East Prussian Trakehner Breeders and Friends Association – Trakehner Association of Poland (“Związek Hodowców i Przyjaciół Wschodniopruskiego Konia Pochodzenia Trakeńskiego – Związek Trakeński w Polsce”) was established in 1993. This long name reflected complexity of problems its founders faced at the time. The first years of what is today known as the Polish Trakehner Association (PTA) were not very effective. The only remarkable fact from that period was signing an agreement with Trakehner Verband.
Turning point came in at the end of 1999 when a group of breeders took more active role in this organization. That has resulted with significant changes in the board and it’s articles of association. The number of members started to grow rapidly and number of horses they owned amounted to roughly 200. PTA became a corporate member of the Polish Horse Breeding Association on April 12th, 2000. At the same time PTA applied to the Ministry of Agriculture for permission to set up and to maintain Trakehner Stud Book that would be considered as an official recognition to the Trakehner horses as a separate breed. The Ministry initiated evaluation of this application on July 2000, while PTA without any delay already started to run number of activities related to the good breeding practice as pedigree verification, hot branding, annual horse reviews, performance tests and championships. PTA organized it’s information boots at every significant horse sport event and sponsored number of Trakehner horses at sport. Editorial activity resulted with “Biuletyn Trakeński” and later on with quarterly paper “Trakeny” that already has eight issues. Relations with Trakehner Verband were settled up with a new contract renegotiated at the end of 2001. From that moment PTA can be considered as a sister organization in the global family of Trakehners. PTA maintains a close relationships with Horse Breeding and Riding Faculty at the Warmińsko-Mazurski University. Relationships have been formalized with a co-operation agreement signed on March 2005.
Year 2005 one can considered as a milestone on the way of development of Polish Trakehner Association. Continuing efforts and struggles against numerous obstacles resulted with a final victory – granted permission from the Ministry of Agriculture to set up and to maintain Trakehner Stud Book. Permission issued on July 18th, 2005 turned out to be just the beginning of numerous additional bureaucracies, however important and necessary, as horse registry, passports, authorization for horse grading and professional education and authority to define a breeding program. All above has been granted by The Ministry on September 2006.
In 2006, The Polish Trakehner Association, in cooperation with Trakehner Association of Lithuania and supported by breeders from Estonia, Latvia, Russia and Belarus organized The East European Trakehner Championship. This event turned out to be a great success with more than one hundred foals, mares and stallions shown and many sold at auction following the championship.
In 2006 and 2007, the Polish Trakehner Association had an information booth at Trakehner Hengstmarkt in Neumünster, which was possible thanks to good cooperation with Trakehner Verband. It is worth underlining a successful presentation of Polish stallion Czar at the world show of sport stallions at Münster-Handorf. Since that time Polish stallions will be allowed to be demonstrated among German horses in Neumünster.
Since 2008 each mare that aspires to receive a breeding license needs to pass obligatory performance tests.