How to unsaddle my horse in Red Dead Redemption 2?

I am at the beginning of the game shortly after the harsh winter tutorial, when the gang sets up a new camp.

I was roaming around and by accident I found a nice horse that I now want to make my default one as it currently is only a temporary one.

It says in the help that I should have an option to unsaddle my horse and be able to put the saddle on another one to make it my primary. Yet I see nothing like this. Is this tied to a mission I have to finish first?

Solution 1:

Like said in the comments, and also found in the RDR2 Companion app, you can saddle a horse by pressing L2 to target the horse, and d-pad up te remove and place saddles.

This will be available after the turtorial, in chapter 2. When doing the 'Exit Pursued by a Bruised Ego' mission given by 'Hosea Matthews'. In this mission, the horse and saddle mechanics are explained.

You Can buy and sell Horses at stabled throughout the world. You can break wild horses, or steal owned horses. You can ride a horse temporarily, but to make it yours, you'll need to put your saddle on it.

To saddle a Horse, approach it with a saddle in hand and hold D-pad up to put it on. You can only have one saddle and therefore one main Horse, at a time. To remove a saddle you must approach and hold L2 to lock on and hold D-pad up to remove. You can also saddle a horse by taking it to a Horse Shop, at this point your previous horse will be added to the stables.

Arthur cannot saddle, bond with, or own Horses belonging to other members of Dutch's gang.

Remove your saddle from a dead horse by approaching it and holding D-pad up to remove. Saddles left on dead horses can also be recalled using the stables.

Solution 2:

You can’t saddle a horse while in the middle of a mission. I had to ride a new horse without a saddle and whistle to have my saddled horse follow me back to turn in a bounty. Once done I was able to remove the saddle and put it on my brand new mustang!