Hanoverian Horse Breed Profile: History, Traits and Uses

The Hanoverian horse is a German warmblood bred in Lower Saxony for riding sport, and few breeds have a record to match it. The Hannoveraner Verband, the society that keeps the studbook, traces its Olympic success back to the 1928 Games and says no other breed can claim the same record across dressage, show jumping and eventing. Today the name covers Olympic dressage legends, individual eventing gold in Paris in 2024 and a great many sensible riding horses on British and South African yards.

This profile is built from the breed society's own rules (its breeding programme of January 2024 and its 2026 licensing documents), the British Hanoverian Horse Society and the published research on Hanoverian health. Several things you will still read in older profiles are out of date, including the colour rules and the way stallions are licensed. Where that is the case, we say so.

What Is a Hanoverian Horse?

A Hanoverian is a horse registered in the studbook of the Hannoveraner Verband, which is based in Verden in Lower Saxony. Like other German warmbloods it is a studbook as much as a breed: as Wikipedia puts it, eligibility depends on performance rather than ancestry alone. The Verband's breeding programme describes the studbook as open, and while it breeds primarily from Hanoverian stallions and mares, it does not rule out using horses from other riding-horse populations to improve the breed.

There are limits. The Verband splits other breeds into riding-horse populations, which can be used, and special breeds, which cannot. The special breeds it names as ineligible are the Gelderlander, the Pinto, the Appaloosa, the Lipizzaner, the Lusitano and the PRE.

The breeding goal, in the Verband's own English translation, is a horse which is particularly suitable for riding: one which, on account of its inner qualities, rideability, external appearance, movement, natural jumping ability and health, suits both performance and leisure riders. On that basis breeders aim for horses with a particular talent for dressage, jumping or eventing, and the goal also includes horses suitable for driving.

The Verband, Celle and the Daughter Societies

Two separate organisations sit behind the breed, and they are often confused. The British Hanoverian Horse Society explains that the Verband is a private body financed by its members, while the State Stud at Celle is wholly owned by the state of Lower Saxony. They work closely together but they are not the same thing.

The Verband was founded in 1922 and is still organised in three levels: the central society, regional societies and more than 85 local breeding clubs. One of its nine regional societies, Hannoveraner International, represents breeders abroad. It includes four daughter societies (the American Hanoverian Society, the Hanoverian Horse Society of Australia, the British Hanoverian Horse Society and the Hanoverian Society of New Zealand) and breeding clubs in Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Russia, Sweden and South Africa. The Verband also keeps the Rhineland studbook, so you will see Rhinelanders presented at the same events.

Hanoverian Horse History: From Celle to the Olympic Arena

The Celle State Stud, 1735

According to the Verband, selective horse breeding in the Hanover region goes back to the 16th century, when horses were bred for farming and the army. The turning point came in 1735, when George II, King of Great Britain and Elector of Hanover, founded the State Stud at Celle. The Verband says it brought in central registration of coverings and foals, which is why the breed's records are so complete.

The idea, as the BHHS describes it, was to offer good stallions at low fees to rural breeders, so the region did not have to import its horses. Wikipedia records that the stud bought stallions for farm work, harness and cavalry, and that local mares were refined with Holsteiner, Thoroughbred, Cleveland Bay, Neapolitan, Andalusian, Prussian and Mecklenburg blood. Horse & Hound singles out black Holsteins, powerful coach horses, as the foundation stock. By the end of the 18th century the Hanoverian had become a high-class coach horse. If you want the other side of that story, see our guides to the Holsteiner and the Cleveland Bay.

Coach, Cavalry and Plough

The BHHS, citing the German breed historians Schlie and Löwe, divides the breed's development into four overlapping periods:

• 1735 to the wars against Napoleon in 1812-1813, when the aim was a large, robust carriage horse that could also serve the army.
• 1815 to 1870, with increasing use of privately owned Thoroughbred and English half-bred stallions.
• 1870 to 1945, when the breed was consolidated around its native lines as a coach and military horse.
• 1945 onwards, when the type was refined to produce a riding horse.

