German horse industry

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The German horse industry with its upstream and downstream economic sectors is a very heterogeneous sector that moves in the border area of ​​the sports and leisure market, economy and love of animals. Overall, there is a mixture of economic and non-profit interests; Sports or association political factors also play a role, as do developments in the agricultural sector or discussions on animal protection. An overview of the most important structures is given below.

Framework data

Current, representative data on the German horse industry are hardly available. A study from 2001 provides figures that say that 1.6 to 1.7 million people in Germany at that time regularly practiced equestrian sports and almost 1.1 million more people would like to ride. The study also found a number of around 1.2 million horses and ponies in the Federal Republic. A study by the University of Göttingen shows the numbers of German riders and horse owners from the Allensbach market and advertising media analysis, according to which almost 4 million people over 14 years ride at least occasionally and 890,000 people own one or more horses. In 2011, around 840,000 horses were registered with the animal disease funds, which belonged to around 160,000 horse owners. It is not clear whether this number reflects the actual German horse population. Another study with the reference year 2015 assumes only 480,000 horses for Germany (estimate from various sources) out of a total of 7 million horses in the EU.

Horses as an economic factor

The 2001 survey shows that more than 300,000 people in Germany earn their living directly or indirectly through equestrian sport and that more than 10,000 German companies have horses as their main business. The total turnover in the industry is therefore over 5 billion euros per year. Every year a large number of trade fairs and other events relating to the horse theme take place in Germany, including the largest horse trade fair in the world, the Equitana , with more than 200,000 visitors.

Horse industry players

Equestrian sport and breeding

There are a variety of different disciplines and riding styles that can be summarized under the term equestrian sport. The Olympic disciplines, the medal table of which Germany leads, are called classic riding styles . Since the beginning of the change away from the military and purely sporty riding towards riding as a leisure activity in the 1960s, equestrian sport in Germany has become increasingly diverse, which is reflected in more and more new or imported riding styles and breeds from all over the world. The variety of riding styles causes, among other things, a spread of different methods of horse keeping and thus also a shift away from the originally strongly agricultural horse owner and breeder to horse owner / breeder without agricultural background. German warmblood breeding is still important worldwide today. Last but not least, state horse breeding studs in Germany help ensure that this tradition is preserved.

Operating forms

In the course of time, different forms of employment have developed around horse keeping and breeding. The most important here are boarding horses, breeding and rearing farms, riding schools, training stables and holiday businesses. In addition to private companies, there are non-profit associations that can also have the purpose of breeding or keeping horses and training horses and humans.

Association and club structures

Since the mid-1960s, more and more associations for different riding styles have been founded in Germany. In addition to the German Equestrian Association (FN), there is now the Association of Leisure Riders and Drivers in Germany (VFD) , the Erste Westernreiter Union Germany eV (EWU), the Icelandic Horse Riders and Breeders Association (IPZV) and the Association of German Endurance Riders and Drivers eV (VDD). Regional associations and local equestrian clubs are affiliated to these federal or umbrella associations. In horse breeding, there are also regional and breed-specific associations.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d I. Ikinger, C. Münch, K. Wiegand, A. Spiller: Reiterleben | Reiterwelten - Target groups between riding styles, motifs and the love of the horse ( Memento of the original from January 21, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 4.4 MB), publisher: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, HorseFuturePanel UG, Göttingen, Dietz & Consorten Agency for Good Communication, Hamburg 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / marktforschung-pferd.de
  2. ↑ a b c Facts & Figures . Website of the German Equestrian Association (FN) eV Accessed September 30, 2013.
  3. ↑ C. Ikinger, K. Wiegand, A. Spiller: Riders and horse owners in Germany. Discussion paper No. 1408 of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Göttingen. (PDF, 2.19 MB), Ed .: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, 2014.
  4. ↑ M. Näther, L. Theuvsen: Risk management in the horse business. ( Memento of the original from January 21, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 6.8 MB), 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rentenbank.de
  5. ↑ [1]
  6. ↑ C. Münch: The changing horse industry: target group developments using the example of horse breeding. In: Göttingen Horse Days `13. Conference proceedings. 2013.