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Horse Armor and Gear
April 19, 2026 at 09:54 AM
Fixed: BDO city names (2)
Crimson Desert offers multiple gear slots for your horse, including saddles, caparisons, chamfrons, stirrups, barding, and horseshoes. A handful of early game sets stand out because they significantly improve both appearance and performance. This page documents the most popular early to mid game horse upgrades, where to obtain them, and how they slot together.
The Heidelian saddle set is sold by a horse accessory vendor near the stables above Hernand. Most of her inventory is visible right away, but the full Heidelian set is a hidden listing that only appears once the vendor's trust reaches 100.
Gift the vendor consumable items to raise her trust. Money bags, alcohol, and similar small valuables all appear to work. The 100 trust threshold unlocks the complete gear line.
Standard Saddle (saddle slot)
Heidelian Champron (head piece, +7 attack)
Heidelian Stirrups (stirrup slot)
All three pieces accept Dyes, so the set can be recolored to match your character's palette.
The matching Heidelian barding (horse body armor) is not sold by the stables vendor. Instead, it comes from Holdwyn inside Hernand, who rewards the barding to players who have built up contribution points through Heidelian faction activity. Holdwyn hands it over as a thank-you for the player's faction reputation work, so it is essentially a milestone reward rather than a straight purchase.
The Walsh Military Tech blueprint unlocks a full four-piece horse armor set that many players consider the cleanest looking mid game option. Unlike the Heidelian pieces, you do not buy this set outright. You learn a blueprint, then craft each piece at a smithy.
Travel to the Foreign Territory Fortress half of the map. Inside the fortress, follow the interior path to a side room where the Walsh Military Tech blueprint book sits on a shelf. Pick it up, open your inventory, and use Examine to learn it.
At any smithy, open the crafting menu and select the Walsh Military Tech pieces one by one. Each piece consumes iron, copper, and hides. None of the materials are rare, so the main cost is farming rather than tracking down specific monster drops.
No horse build is complete without the Steelheart Horseshoes, which provide a base +5 attack stat and a standout +4 stamina per second regeneration buff. The regen is strong enough that even slower horses feel responsive, and on a legendary horse the stamina bar becomes nearly infinite as long as you take short breaks.
The Steelheart Horseshoes are hidden in a secret chest at the Gate of Peace inside Region's Rise, just east of the Diminish golf course. Dismount at the stone bridge in the area, drop beneath it, climb into the gap in the wall, and use Force Palm to break into the hidden room. See the Steelheart Horseshoes article for the full route.
The three upgrade tracks above complement rather than compete with each other, since they each fill different gear slots:
Standard Saddle set: saddle, champron, stirrups, and later barding.
Walsh Military Tech: full body horse armor (four blueprint pieces).
Steelheart Horseshoes: the horseshoe slot, focused on stamina regen.
Because the slots do not overlap, you can equip pieces from all three tracks at the same time. Most players mix and match based on aesthetics and which stats they value most.
