Arabo-Friesian

Sports Horses

Black Athletes

The result was an immensely athletic breed of Friesian horse, which is found in the ancestry of the Orlov trotter and the Morgan, amongst others.  Around 1900, in an effort to save the Friesian from extinction, the horses had to be bred to be marketable for the increasingly heavy equipment in agriculture.  Unfortunately, this breeding strategy cost the breed its lung and heart volume.  During the 1960’s Friesian horses had essentially disappeared from International Driving and Dressage competitions, so some select breeders decided to return to the roots.  These experts began to search back for the best desert Arabian blood, which had already been introduced to the breed, and carefully select pure Friesian mares from lines with endurance and stamina.  They chose the well-known elite stallion Gharib, a straight ‘asyl’ Egyption stallion at the famous Marbach State Stud, in order to improve the characteristics of endurance, toughness, lung and heart volume.  This means a quick return to a normal pulse and respiration, and a better ability to give off warmth through a finer skin and different muscle structure.  The result in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation back-crossing to pure Friesians results in horses that have been very successful in many different equestrian disciplines.

Some 400 years ago, during the time of the Spanish occupation from 1568 to 1648, Friesian farms were forced to use Spanish stallions with North African desert Arabian blood to breed their Friesian mares.