The elegance of the Boulogne horse comes from the Arab blood which was reinjected at different times in this very old breed. The Boulogne horses were renowned for their speed under the reign of Henry IV, as they demonstrated during the St Omer races in 1589.

Their eyes are wide and lively, their ears are straight and pointed, their mane is double, their coat is thin and silky. Their croup is voluminous, round and muscular, with a bushy high tail ; their breast is broad, their back is rather short, their cannonbones are short, thick, dry and almost without hairs, their joints are broad and heavy ; whilst trotting, the horse is balancing with a leaning shoulder and a good positioning of the neck, keeping its head up.

From its draught horse counterparts, it has inherited a gentle and frank character and from its arab origin, its paces are sharp.

Traditionaly, the Boulogne horses, as most draught horses, were “caudectomisés” : one cut the last caudal vertebra of the foal, the tail. Fortunately, this practice has been prohibited since 1996. The Boulogne horse is big and strong, shaped during the XIXth century for the work of beet fields and the transport of beets. Some smaller and lighter Boulogne horses can be found, heirs of the fish wholesaler mares which were very much appreciated until the end of the XIXth century for the transport of fish from the Channel ports to Paris. The Boulogne horse is still marked with an anchor on the left part of its neck in order to remind us of its maritime origin.

With these two types of horses, broken for two different uses, the morphological standard varies from 1,60 to 1,78 m in size, and from 650 kg to 900 kg in weight.

At the end of the XVIIIth century, the coats most commonly found were black and dark bay. One century later, grey was considered as a criteria for thoroughbred horses. As a result, grey is the most commonly found coat today but 12% of mares are chestnut. Some also have a very dark bay coat, almost black.

All foals are born chestnut. This coat may then turn to grey with all its shades, from light grey to dark dapple-grey, blue dapple-grey, roan grey, metal grey, mouse grey, etc. Later grey turns very often to pearlescent white and slightly blue-tinged.