About us

Hunter Equestrian Center is run by Hunter brothers and dedicated to re-creation of a certain medieval warhorse breed. We work hard to achieve and maintain characteristics and traits of the medieval horse type. Every foal is carefully planned and we constantly search for new lines in order to produce what we consider a perfect horse.  

Our passion for horses was inherited from our parents. Dedicated equestrians themselves they taught their two adoptive sons to follow their footsteps. After our parents passed away we were left with a small ranch and some thoroughbred racing horses. We continued racing and won several competitions.

Both of us have always been interested in dressage as well as racing. Roots of dressage go a way back to history and originally it was created to maximise horses obedience and abilities to manouver in warzone. To achieve perfect balance in moving and the best possible co-operation between the horse and the rider the roots of ”Haute ecole” or ”High School” movements of classical dressage taught today were created.

Horses in warfare varied in type and size. One fine example of a certain type of warhorse is Friesian. Originally created to be mounts for knights, Friesians we know today resemble their ancestors with a modern showy twist. Both the nature of the horse as well as its looks have been modified to create something we all know and admire. However, Friesian horse is not what we wanted to have.

We may have some descendants of warhorses nowadays, but we don't have what we had then. After horses in warfare were replaced with vehicles many lines of fine horses vanished. Some breeds were bred to do something else, for example being a dashing showhorse, and their nature was often bred to be softer to answer modern needs and preference.

What we are interested to re-create is a certain medieval type of warhorse; strong in build, tough, stubborn, intelligent and brave. Muscular and sturdy but also agile. A horse you could easily imagine carrying a knight on it's back in a battlefield as well as doing dressage or racing in front of thousands of people without hesitation and fear.

Our preferred type of warhorse was used in late medieval times when knights became heavier due to full plate armors. It is described in historical art and literacy as deep black, sturdy horse with convex profile and strong bones. Some historical sources from the battlefield describe it as ”a steed from Abyss, monster with eyes as red as blood and coat as black as night”. These ”steeds of Abyss” were loyal to their knights and intelligent, allthough they had a stubborn nature often required from a horse that should follow one and one master only.

What started first as a mere interest was soon turned into a passion. We traveled to the midle Europe, in Germany and France and followed any leads we could find in history books considering these magnificent animals. After countless hours of work and numerous phone calls we managed to find a monastery from the Southern Germany, near Wittenberg, where they had some sort of record considering blood lines of a certain heavy warhorse we were quite sure to be the legendary ”steed of Abyss”. Using the records we tracked down several other monasteries and persons who could have information. Eventyally we found twelve blood lines going all tge way back to medieval times. Of course these lines were mixed with other breeds and local horse population, but many of those horses still had many charasteristics described in history books, the most significant being a red hint in their brown eyes. Because red color in eyes is a very resessive trait we were now sure that these horses were indeed descendants of ”steeds of Abyss” and that there was some kind of breeding after medieval times even if it was small. We bought a total of 7 horses from different lines, five from monasteries and two from families that had bred horses for generations to work in their farms and ranches and had written records of their breeding horses and their blood lines.

We base our current breeding in these 7 horses and some seriously considered imports we buy regurarly, some of them from native horse population and some from those remaining twelve considerably pure lines we managed to track down. We do our everything to avoid inbreeding and too strict line breeding.

At the moment, due to the mixing of the original lines with other breeds and native population in history, we have few problems we try to breed away. Even when these horses are meant to be ornery and even somewhat aggressive, too much aggression leads to problems in herds and causes low nursing instinct. We have bred few horses with too ”tough” nature and those horses are never used further in breeding. They could have been decent warhorses, but in modern world we must avoid too aggressive traits.

Some time in history Shire Horse was used in some lines to produce calmer nature and create horses better suited for working in farms. Due to this nearly every line is carrying genetics that produce white markings, mainly on forehead and muzzle but we have seen some markings in legs as well. This is not desirable but we do use horses with little markings in breeding. Otherwise we would run out of material in no time.

Some horses have also been a bit skittish and that we consider a serious flaw in every horse but most of all in this particular ”breed”. Strong, muscular horse must have a sensible head and brave nature. It's too dangerous to be out of control.

At the moment we avoid calling our horses a breed. We have bred just a few generations and even if we've managed to achieve big results, our journey has still just begun. It'll require many generations to produce population so uniform that it can be called a breed. Of course, we are not creating a breed from nothing, but lines are so mixed and there are so many gaps in blood line records that we must be careful. We are here to save the breed, to re-create it, not to ruin the lasts of the lines by rushing.