Earlier this month, a listing for the "Sims 4 Horse Farm" expansion appeared on a major reseller site, but it was difficult to take the purported leak seriously, especially since it borrowed an image of a man riding a horse from "The Sims 3 Pets." Today, however, more convincing leaks are beginning to circulate, and EA has finally admitted that horses will appear in "The Sims," although they will not say so directly.

The Sims official account said on Twitter that they will "take the reins" during the upcoming Sims 4 season, which will include a "rootin' tootin' expansion." The teaser image doesn't show any horses, but it seems to confirm the rumor that the next expansion will be set in a desert-themed world; EA also knows that Sims fans and horse people would riot if they didn't release a horse expansion after teasing the "reins," so they'll be releasing the full trailer later this week I think it's okay to announce this before we see it: the horses are coming.

We also have a big leak, including the image above, and according to the Sims Community, the source of today's big leak is the Steam page for Sims 4. According to that site, the page listed the following Horse Ranch features:

Horses last appeared in the series as far back as The Sims 3's 2011 pet expansion. Instead of a generic pet expansion, The Sims 4 got 2017's Cats & Dogs, which did not feature horses, except for a few cats and dogs named "Horse" by a possibly disheartened player. (Despite pleas from fans, there were no horses in the other 12 Sims 4 expansions either.

As for why the 2021 Cottage Living expansion was horse-free, Sims 4 producer Antonio Romeo said on Twitter, "It's quite a job to give the gameplay the quality and depth that horses deserve. It's hard not to take this as soft confirmation that at least a horse-focused expansion is being considered, and players have been searching for clues about horses ever since. For example, the Sims Community noted that the latest expansion, Growing Together, features more horse imagery than might be expected from an accidental art decision.

Official details will be revealed when the next season's overview is released on YouTube this Thursday at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. The video description reads, "Giddy up for good news."

The season runs through September, so the horses are expected to be expanded sometime this summer.