When struck with lightning a horse does not change into the zombie or skeleton variant, zombie and skeleton horses are not tameable or rideable in any game mode. Even with golden carrots, apples, or an empty hand, nothing will happen. I have tried spawn eggs, naturally spawned horses and summoning, nothing changes.
Comments 5
Based on wiki:
The "skeleton trap horse" spawns from lighting strike only with 0.75% to 6.75% chance (depends on difficulty). And during a thunderstorm. No idea if that weather actually matters, or if the lightning must be "natural", the event might be special, etc. The fact that the trap horse is mentioned to be able to spawn in places where horses normally don't spawn could indicate that this event is not "a random lightning hits a random horse", but a special "lets see if random chance makes up this event, and make a lightning strike and spawn the trap horse directly". (Also, I've witnessed such trap horse in a place where there were no horses before, or after, ...) Thus, I'd ignore the part about "when struck with lightning" until further evidence about how it should work is given.
The "skeleton horses" spawn from the trap horse. All horses (both the trap and the 3 spawned ones) are mentioned to spawn already tamed.
The part of riding might be something to look at.
I've experienced the horse issue 3 Times the last days. One horse disappeared wearing armor and saddle, while jumping into water. Two horse has disappeared while tid up to a pole in my camp. Them too, wearing saddle and armor. The lead is still tied around the pole, but the horse is nowhere to be found. I untied the first least but that just made the lead disappear too.
Please make only one report per issue. Also, those are feature requests.