Israeli Horse

Intro

The Israeli Horse is a combination of a variety of breeds, intermingled with a varying amount of Arabian strains. However there are not centralized breeding practices in the country, so limited records have been kept.

Origins

The horse first came to Israel a very long time ago and was probably the ancestor of the Arabian of today. During the centuries Israel has been a place of many wars and considering horses were the war tanks of time past, the animals native to the area were influenced by a large variety of bloodlines.

More recently, during WWI the Australian cavalry stayed in Palestine with their Whaler mounts, which have also had an evident influence on the Israeli horse. As well as the blood of English Thoroughbreds and heavier hunter types kept by British army officers.

After Israel’s independence, horses from many different breeds of Europe and the US were imported for agricultural purposes. Unfortunately these crosses were not properly recorded, nor maintained, so it’s difficult to say what contributions each breed made to the Israeli breed. Since 1968 the main bloodline used to improve the breed is that of the Thoroughbreds.

Because of the amount of random cross breeding, the Israeli breed doesn’t have a set confirmation type. However, there are some characteristics that seem to be fairly uniform within the breed.