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OVERVIEW
This horse was long in the making. Systematically produced at Germany's oldest state-owned stud, Marbach, the (Old Type) Wurttemburg has existed for hundreds of years. The need for a strong and hardy all-around farm horse to work the small mountain towns of the region was what drove breeders to create the horse. More recently, the (Modern Type) Wurttemburg has been refined to create more of a competition-type horse well suited for sporting events.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
The Wurttemburg stands about 16 hands high and is usually bay, chestnut, or brown in coloration. The horse has a sensible head with a straight face and alert expression. It is generally a stocky riding horse with a straight back and clean sturdy legs. Of good physical proportion the Wurttemburg is a very hardy and sound horse.
ORIGIN
The origin of the Wurttemburg is interesting in the fact that although the breed has been bred as a specific type for only about one hundred years, attempts at creating this breed go back almost three hundred years earlier. When the Marbach stud was formed in 1573 the best available horses from many countries, including countries from the Near East, were collected. Later Andalusians and Neapolitans were introduced. Then came the Thirty Years' War and the Marbach stud was basically taken apart. When the stud was secure again, at the end of the 1600s, the breeders had turned to Iberian horses, namely Barb and Spanish mares which were covered with Friesian stallions. Another war, this time the Napoleonic wars, stopped the stud. When breeders once again took up trying to produce their ideal horse, Cob-type and East Prussian horses were introduced. This resulted in the first unrefined (Old Type) Wurttemburgs, later to be improved with Trakehners and the Marbach heard of Arabians. producing the Modern Type Wurttemburg.
INTERESTING FACTS
Unlike other German Warmbloods, the Wurttemburg has a strong presence of Arabian blood. This is due not only to the infusions of East Prussian blood, which had touches of both Thoroughbred and Arabian blood within it, but also to the Marbach stud's famous heard of Arabians.
INFLUENCES
1. Schweiken
2. Arabian
3. Thoroughbred
4. Trakehner
For more information:
Pferdezuchtverband Baden-Wurttemberg e.V.
Heinrich-Baumann, Strasse 1-3
7000 Stuttgart 1
GERMANY
