Pony

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A pony is a somewhat common monster, represented by the letter u. Ponies move quickly and hit multiple times a turn, and may prove troublesome for a low-level player unless they can pacify them or get their pet to kill them. A pony can grow up into a horse, and then into a warhorse; horses and warhorses are especially fast.

As a herbivore, throwing a pony, horse or warhorse a vegetarian treat (e.g. carrots and apples) will tame it. Other vegetarian food (pear, lichen corpse, kelp frond) has a chance of working, too.

Throwing a tripe ration (or any other non-vegetarian food) to a hostile horse will make the horse peaceful, even though the horse will not eat it (and the tripe can be safely retrieved), just as throwing vegan food at a hostile dog or cat will make it peaceful. Vegetarian food will keep ponies fed 5 times as long as players and their larger brethren 4 times as long,[1] with exceptions for starving pets.[2] Chat with your pet horse or use a stethoscope to find out if it is hungry.

Riding

Main article: Knight

Pet horses can be saddled and ridden, giving the player the speed of the mount. Because pets feed mostly on the corpses of fallen monsters and few of them are vegetarian, horses are harder to keep fed than other pets. This is especially important for Knights, who start their game with a tame saddled pony, though they do have several carrots and apples in their starting inventory; this both makes it easier to mount their steed much earlier and keep them fed long enough to find a more "permanent" source of food. Further details for knights and maintaining horses are provided in their article linked above.

Pony

Encyclopedia entry

Hey! now! Come hoy now! Whither do you wander?
Up, down, near or far, here, there or yonder?
Sharp-ears, Wise-nose, Swish-tail and Bumpkin,
White-socks my little lad, and old Fatty Lumpkin!
[...]
Tom called them one by one and they climbed over the brow and stood in a line. Then Tom bowed to the hobbits.

"Here are your ponies, now!" he said. "They've more sense (in some ways) than you wandering hobbits have -- more sense in their noses. For they sniff danger ahead which you walk right into; and if they run to save themselves, then they run the right way."

[ The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien ]

Horse

Encyclopedia entry

King Richard III: A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
Catesby: Withdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a horse.
King Richard III: Slave, I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die:
I think there be six Richmonds in the field;
Five have I slain to-day instead of him.
A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!

[ King Richard III, by William Shakespeare ]

Warhorse

Warhorses are higher level than large dogs and large cats. They can become just high enough in level to attack shopkeepers, for whom they are rarely an adequate match. Warhorses should be kept out of shops.

Encyclopedia entry

King Richard III: A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
Catesby: Withdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a horse.
King Richard III: Slave, I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die:
I think there be six Richmonds in the field;
Five have I slain to-day instead of him.
A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!

[ King Richard III, by William Shakespeare ]

Pet horses

Horses are common pets, as Knights start with a pony, and all horses can be tamed with vegetarian treats as noted above.

Taming wild horses is usually easy, because all sizes of horse are considered domestic animals. Throwing a vegetarian treat at a hostile or peaceful horse will tame it. Throwing any other comestible at a horse will at least render it peaceful, with the exception of cream pies and eggs (which will break on impact).

All vegetarian treats (apples or carrots) can be used to train your horse to fetch.

You can #chat with your horse to get an idea of how it is feeling:

  • it will neigh if it is caught in a trap, confused, fleeing, or tameness is below 5.
  • if it is hungry, it will whinny.
  • the rest of the time it will whicker.

Body parts

Horse also refers to the grouping of body parts for the forms of horses and unicorns. It affects the messages referring to the appropriate body parts as follows.

Body part[3] Description
arm foreleg
eye eye
face face
finger forehoof
fingertip hoof tip
foot rear hoof
hand foreclaw
handed hooved
head head
leg rear leg
light headed light headed
neck neck
spine backbone
toe rear hoof tip
hair mane
blood blood
lung lung
nose nose
stomach stomach

Trivia

Horses belong to a class of animals called 'ungulates' which are primarily characterized by having hooves—hence the u that symbolizes them.

While polymorphed into a horse, you can't wear items. Trying to do so will produce the message "Don't even bother!". Similarly with wielding("Don't be ridiculous!").

References

This page is based on a spoiler by J. Ali Harlow.


This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.4.3. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-343}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.