# Pony

Contents

1 Riding
2 Pony

2.1 Encyclopedia entry

3 Horse

3.1 Encyclopedia entry

4 Warhorse

4.1 Encyclopedia entry

5 Pet horses
6 Body parts
7 Trivia
8 References

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

u pony 

Difficulty

4

Attacks

Kick 1d6, Bite 1d2

u pony 

Difficulty

4

Attacks

Kick 1d6, Bite 1d2

Base level

3

Base experience

31

Speed

16

Base AC

6

Base MR

0

Alignment

0 (neutral)

Frequency (by normal means)

2 (Quite rare)

Genocidable

Yes

Weight

1300

Nutritional value

250

Size

Medium

Resistances

None

Resistances conveyed

None

A pony:

 has no hands.

 is an animal.

 is herbivorous.

 can be tamed by feeding.
 wanders randomly.

 is strong.

 can be seen through infravision.

Reference

monst.c#line913

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

u horse 

Difficulty

7

Attacks

Kick 1d8, Bite 1d3

u horse 

Difficulty

7

Attacks

Kick 1d8, Bite 1d3

Base level

5

Base experience

61

Speed

20

Base AC

5

Base MR

0

Alignment

0 (neutral)

Frequency (by normal means)

2 (Quite rare)

Genocidable

Yes

Weight

1500

Nutritional value

300

Size

Large

Resistances

None

Resistances conveyed

None

A horse:

 has no hands.

 is an animal.

 is herbivorous.

 can be tamed by feeding.
 wanders randomly.

 is strong.

 can be seen through infravision.

Reference

monst.c#line920

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

u warhorse 

Difficulty

9

Attacks

Kick 1d10, Bite 1d4

u warhorse 

Difficulty

9

Attacks

Kick 1d10, Bite 1d4

Base level

7

Base experience

97

Speed

24

Base AC

4

Base MR

0

Alignment

0 (neutral)

Frequency (by normal means)

2 (Quite rare)

Genocidable

Yes

Weight

1800

Nutritional value

350

Size

Large

Resistances

None

Resistances conveyed

None

A warhorse:

 has no hands.

 is an animal.

 is herbivorous.

 can be tamed by feeding.
 wanders randomly.

 is strong.

 can be seen through infravision.

Reference

monst.c#line927

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

↑ dog_nutrition in dogmove.c

↑ dog_eat in dogmove.c

↑ hack.h in NetHack 3.4.3, line 226

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

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