The changing breeding aims tell the story well. Around 1900, according to the BHHS, General von Troschke wanted a cavalry and artillery horse with straight, ground-covering gaits, and farm horses that could pull a plough making a furrow at least 30 cm deep. By the end of the Second World War the aim was a strong warmblood able to do all kinds of farm work, but with enough blood, zest and quality gaits to be used as a riding and carriage horse. Horse & Hound notes that Hanoverians were used as cavalry remounts, harness horses and farm horses right up to the Second World War, a history we cover in our war horse breeds guide.

The Studbook and the Verband

The legal side of breeding tightened through the 19th century. Wikipedia records an 1844 law allowing only commission-approved stallions to be used for breeding, and a breeders' society formed in 1867. The BHHS gives the rest of the timeline: the Royal Agricultural Society created the Hanoverian Warmblood Studbook in 1888, the Chamber of Agriculture took it over in 1899, and in 1922 it passed to the newly founded Verband hannoverscher Warmblutzüchter. That society was formed by uniting 54 local breeding clubs with more than 10,560 breeders between them.

After 1945: Building a Riding Horse

Mechanisation then pushed horses off the farms rapidly, as the BHHS puts it, and the breed had to change again. The Verband says the Hanoverian was reorganised after the war and refined once more with Trakehner and Thoroughbred horses. Wikipedia adds that the odd Anglo-Arab stallion was used as well.

How much outside blood went in has been measured. In a pedigree analysis of 310,109 Hanoverians, with a reference population born between 1980 and 2000, Hamann and Distl found that English Thoroughbreds contributed nearly 35% of the genes, and 39% in the stallions. Trakehners contributed about 8% and Arabs about 2.7% (Hamann and Distl, Journal of Animal Science, 2008, PMID 18310493). The same study named Aldermann I (A/E line), Fling (F/W line) and Absatz (Trakehner line) as the most important male ancestors. From 1996 onwards the stallions Weltmeyer and Donnerhall had the largest genetic impact. The average inbreeding coefficient was low, at 1.33% in the reference population.

Hanoverian Horse Characteristics

Height and Build

There is no height requirement for the studbook, but the Verband's breeding programme sets a target. It aims for a final height averaging around 168 cm at the withers, measured with a measuring stick, which is a little over 16.2hh. Wikipedia gives the usual range as roughly 15.3 to 17.1 hands (160 to 175 cm). Our guide to how horses are measured explains how hands convert to centimetres and why a measuring stick beats a guess.

No breed society figure exists for weight, and the numbers quoted online vary a good deal. For anything that matters, such as feeding or worming, weigh your own horse rather than relying on a breed average.

Conformation the Judges Look For

The breeding programme spells out the ideal Hanoverian in detail. Translated from the German, the conformation the judges want looks like this:

• Head: noble and dry (without much tissue under the skin), in proportion to the body, with a large, attentive eye, an open, calm expression and large nostrils.
• Neck: long enough and well muscled, tapering towards the head with a light connection at the throat, set on at roughly a right angle to the shoulder, with an arched crest.
• Shoulder and withers: a long, sloping shoulder and pronounced withers that reach well back, with the back dipping slightly behind them.
• Frame: a rectangular, long-legged, big-framed horse with a harmonious topline, broad and well-muscled loins and a long, sloping, muscular croup. The body should divide roughly equally into forehand, middle and hindquarters.
• Limbs: correct and dry, with well-defined joints, elastic pasterns of medium length and hard, symmetrical hooves.

The list of faults is just as revealing. Among the faults of the frame, the Verband lists a short-legged build, a back that is too long or too short, a roach back and a croup set too high. It also lists a very high tail set, which is a hallmark of the Arabian but a fault in a Hanoverian. The tail itself should be carried straight, and a crooked, clamped or swishing tail counts against the horse. Our conformation guide explains these terms in more depth.

