Even though The Sims 4 Cottage Living looks like it’s going to bring a lot of fun and idyllic charm to the game when it launches for PC and consoles on July 22nd, many players had their hopes and dreams crushed when it was revealed that horses would not be included in Cottage Living. SimGuruRomeo took to social media to explain that horses would have required a lot more resources to do them justice and would have come at the cost of cutting out the other animals. Since horses are not essential to the farm-to-table lifestyle, they opted to focus on byproduct-producing animals instead, like llamas, cows, and chickens.

While this explanation does make a lot of sense, it doesn’t make us miss horses any less. Thankfully, the talented modding community has come up with ways to have an equestrian experience in the game. There are even solutions for console players thanks to talented creators who can turn a regular cat or dog into almost any animal!

Deco Horses by Severinka

Severinka is a very talented CC creator in the community and has been sharing her amazing work on The Sims Resource and her own blog for many years now. She has made some beautiful, realistic-looking horses for The Sims 4. The horses are just decorative statues but they make for great pose props and set dressing for storytellers! The full set comes with seven different horses in various positions and each one comes in white, piebald, chestnut, and buckskin coat patterns.

My First Pony Pose Pack by SnarkyWitch

I was so impressed and inspired by Severinka’s amazing horses that I just had to make my own pose pack with them. The My First Pony Pose Pack comes with 9 different poses for all ages and features a family enjoying a day of bonding with their new horse. While poses are not the same as real equestrian gameplay, I still have a lot of fun telling my stories with these poses and I think other storytellers will, too. They are available on my Patreon for free!

Equestrian Riding Helmets by SrslySims

SrslySims makes some of the best content out there for The Sims 4 and she was kind enough to convert the riding helmets from The Sims 3 for my pose pack! No horseback riding scene is complete without a good riding helmet and any horse person will tell you how important it is to protect your head when out riding because you just never know when an accident might happen. Horses are animals that act on instinct, after all. You can grab these helmets on her Patreon for free.

Farmland Mod Pack by Arnie

We’ve featured this amazing mod on our website before but it’s worth another mention here because the extremely talented modder, Arnie, has an amazing farm-themed mod coming out soon and it will have horses! Real, actual horses you can interact with and ride! We are pretty impressed with this level of skill and dedication and horse lovers everywhere are rejoicing! Watch the heartwarming trailer above to get a glimpse of the horses coming with this mod pack. The Farmland mod pack will be released for early access on June 24th.

Gallery Horses (No CC or Mods)

Console players and people with computers that can’t handle mods or CC are usually left out of all the creativity the community has to offer but not this time! Players who own the Cats & Dogs expansion pack can have their very own living, breathing horses in their games thanks to talented creators like PugOwned who have the ability to turn regular cats and dogs into any animal using just the in-game CAS tools! A quick search for horses in the Gallery using the pet filters will bring up hundreds of horses to choose from! I also have a piebald horse available in my catalogue.

Of course, these Gallery horses will sound and act like large dogs in-game because that’s what they are but I always find myself forgetting that they’re dogs when I’m playing with them. Just build them a cozy barn with a pet bed and food dish in each stall, give them a nice paddock with toys and obstacle course equipment and they really are almost like having real miniature horses!

We can’t wait to see what the community comes up with next! Send us your pictures of your Sims 4 equestrian gameplay on social media or tell us all about your favourite farm-themed playthrough here in the comments!