Heck Horse

The Heck horse is a horse of the family Equidae of the horse genus Equus Equus caballus or a domestic horse breed, one of which was set up to restore the populations of the wild tarpan.

This breed of horse led the German zoologists Luts and Hein Hake to realize the Tarpan breed rehabilitation program. Wildlife biologists began their work in the beginning of 1930. They biologists were convinced that every species has evolved as a genetic “puzzle”, and to restore the historical version of the puzzle one needs to rearrange the pieces.

They also believed that the genetic material required to restore the breed can be found among living individuals, so all they needed was to find the breed where most of the extinct genetic material was in.

The Tarpan link was found existing in many horse breeds, and genetic counterparts were discovered by the brothers Hake in selcted individuals of Icelandic horse types, the Swedish island of Gotland ponies, the konik Polish and Polish primitive horses, which lived in the Mitinajas Belovezas Woodland Reserve.

Mares from these varieties were selected and bred to the Przewalski horse stallions. The brothers Hake believed that the breed in the blood of these horses would “awaken” the wild Tarpan genes required rediscover the wild horse’s genes.

To begin with the Przewalski horse influence was too strong, but the 1960 the early zoological team managed to achieve their goals, and the new breed of horse given the name of “Heck horse” developed with the skeleton structure and colour with a strong similarity to the extinct Tarpan conformation.

The Hake brothers succeeded in obtaining only one specific Tarpan characteristic, the standing upright mane.

The first of the program Tarpan horses was a colt of the Hake line born on the 22nd May 1933 in the Hellabrunn Zoo in Munich, Germany.