The Azteca Horse comes with many wonderful attributes, which make the people of Mexico proud to call it their National Horse. The Azteca Horse is a very obedient, lively, and happy horse. Many horse owners would find the Azteca Horse to be quite versatile and useful for many different things.
The Azteca Horse is a very able high performance horse and is able to perform very well in a variety of areas. The Azteca Horse does very well in alta escuela, haut ecole, or high school classical riding, doma vaquera, dressage, reining, la garrocha, bull fighting, cutting, cattle roping, working cowhorse, polo, team penning, driving, and just plain pleasure riding. With its massive amount of potential and ability, the Azteca Horse makes an excellent horse for those owners who are looking for just that, excellence.
The Azteca Horse should be 14.1 to 15.2 hands high for adult females and 14.2 to 15.3 hands high for adult males. Their coats should be only solid colors. All Azteca Horse heads should be lean and elegant. The area around the jaw in males is moderately more developed that that of the female.
Their necks should be narrower near the head but fairly wide at its base. The intelligence that this horse carries can be seen in their very expressive eyes. Their ears are fairly small and pricked. The tail set of an Azteca Horse is carried low, and both this and their mane should be flowing and long.
The Azteca Horse is the first breed to ever be developed in Mexico. The Andalusian Horse, the Quarter Horse and Criollo Horse were used in 1972 to begin the breeding of the Azteca. A gentleman named Don Antonio first began the long process of developing a National Horse for Mexico by crossing the Quarter Horse with the Andalusian Horse and then the Criollo Horse for the desired phenotypic characteristics.
The breed standards for the Azteca are a minimum 3/8 and a maximum 5/8 Quarter Horse or Andalusian blood and no more than 1/4 Criollo blood. On November 4, 1982 the Mexican Department of Agriculture officially registered the Azteca Horse as a recognized breed.