The Trakehner Horse

It has been said that the Trakehner has everything most people are looking for in a performance horse and if you look at the breed’s list of attributes it is easy to see why.

The Trakehner, is the warmblood closet to the British ideal of the modern competition and riding horse, whose upgrading influence of bloodlines is evident in most of the continental sports breeds today. The popularity of this breed in Britain is growing at an astounding rate. The breed height ranges from a minimum of 15.2hh but the average is between 16hh and 17hh. They are usually solid colours, chestnut, bay, black or grey.

The Trakehner is the “Thoroughbred” of warmblood breeds, it is more closely related to the Thoroughbred than other German breeds having had major influence in the stud book from the English Thoroughbred and to a lesser degree the Arab and Anglo Arab. Due to selective breeding the Trakehner has retained the best thoroughbred qualities while keeping its own special character and “type”. The “Lloyds Bank Black Horse” is a Black Trakehner Stallion! Before German unification in 1871, Germany was made up of a number of different states and locally organised breeding areas. As a result horses bred in the area of Hanover became known as “Hanoverian” and a horse born in Westphalia became a “Westphalian”. However the Trakehner is the exception to this breed naming rule, as they are known as Trakehners wherever they are born, the stud book is governed solely by bloodlines. Infact Trakehner stallions were and still are widely used to improve and refine all the regional breeds.