the best horse in the game is.
How to get a free horse in KCD2
You can get a free horse by speaking to the horse trader in the Semine stables. He has your old horse, Pebbles, and can be convinced to give them back by passing a simple persuasion check.
If you manage to fail the check, you can buy Pebbles back for the relatively cheap price of 410 groschen – give or take a few depending on your Charisma. You can also buy more expensive horses here with better quality stats, such as Bitterklee who we picked up for his larger capacity. However, you can also get a free horse after completing Wedding Crashers and the quest For Whom the Bell Tolls, so it’s better to stick with Pebbles until you reach this point.
How to steal a horse in KCD2
You can steal a horse from pretty much anywhere in the game. If you go that route, make sure you’re not spotted while doing so. The issue with stealing a horse is that it disappears if you rest, so you have to steal another unless you bring it to a horse handler. You also have to pay them to train the horse to accept you. The better the horse, the more expensive this process is.
The horse handler you meet first is located in the Nomads’ Camp southwest of the herbalist Bozhena where you train with Tomcat.
You can also sell stolen horses for quite a lot of groschen this way. Do be warned that this raises the suspicion level of the area you stole it from and guards may begin to search you.
Best Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 horse
There are plenty of great horses to be found while playing Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. The best is your first horse, Pebbles, or another horse you receive for free soon after, called Herring.
If you ride Pebbles for long enough, you unlock a hidden perk called Good Old Pebbles under the Horsemanship tab. This raises Pebbles’ stats to be comparable to end-game horses with high Stamina (210), Capacity (338), Speed (55), and Courage (28).
After the main quest For Whom the Bell Tolls, you’re gifted a decent horse named Herring. Herring is comparable to the horses you can buy in the Semine stables and can carry you through most, if not all, of the game, with decent Stamina (169), Speed (40), and Courage (14); however, Herring has bad Capacity (158).
That said, much like Pebbles, you unlock the hidden Red Herring perk if you ride Herring long enough, increasing Herring’s stats significantly: Stamina (235), Capacity (308), Speed (52), and Courage (14).
It’s unclear if other horses purchased from stables have hidden perks if ridden for long enough, but we will update this guide when we find out. It took over 30 hours of regular playtime to unlock Red Herring, and we estimate that is about 30 kilometers of riding a horse in-game, minimum.
That’s all you need to know to saddle up in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. There are times when you won’t have your trusty horse nearby and for those we recommend reading up on the best KCD2 swords and the best KCD2 armor, so you can at least survive until your steed arrives.