Trakehner horses come from East Prussia. Their brand is moose antlers, the "moose shovel". The main stud farm Trakehnen, from which the horses take their name, was a foundation by the Prussian King Frederick William I and was a centre of horse breeding till the fall of East Prussia. But thanks to great efforts by many people there still are Trakehner horses today – a living cultural heritage from Trakehnen.
East Prussia was the German horse country. There were about 2 million people and almost 500,000 horses in East Prussia before 1940 - nowhere else was the man-horse ratio that high. Most horses were warmbloods of Trakehner descent. The Trakehners’ hallmark is strength, elegance and lightness – qualities inherited from Arabic and English thoroughbreds which are refreshed time and again till the present day.
The many meadows of Trakehnen, ideal for pasture and making hay, offered excellent conditions for horse breeding. But horses were kept and bred also everywhere else in East Prussia, which was why the Trakehnen stud farm ran various branch farms. At these country stables, stallions with the best qualities (so-called country sires) were kept to cover the mares of private owners.