Horse Groups – Warmblood, Coldblood, Hot Blood

The three general categories of horses are warmblood, coldblood and hot blood. Each of the hundreds of different horse breeds fits into one of these categories.

The breeds making up the cold blood category originated mainly from Europe, where they were the result of breeding programs to produce horses that could work long hours each day, doing heavy work such as pulling plows, barges or carts. For these tasks there was little need for speed but they were required to have both strength and endurance. Consequently, these breeds developed with large muscular bodies, heavy bone structures and big joints. They also were bred to have a quiet and obedient nature, so that they would obey commands and work long hours without complaint and without risk of them spooking and running off. To deal with the cold winters, they had heavy coats and manes.

The hot bloods are from warmer climates, in particular the middle-east, where they were bred for racing and riding. They have much lighter bodies, legs and joints than the cold bloods, as they are build for speed and distance rather than for raw power. Having been developed in warm regions, they have relatively short coats, manes and tail hair so that they can shed heat better. For the same reason, they have lots of blood vessels near the surface of the skin, to improve heat dissipation. All of these factors support their speed and racing success. Likewise, they are spirited horses with a desire to run, the very opposite of the calm and docile temperament of cold bloods. The Arabian and the Thoroughbred are classic hot blood breeds.

The warm blood breeds (also known as warmbloods) are between the hot and cold bloods both physically and in terms of their nature. In fact, many of the warmblood breeds are the result of mating hot bloods and cold bloods to develop a new breed with the positive characteristics of both. Their build is athletic, providing both speed and endurance, but without the power of a cold breed or the pure speed of a hot blood. They have a calm nature and are generally intelligent, making they easily trainable for sports such as show jumping and dressage. Although bred for a variety of duties in the past (such as war horses and carriage horses), today they are mainly used for sport and pleasure riding. The Friesian and Hanoverian are examples of warm breeds.

All horses have the same normal temperature (38C) so the terms cold, warm and hot have nothing to do with temperature. Rather, it refers to the body type (build for power, sport or speed), the personality (docile, calm or spirited) and their origin (cold, warm or hot climate).

All breeds are bred for certain characteristics, but the desired objectives tend to change over time, with the result that the breeding direction changes as well. As an example, the Oldenburg warmblood was bred in the late’00s to be an elegant carriage horse, in the early’00s the direction changed to be a farm and artillery horse, and in modern years to be a sport horse. Consequently, the breeds have changed over time not only due to the success of breeding programs but also due to the changing direction of breeding programs. More generally, as the historical functions of horses have been taken over by machines (e.g. farm work by tractors, transport by cars), the breeding objectives have been more towards sports and pleasure riding. This change in the objectives and use of individual breeds has resulted in a parallel gradual evolution of the three categories of warm, cold and hot bloods.