History

The TRAKEHNER

There is surely no breed of horse existing today whose history and geography mirrors the changing fortunes of Northern Europe since the Middle Ages as closely as the ‘Warmblood Horse of Trakehner Origin’ – or Trakehner as it is better known.

The Trakehner's background is resonant with history, from it’s Schweiken ancestors (the preferred cavalry horse of the Teutonic Knights) to its present name, established by the Trakehnen Stud, which produced a high class, all round horse exclusively for the royal household of Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia from selected members of the breed.

The ‘flight of the East Prussian horses’ from their homelands in the most easterly parts of Prussia, through Eastern Europe across what is now Poland and (the former) East Germany, to safety in West Germany, is one of the great sagas of equine and human history. In 1947, in a determined bid to save the breed from extinction, Siegfried Freiherr von Schrocten and Dr. Fritz Schilke, original members of the East Prussian stud book society, collected and identified the horses, founded the Trakehner Verband, and created a regional breeding structure for Trakehner breeding in West Germany. The Trakehner is the only ‘pure’ breed of warmblood type. Upgrading is through the limited use of high quality Thoroughbred, Anglo-Arab, and Arab stallions who are graded into the breeding stud books alongside stallions with Trakehner blood.

The modern Trakehner has become an extremely elegant animal, highly prized as a competition horse in itself, and as a source of upgrading blood for the heavier warmblood such as Holsteiner, Hanoverian and other warmblood breeds.