The War Horse is black with a platinum mane. Its stamina is equal to that of the Kentucky Saddler and its speed is nearly as fast as the American Standardbred, giving it the highest overall statistics of any horse in the game.
The War Horse was intended to be exclusive content; codes to "unlock" the mount were provided to buyers of the Limited Edition and through various pre-order incentive programs at certain US and UK retailers.
The War Horse, along with other pre-order content, was released in 2011 as DLC on the PlayStation Network and Xbox LIVE, for $0.99/£0.79 or 80 Microsoft Points.
The Game of the Year Edition, released in October 2011, includes the War Horse along with all other available DLC.
Once purchased, the War Horse can be made the player's mount by opening the Inventory at any time and using the Deed under the Consumables tab.
When playing the game in hardcore mode (featured in the Game of the Year edition), the deed for the War Horse must be purchased from a General Store for $10,000 ($5,000 with honour or fame) before it is available to the player.
In some cases, when playing the Game of the Year edition, this will be the first horse given to the player by Bonnie MacFarlane.
If the War Horse was acquired via a pre-order code, then the horse can be used in Undead Nightmare as well. If the War Horse DLC was purchased, however, then its deed does not appear in the player's satchel in Undead Nightmare.
TheWar Horse may be a reference to the real world race horse Man o' War, who was, at one point, the fastest horse in the world.
Sometimes a second War Horse might appear after a rare bug that involves a NPC "stealing" the player's horse, but instead of running away with it, this one will stay still. Note that for this unusual bug to happen two NPCs would stand together next to each other doing nothing and when the player goes near them, one of the two grabs the horse. Whistling will cause the horse to buck off the NPC. After that the NPC will grab the horse again, but this time after whistling the horse will ignore the player, as if the NPC is now the owner of the horse. When grabbing the horse again (will be considered as stealing) and whistling, a new horse of the same breed will come. This has been observed on the southern road of Mercer Station and in Tesoro Azul and Alta Cabeza in the middle of the four mountains, or in Blackwater with a lawman.()