At the beginning of the 21st Century the Holsteiner horse breed is thriving. Horses with a Holsteiner brand excel at major showgrounds all over the world, today the Holsteiner genes have made their way into all of the successful jumping horse breeds. This is the outcome of the breeding work in the land between the seas that has been systematically practised for centuries by breeders, who have fine instincts, foresight, perserverence and loyalty to the mare lines, even during difficult times. In the course of history, the Holsteiner has continually been faced with new challenges, as a state-owned horse at the European royal courts, as a horse of war, as a luxury carriage horse, but above all as a working horse on the farms and finally today as a sport horse, with particular emphasis on the jumping discipline. The Holsteiner has thus often changed its coat, but it has never lost its character – hardly any other riding horse breed has remained as true to its type as the Holsteiner, whose external appearance and mental qualities were characterised by the hard life on the wind-swept marsh pastures and by the daily performance tests on the farms.
The cross-breeding with English thoroughbreds in the first half of the 19th Century firmly anchored the robustness and willingness to perform in the genes of the breed. 150 years later the English thoroughbred also helped to turn the working horse into a modern riding horse, without diluting the valuable attributes of the Holsteiner horse, namely its jumping ability and mental strength. In the last third of the 20th Century the implementation of French riding horse stallions led to a further development of the jumping style and technique. In addition to high-class jumping horses the Holsteiner breed has also produced world class dressage and eventing horses time and again.