The Trakehners are wambloods and a light horse breed. Light horse breeds generally weigh under 1,500 pounds. They are typically used as riding horses for leisure and trail riding. Being agile and swift, many are also used on the racetrack, in the show ring, and for work on the ranch.
Light horses are grouped in a couple of different ways, one being the continent or country where they originated from. They are also grouped according to training, classified as either a stock type, hunter type, saddle type, or 'other'. A body type is generally attributed to each class, with the 'other' classification being a bit of an odd ball. It includes those that are color breeds or those that may fit a body type of one of the training classes, but not be used for that type of training. In some cases the 'other' types can also include those that may fit into more than one of the type groups.
The horse class the Trakehner primarily fits into is the 'hunter' type class as it is strong in Show Jumping, Dressage, and Three Day Eventing. Trakehners can be used for jumping and dressage, but they can also be used to pull single carts.
In 1264 AD, during the spread of Christianity, The Knights of the Teutonic order established a stud farm in East Prussia. They ordered the landowners to begin breeding horses for use by the army. The Teutonic horses were interbred using the small, utilitarian Schweiken horses of the locals.
By the 1700's, as gunpowder changed the way warfare was fought, King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia, the father of Friedrich the Great, ordered the breeding of a lighter, faster, more attractive horse for his army. He wanted a muscular light horse to carry cannons and other large artillery.
He picked the best horses from his studfarms and moved them to a new 15,000 acre studfarm at Trakehnen in 1732. They came from thoroughbreds and large black draft horses. The horses were sorted by traits and color. The black mares were strong workers, chestnut mares were chosen for elegance and performance, and bay mares for their good temperament. In 1740, the breed was trademarked and named. They were 16-17.2 hands tall and 3 Trakehners could pull a 600-700 pound cannon for miles on end. In the Prussian language, Trakehner is pronounced as Track-ein-hair.
King Frederick William I was succeeded by his eldest son, Frederick II, also known as Frederic the Great. After Frederick II died in 1786, the state took ownership. Count Lindenau took over the stud management in 1787 and used the stud to improve the local population of horses. They selectively eliminated 2/3 of the stallions and 1/3 of the mares. They then brought in more Schweiken blood along with Thoroughbred, Mecklenburg, Danish, Turkish, and most particularly a strong influence from Akhal-Teke stallions.
The first official Trakehner studbook was published in 1877. The first stud book compiled by the East Prussian Stud Book Society was then published in 1890. After the Prussian nation was dissolved in 1918, Trakehners were bred to Arabians. This changed the look of the breed to make a shorter horse with an entirely different head. Although these Arabian-Trakehner mixes are seen as purebreds, they aren't. A purebred Trakehner's head is very muscular with a bump on the bridge of its nose.
The Trakehner went on to win many Olympic Gold Medals in the1924 Olympics, 1928 Olympics and particularly 1936 Olympics. But dispite these honors, history dealt the breed some difficult blows. First, during WWI, its population was diminished to nearly half but the breed recovered. WWII, however, almost caused extinction of the breed when in 1944 soviets closed in on the area around Trakehnen. Eight hundred horses from the royal stud fell into advancing soldiers lines and were shipped off to Soviet Union. Private breeders were forced to flee for their lives. In horrible conditions, women, children, and old men took approximately eight hundred horses. They evacuated some six hundred miles east, enduring cold hard ice and snow for months while pursued by soldiers across the frozen Baltic shore. Only about 100 of the horses survived, and they were in pitiful, starving and injured condition.
Of approximately 80,000 registered and branded Trakehner horses before war, less than a thousand ever made it to West Germany. Some 800 to 1,000 others survived in Poland, and the breed was now divided by political turmoil. Rebuilding and re-establishing the breed was difficult and time consumning. In Poland, herds were gathered and identified by brands and registration papers. Poland reestablished east Prussian studs and began breeding for somewhat heavier, sturdier horses. The West Germans bred for the lighter and more elegant type.
In October of 1947, the West German Association of Breeders and Friends of the Warmblood Horse of Trakehner Origin, known as the Trakehner Verband was formed.The West German Trakehner Association replaced the East Prussian Stud Book Society. By 1950, many of the evacuated Trakehners were located, often identified by the distinctive and well known moose antler brand. The Federal Government and Lower Saxony committed to use these horses to breed future generations. The first Trakehners were brought to North America in 1957. They were brought to Canada by Gerda Fredrichs, and their presence there and in US has grown steadily ever since. The American Trakehner Association was founded in 1974, and today they have close to 15,000 horses registered.
