Beauty doesn’t need to be perfect, but it needs to be fascinating!

It’s been almost 20 years that the members of the Friedmann family in the Black Forest area of Germany discovered their enthusiasm for Arabian horses. Before becoming passionate breeders of successful Straight Egyptian Arabian horses, however, Inge Friedmann and her daughter Ether Friedmann toured German studs and Arabian shows, in order to learn how to judge Arabian horses, to practice their eye for beauty, type, and aesthetics, and to match their own approach to breeding to established show standards.

In a globalised time in which rules and standards seem to be disintegrating, they quickly realized that the beauty of the horses, floating movements and Arabian noblesse are subject to pressure from many sides, always striving at standardization. However, they succeeded in refining their ideas and defining their aims ever more precisely.

The breeding principle inherent in that, to improve continually, to strive for perfection, was a fascinating challenge for the Friedmanns. For success in reality, however, they needed the necessary amount of patience, and a strategy. Initially, that was not easy. After all: how to put it into hard facts and transform it into a breeding concept? Where to start: with the horses, or with the pedigree? With the love for the animals, or with the science of reproduction and genetics? Can you, as a breeder, develop your very own concept for developing, optimizing and maintaining beauty, Arabian type and noblesse, can you put it into reality via your own breeding strategy and consolidate it genetically, can you be sustainably successful with that, and can you fulfill your own dream that way?

Well yes, you can – as proven by the Friedmanns when they bought their first group of foundation mares and a suitable colt that was talked about the world over, later on and up to today. These horses were the founding stock of the Friedmann family’s internationally successful Arabian Horses breeding enterprise, they are still present on today’s shows via their impressive offspring, and they will continue to be there.

Today, a substantial number of horses displaying type, structure, and Arabian noblesse, are the prize gained from years of painstaking breeding work. The way to get there, however, is not only characterized by their „knack for the right mating“, making the best use of the genetically consolidated noblesse and type of their horses, but also from the age-old farmers’ insight that it does not do to leave the horse’s nature unconsidered. Horses need to be kept according to their nature so they can unfold their natural beauty and be successful on this basis. Only if you breed in surroundings which are appropriate for the species you are keeping will there be long-time, sustainable success.

That way, one part adds to the other. Breeding requires enthusiasm and passion, but also experience in choosing the right parents for breeding, a loving and respectful way of handling he animals, a stud offering all the factors for the horses to feel good and be comfortable. The stud needs to offer the horses the opportunity to grow up roaming pastures in herds, as their instincts bid them to do, offering the opportunity to balance physical exercise, feed intake, and social interaction.

The Friedmann horses are impressive on shows, or ridden, or in-hand – also or just because of their mental strength and balance. And as to their beauty and charisma: that also stems from their serenity, from their sense of belonging, maybe from their sense of being at home that they were able to find here on Lunzenhof stud.

At the same time and due to their horses, the Friedmanns are part of a globalised world of friendhips, of contacts, of a network of people from different cultures all of which have one interest in common: to breed and to keep Arabian horses.