Three hours of searching for the horse in Red Dead Redemption 2 ended very sadly

Collecting items in open-world games can already be a test of patience, but one Red Dead Redemption 2 player ran into a particularly brutal bit of bad luck after searching for a final mount to fill the last open stall in his stable. He spent four in-game days — which, at roughly 48 minutes per day in the game, translated to more than three hours of real time — tracking down a purebred riding horse of bay color. When he finally located the animal, it unseated Arthur (the first time the player had ever been thrown in all his playthroughs), then tumbled down an embankment and broke its neck.

The player says he had ridden every wild horse available to Arthur, including that breed and color, without ever once falling from the saddle in previous sessions. On other days, purebreds seemed to appear everywhere, but on this run the outcome was the opposite. After the horse’s fatal fall he quit the game, describing how he squeezed the controller so hard it “creaked like an old staircase.”

Taming a horse in Red Dead Redemption 2 is widely regarded as one of the easier mini-games; experienced players commonly use techniques such as:

• Slowly approach the horse, continuously pressing the calm button, then mount the saddle
• Throw a lasso on a run: this is faster, although rare breeds are more scared of the rope
• During bucking, hold the stick back or tilt it opposite to the animal’s jerks
• Open the journal or bag while mounting: according to popular belief, Arthur cannot be thrown off in this state

Beyond the mechanics, the episode underscores a recurring gripe: horses in Red Dead Redemption 2 sometimes behave as if they have a talent for self-destruction. Rockstar even programmed how certain horse body parts shrink in the cold, the player notes, but apparently never prevented mounts from careening into deadly collisions at full gallop.