Movement and Jumping

Movement carries as much weight as build. The breeding programme describes the ideal paces as follows:

• Walk: a clear, regular four-beat rhythm that covers the ground, active and elastic.
• Trot: a clear push from behind, a regular two-beat rhythm with cadence, plenty of swing and elasticity, the hind legs stepping well under the body, and the forehand moving uphill with a free shoulder.
• Canter: a regular three-beat rhythm with swing, elasticity and ground cover, each stride round and energetic from an active hind leg, and clearly uphill.

Jumping horses are also judged loose over fences. The breeding programme asks for a balanced, elastic jump with a quick take-off, fast folding of the legs and a rounded back and lowered neck over the fence. That is the bascule. It also wants a brave, powerful jump and quick, careful reactions.

Hanoverian Coat Colours

Many breed profiles online, Wikipedia's included, still say that buckskin, palomino and cremello Hanoverians cannot be registered. That is out of date. The breeding programme now reads simply "all colours". The Verband's breeding programme page confirms that all colours found in the warmblood populations are accepted, naming piebald, palomino, cremello, smoky black and buckskin. Foals, mares and stallions of these colours can be registered and licensed as long as they meet the pedigree rules. The Verband admits that horses in the special colours often do not.

In practice most Hanoverians are still solid colours. Wikipedia lists chestnut, bay, black and grey as the most common, and the dressage and jumping rings are full of bays. If you are interested in the unusual ones, our guide to rare horse colours explains the genetics behind dilutes and pinto patterns.

Hanoverian Temperament and Rideability

Character is written into the breeding goal. The breeding programme asks for intelligence and a good character, described as easy to handle but sensitive and uncomplicated. It also wants a good temperament (balanced, with strong nerves and alert), willingness to learn, courage and keenness to work. On the other side it lists bad character, an unfavourable temperament, low willingness to work and stable vices.

Rideability has its own definition. The ideal is a horse that stands willingly and attentively on the aids with an active mouth, works calmly with the rider and gives a good feel in the saddle, moving from an active hind leg over an elastic, swinging back. The faults include irregular paces, a tendency to go downhill, a stiff back and a difficult temperament. In plain terms, the judges mark down a horse that tightens up under the rider instead of letting the movement through. Mares are tested for this under a test rider as well as their own (see the breeding section below), so the selection is real rather than a slogan.

Individuals still vary, and one of the breed's greatest show jumpers shows how much. Shutterfly, the Hanoverian gelding who won three World Cup Finals, was described as a young horse as "spooky" and "frightened of everything". Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum fell off him at Aachen when he was seven, and it took her a year to win back his trust. A Hanoverian bred and produced for top sport can be a sharp, complicated ride. A schooled, older one is often the opposite. Judge the horse in front of you, not the brand on its thigh.

How Hanoverian Breeding Works Today

Every Hanoverian passes through a series of inspections before it can breed. This is the part of the breed most profiles skip, and it is the part that explains the rest.

Foal Registration, Branding and Names

The Verband asks breeders to report a foal's birth within 28 days, and the British Hanoverian Horse Society asks the same of UK breeders, with a copy of the covering certificate. A society official then inspects the foal, records its date of birth, colour, sex and markings and draws its passport diagram. The foal is microchipped in the left side of the neck. The passport is issued once parentage is confirmed and the fees are paid.

Three details help you read a Hanoverian's papers:

• The brand. Under section 17.3 of the breeding programme, foals that receive a pedigree certificate are branded on the left hind thigh with the stylised H and a two-digit number taken from their life number. The Verband says branding is carried out in line with the law in each country.
• The life number. A German-issued Unique Equine Life Number (UELN) for a Hanoverian starts DE 431 31: DE for Germany, 431 for the Verband (for horses born since 2000) and 31 for the Hanoverian breed.
• The name. The Verband's rule is that a horse's name must begin with the first initial of its sire, so you can place a horse in its stallion line at a glance.

