Hanoverian Horse Breeding Association

There can be no question that the Hanoverian horse represents today one of the most prominent breeds for riding horses in the world. The stud-book comprises close to 19,000 active brood mares and 450 approved breeding stallions and covers the largest homogeneous breeding area in Europe. In fact, Hanoverians are found in all five continents.

Today the Hanoverian horse represents the most important breed of sport horses in the world. Olympic as well as World champions and the largest number of Worldcup winner are from the Hanoverian breeding area. A huge number of top competition horses have the H brand - the Hanoverian trade mark - on their back left side, which takes its inspiration from the crossed horse heads at the gable of the breeding farms in Lower Saxony. But not only top riders benefit from Hanoverian Horses. The Horses with the "H"-Brand also deligth pleasure riders in many countries throughout the world.

On this basis the Hanoverian Horse Breeding Association strives for the breeding of talented sport horses for the disciplines

• dressage,
• show-jumping,
• eventing,
• driving.

Beginning of breeding

The usual process is that breeders of common interests and breeding aims come together and form an association, start a stud-book and establish rules and regulations concerning registration. That is, however, not the way it happened in Hanover. There, it all started with the foundation of the State Stud at Celle in 1735. Since this time the State stud has kept careful records of pedigrees of their stallions and the mares bred to them, so when in 1888 the Royal Agricultural Society officially establihed the "Hanoverian Warmblood Stud-book" it had already an excellent basis on which could be build up.

Foundation of the Studbook

In 1899 the Chamber of Agriculture took over the stud-book as keeper, and it carried on until 1922 when it passed these duties on to the Verband hannoverscher Warmblutzüchter (the Society of Hanoverian Warmblood Breeders), which came into existence that same year and is the governing body today

Foundation of the Association (Association of the hanoverian warmblood breeders)

The "association" came into being in 1922 through the unification of 54 local breeding clubs, which existed in Hanover at the same time, and of which some were more than 50 years old. Combined, they accounted for more than 10,560 breeders. The idea was not so much to rob these clubs of their independence and their individual, peculiar character but rather to co-ordinate their activities for the good of all.

These local clubs, most of them still exist today and even have increased in number, are the main pillars of the Verband. They determine to a far reaching extent the choice of state stallions sent to their district and they organize the annual mare grading shows. The constitution of the Verband provides that in Lower Saxony each individual member must also belong to one of 7 district societies, which in most cases cover the area of a country or similar governmental unit.

Homepage: http://www.hannoveraner.com