Hanoverian horses have distinctive qualities that owners look for, such as a calm expression, a well-proportioned body structure and an elegant gate. Recognize the desirable characteristics in the breed with information from the owner and operator of a Hanoverian horse farm in this free video on horse breeds.
Hi my name's Nancy Connolly, I'm owner of HorsePower Farm Hanoverians and I'm here to talk to you a little bit today about what to look for in that special Hanoverian that you'd like to own. There are a couple of things that really kind of look out at you and as you look at the Hanoverian, the face and the head is always a real key indicator for you. You want to look at a mare or a horse, we tend to have mares here, that's got a very quiet, calm demeanor as you're standing there looking at her. How does she come across to you? The eye, there's an old saying, the eye is the gateway to the soul and I think in the horse, there's no other noble animal that is much more the case than with the horse. We look for a big expressive eye. This particular mare is a wonderful example of not only a big eye, but she's got a very broad forehead. Some of your old breeders will say the wider the forehead the bigger and the more intelligent the brains are in the horse. But whether that's true or not, you're usually looking for a nice well set developed head where the forehead is broad, the eyes are expressive, it comes down with a little bit of a narrowing to where the muzzle is on the horse. The other thing that you're going to look at is the overall impression that that horse gives you. In the Hanoverian breed we're looking for what they call a very harmonious impression. Does the head fit with this area which is the throat latch? Very important when you're looking at riding a horse, you're asking the horse to bend, you're asking the horse to come through and come what they call over the top line. Are they conformationally made to be able to do such a thing? You want a nice open throat latch. High set neck which is going to allow them to deliver the kind of performance that you're looking for in much more of an uphill motion. A lot of people will look at Hanoverians and say how as a three year old can you do some of the performance testings and ask the horse some of the demands that the sport does. They have to be conformationally built for it. When you're looking at this particular mare, you're looking for a nice, well positioned withers. The expression for this is the saddle seat. It's called that for a real practical reason. If you're trying to keep a saddle on a horse and she has no withers, your saddle slides forward, your saddle slides back and this particular position allows for that freedom through the shoulder when you look at the overall connection of the neck to the withers to the shoulder. You also want to see not too short of a frame but not too long. We hope that the horse displays a nice rectangular frame that gives them the strength through what we would refer to as the loin area and the croup area as it slopes down. If you think about how a horse moves, everything that they do you want them to be able to push from behind to lift the horse to allow them to either jump or to do those expressive movements of dressage. Or if you're in an eventing world, do they have the coordination to get underneath themselves? All of that comes from the hind quarters so we pay particular attention to the development of the hip, the stifle of the angle as you come from the stifle back to the hock and when you're looking at Hanoverians one of the things you will always see is what we refer to as a very substantial bone. Too many breeds, too many times we've developed large horses and somehow the legs don't support the rest of the frame. What is very critical to the Hanoverian breed is to maintain that substantial bone all the way down quite frankly to a good hoof that has not only a good angle but substantial bit to the hoof. So as we look at improving the breed, some of the more modern nuances is to have that eloquent horse but you can have an eloquent horse and still maintain that sturdy bone, large leg, a good harmonious frame and most importantly of it all, does the eye of this horse look right into your soul and theirs?