Mare Inspections and Performance Tests

A mare has to be inspected and entered in the studbook before she can breed. At a studbook inspection she is judged standing for conformation, trotted on a triangle and walked in a small group. She may also be shown on hard ground and loose for her canter. Judges score her from 1 to 10 in whole marks. The thresholds are clear:

Studbook section	Pedigree	Minimum overall score	No sub-score below
Main Studbook	Four generations of approved pedigree	6.0	5.0
Studbook	Three generations of approved pedigree	5.0	4.0
Appendix	Pedigree or birth certificate	Entered without evaluation	Not applicable

Then comes the mare performance test, which judges the basic paces under saddle, rideability and loose jumping (optional for dressage mares). The mare is ridden by her own rider and by a test rider, and the results feed the Verband's breeding value estimates. Mares aged three and over can do it at a station, in the field or as a Hanoverian Sport Test. Section 11.3.2.1 of the breeding programme says the station test lasts at least 14 days. A mare can also pass through competition: three placings in the top five at elementary (L) level in dressage or show jumping, or at novice (A) level in eventing, by the end of her fifth year.

The best mares win titles. The Verband awards the Hanoverian Premium, the Performance Mare title and a Mare of the Year, and three-year-old mares can qualify for the central Herwart von der Decken Show. The State Premium, which Wikipedia describes as a prize funded by Lower Saxony, is meant to keep the finest mares in the local breeding population. If you are thinking of breeding from your own mare, our horse breeding guide covers the practical side.

Stallion Licensing in Verden

Stallions face a two-stage selection, licensing and then a performance test, and both must be passed before a stallion can be used for breeding (Hannoveraner Verband). Licensing takes place in hand at two and a half or under saddle at three. Since 2021 three- and four-year-olds can also be accepted, shown under a rider as well. The Verband's 2026 pre-selection notice gives this year's dates: dressage stallions are licensed in Verden on 19 to 21 November, show jumpers on 26 to 28 November.

Getting there is the hard part. At the pre-selection in Verden in mid-October, the committee reviews around 40 jumping stallions and around 60 dressage stallions. Every stallion needs a full clinical examination and 22 radiographs, and an X-ray commission decides whether he may be licensed. The licensing threshold is now a uniform overall score of at least 7.5. This year the Verband is also refusing stallions born after July 2024, citing the debate about how young horses should start training.

The preparation is regulated too. The fair-competition rules adopted by the German breeding societies, and published by the Verband (Der Hannoveraner, September 2021), ban clipping or removing the whiskers around the nose, eyes and ears. Boots and over-reach bells are allowed only on the front legs, and young stallions may wear only plain shoes in front. On the lunge a stallion may wear front-leg protection, a lungeing roller or surcingle over a suitable pad, and side reins without rubber rings. Whip use is to be kept to a minimum.

A licensed stallion must then prove himself in a stallion performance test or in competition. To enter Stallion Book I, the Hanoverian stallion book, he needs six generations of licensed and performance-tested sires in his pedigree, a dam and granddam in the Main Studbook and a great-granddam at least in the Studbook. The Verband says breeders can choose from more than 300 stallions. Cloning is not permitted: clones and their offspring cannot be entered in the studbook.

The Verden Auctions

Verden is also where many Hanoverians are sold. Wikipedia records that the auctions began in 1949 and have been held at the Niedersachsenhalle since 1972, and the Verband now runs them live, online and in a hybrid format it calls OnLive. For auction horses, registered buyers can view the veterinary documents and X-rays online before the sale (auction information).

Recent results give a fair idea of value. At the 143rd Elite Auction in October 2026, 67 riding horses sold for an average of 32,238 euros, and 28 of them went abroad. The top price was 151,000 euros, for the dressage mare Escajana. The 23 foals averaged 9,010 euros. These are selected, vetted horses, and private sales cover a much wider range in both directions.

Famous Hanoverians and the Breed in Sport

The Verband's sport scheme, the FRH (Supporters' Club for Hanoverian Sport Horses), was founded in 1985 to match promising horses with top riders. That is why so many famous Hanoverians carry FRH in their name (Hannoveraner Verband).

Dressage

Gigolo FRH, a liver chestnut Hanoverian gelding, won four Olympic gold and two silver medals with Isabell Werth between Barcelona in 1992 and Sydney in 2000. The pair also won four world championships and eight European championships, and Wikipedia describes him as history's most successful dressage horse. Werth's next Olympic horse, Satchmo, was also a Hanoverian gelding. Together they won team and individual gold at the 2006 World Equestrian Games.

The breed is still producing. The Verband records that D'Avie FRH won the young-horse world championship for six-year-olds in 2018 and won again the following year. Damsey FRH helped Helen Langehanenberg to European team gold in 2017. If you are new to the sport, our guides to dressage and how dressage scoring works explain what the judges are looking for in movements such as piaffe and passage.

Show Jumping

Shutterfly, ridden by Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum, won the World Cup Final in 2005, 2008 and 2009, plus individual gold at the 2007 European Championships. With lifetime winnings of 3,520,864 euros, Wikipedia calls him the most successful show jumper of the 2000s. The Verband runs its own jumper breeding programme, begun in 1993 to improve the breeding of show jumpers, and our guide to show jumper horses covers the other leading studbooks.

Eventing

Eventing is where the Thoroughbred blood shows. FRH Butts Abraxxas, a grey Hanoverian gelding by Heraldik xx out of a Kronenkranich xx mare (both Thoroughbreds), won team gold with Ingrid Klimke at the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympics. fischerChipmunk FRH, a bay Hanoverian gelding by Contendro I out of a Heraldik xx mare, won the Kentucky five-star in 2022 and 2025 with Michael Jung. The pair also won team gold at the 2022 World Championships, and individual Olympic gold in Paris in 2024. Our guide to eventing horses explains why that mix of blood and scope matters across country.

Driving, Hunters and Vaulting

The breeding goal includes driving, and the Verband says its auctions also offer horses for hunter and driving sport. Hanoverians turn up in vaulting too. Dark Beluga FRH, by De Niro, carried the vaulter Jannik Heiland to individual silver at the 2018 World Equestrian Games in Tryon. With the German squad, the Verband records, he also won team gold at the world championships.

Hanoverian Health: What the Research Shows

Strict selection has not made the Hanoverian immune to inherited problems, and the breed society publishes its health rules openly. Much of the research has come from the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, so the evidence below comes from papers on Hanoverians or German warmbloods specifically, not from general horse statistics.

Osteochondrosis (OCD)

Osteochondrosis is a fault in the way cartilage turns into bone in a growing horse, and it can leave loose fragments or flaps in a joint. The biggest study of the breed looked at radiographs of 9,478 Hanoverians taken between 2005 and 2011. It found that 31.9% had at least one bone fragment in a joint, most often in the fetlocks (19.7%), then the hocks (8.2%) and the stifles (2.7%). Osteochondrosis dissecans itself was found in 14.3% overall: 5.4% in the fetlocks, 6.9% in the hocks and 2.6% in the stifles (Hilla and Distl, Berliner und Münchener Tierärztliche Wochenschrift, 2013, PMID 23758039).

Those figures replace the "12 to 24% in a fetlock joint" quoted in many older profiles, which the large study does not bear out. A follow-up study by the same authors estimated the heritability of OCD at 0.16 to 0.46 depending on the joint, high enough that breeding decisions can reduce it (Hilla and Distl, Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics, 2014, PMID 24236645).

That is exactly what the licensing rules try to do. Under the Verband's 2026 X-ray information sheet, a stallion cannot be licensed with an OCD finding in the stifle, OCD in both hocks, isolated fragments in more than three joints, or cyst-like defects that count as a risk finding. For owners, our hock swelling guide explains why a soft swelling of the hock (a bog spavin) in a young horse deserves a vet's look even when the horse is sound, and our OCD guide and the osteochondrosis dissecans entry cover treatment.

Fragile Foal Syndrome (WFFS)

Fragile foal syndrome type 1, often still called warmblood fragile foal syndrome or WFFS, is a recessive genetic disorder of connective tissue caused by a single change in the PLOD1 gene. A foal needs two copies to be affected, and affected pregnancies end in late abortion, stillbirth or a foal that cannot survive. Carriers, with one copy, are healthy. In a survey of 4,081 horses from 38 breeds, the carrier frequency was as high as 17% in the Hanoverian and the Danish Warmblood (Reiter and colleagues, Genes, 2020, PMID 33353040).

Researchers at the Hanover veterinary school found an allele frequency of 0.14 in the Hanoverians they genotyped. They traced the carriers they tested back to a stallion of the Hanoverian F/W sire line, the same line the pedigree study named as one of the breed's most important. They also found the variant linked to breeding values for paces, conformation and dressage (Metzger and colleagues, Equine Veterinary Journal, 2021, PMID 32323341). An analysis of almost 400,000 coverings in ten German studbooks found that carrier stallions had a foaling rate about 2.7% lower than clear ones, and found signs that carriers performed better in dressage (Wobbe and colleagues, PLOS ONE, 2022, PMID 35901076).

The real risk is mating two carriers. On one German stud, 53.8% of pregnancies from carrier-to-carrier matings were lost as abortions, against 7.9 to 9.2% in the other groups, and the live-foal rate per pregnancy was 34.5% against 81 to 84% (Kehlbeck and colleagues, Equine Veterinary Journal, 2025, PMID 39539185). The Verband's rule, in section 14 of its breeding programme, is that stallions are tested when first presented for licensing (unless both parents have tested clear), the results are published in the stallion directory, and carriers should not be mated with each other. If you are breeding, know both parents' status before you book the stallion.

Equine Recurrent Uveitis and Eye Health

Equine recurrent uveitis, the condition owners call moon blindness, is a painful inflammation inside the eye that keeps coming back and can end in blindness. A genome-wide study of 144 German warmblood horses found a risk locus near the IL-17A and IL-17F genes that explained 23% of the variation in the disease. That points to an inherited component (Kulbrock and colleagues, PLOS ONE, 2013, PMID 23977091). The licensing rules take it seriously: a stallion with ERU, or one operated on for it, cannot be licensed. Our ERU entry covers the signs.

For South African owners there is local evidence too. A University of Pretoria survey of 104 warmblood horses found eye abnormalities in 76% of horses and 60.1% of eyes. Lesions of the choroid and retina were the most common, in 62.5% of horses, and cataracts appeared in 12.5%. Both became more common with age, and the authors recommend an eye examination in routine health checks and before purchase (Allen and Goodhead, Equine Veterinary Journal, 2025, PMID 39535442). Our cataracts guide explains what a vet looks for.

Other Conditions That Bar a Stallion from Licensing

The X-ray information sheet also lists the clinical findings that stop a stallion being licensed, and it reads like a checklist of the conditions buyers worry about:

• Laryngeal paralysis of grade 3 or above on the Ohnesorge scale, or surgery for roaring.
• Obvious ataxia of grade 2 out of 5 or more.
• Clear clinical signs of sweet itch.
• Shivers or stringhalt.
• A club foot, or surgery for one or for contracted tendons.
• A parrot mouth or undershot jaw with less than half the normal contact between the teeth, and testicular defects or surgery for an undescended testicle.
• Surgery for crib-biting, a wry tail or neurectomy.

None of this guarantees a healthy horse, because mares and geldings are not screened in the same way and many conditions are not inherited at all. But it does mean a licensed Hanoverian stallion has cleared a demanding veterinary bar.

Work-Related Lameness

Many sport-horse problems come from work rather than genes. A survey of horses registered with British Dressage found that owners reported 33% had been lame at some time in their careers. Lameness in the previous two years was linked to age, height, indoor arenas, horse-walkers, back problems, sand-based arenas and arenas that get deeper in wet weather. Lungeing was linked to less lameness, not more (Murray and colleagues, The Veterinary Journal, 2010, PMID 19369100). Arena surface is worth thinking about long before a big, powerful horse goes lame. Our guide to lameness explains how vets work out where the problem is.

Caring for and Feeding a Hanoverian

Most Hanoverians do not need special treatment, but a few points are worth knowing. The Verband's health goal for the breed includes Leichtfuttrigkeit, meaning a horse that is easy to keep. Expect many Hanoverians to hold their weight on less hard feed than their size suggests, and watch for the opposite problem, especially in a horse in light work.

The British Horse Society recommends a total daily ration of about 2 to 2.5% of bodyweight over 24 hours to maintain condition, and never less than 1.5% without a vet's instruction. Its worked example is a 500 kg horse fed at 2%, which needs 10 kg a day, made up of grazing, hay or haylage and any hard feed. For an overweight horse it advises reducing towards 1.5%, while still making the forage last through the day. Work it out from a weighbridge figure or a weigh tape for your own horse, not a breed average.

Check condition by feel as well as by eye. The BHS fat scoring scale runs from 0 to 5, with 2.5 to 3 ideal for most horses. On the 1 to 9 Henneke scale, the ideal range for most horses is 4 to 6. Our body condition scoring guide shows where to put your hands, and our guides to horse feeding and managing obesity cover the rest.

Beyond feeding, a Hanoverian needs what any sport horse needs. That means regular dental care, a sensible worming and vaccination plan agreed with your vet, a good farrier and plenty of turnout. A big horse that spends long hours in a stable is more likely to stiffen up and less likely to settle. Build fitness gradually and think hard about the surfaces you train on.

Buying a Hanoverian in the UK and South Africa

Papers and Breed Societies

In Britain, the British Hanoverian Horse Society is a full daughter society of the German Verband. It reminds buyers that the Horse Passport (England) Regulations require a change of ownership to be registered with the relevant passport-issuing organisation, and its website explains how to do it. The Verband's breeding programme also lists the British studbook among the recognised branch studbooks used in pure Hanoverian breeding. The BHHS runs foal shows, mare gradings, performance tests and stallion licensing in the UK.

In South Africa there is no separate daughter society. Instead the Verband runs its breeding programme there directly: South Africa is one of the countries where it lists foal registrations and studbook inspections as available, and Hannoveraner International includes a South African breeding club. If you are importing or breeding, contact the Verband's international team early: the Verband says its breeding programme rules apply to inspections abroad.

What to Check Before You Buy

• Read the papers. Check that the passport, microchip and brand (where the horse has one) match, and, for a horse registered in Germany and born since 2000, that the life number begins DE 431 31. A horse described as a Hanoverian should be registered as one.
• Look at the bloodlines for the job. The Verband breeds dressage, show jumping and eventing lines deliberately, and a jumping-bred horse will not necessarily make a dressage horse.
• Have it vetted. A full pre-purchase examination is worth more than any breed reputation. Verden auction horses come with radiographs published to registered buyers, and it is worth asking for the same from a private seller. Our horse vetting checklist explains the stages, and the Pretoria eye study above is a good reason to make sure the eyes are examined properly.
• Ask about WFFS status if you plan to breed, and avoid a carrier-to-carrier mating.
• Ride it more than once, ideally on different days and in different places. Temperament varies within the breed, and the best way to judge it is to see the horse when it is not prepared for a sale.

Is a Hanoverian Right for You?

A Hanoverian suits a rider who wants a big, athletic horse that has been bred for generations to be ridden, with paces judged at every stage and a character the breed society takes seriously. The Verband itself says the breed's rideability and character make it a good leisure partner, not just a competition horse.

It suits you less well if you want a small, hardy horse that lives out on very little, or if you are a novice looking at a young horse bred for top sport. If you are still deciding between warmbloods, compare it with the Dutch Warmblood (KWPN), the Holsteiner and the Trakehner, or read our Hanoverian breed data page for a quick reference.

Frequently Asked Questions