The Arenberg-Nordkirchen is in the highest-risk category of the Rote Liste (red list) of the Gesellschaft zur Erhaltung alter und gefährdeter Haustierrassen, the German national association for the conservation of historic and endangered domestic animal breeds.
From the early twentieth century ponies and small horses were imported, mostly from Great Britain, and some private individuals started breeding from them.
The Arenberg-Nordkirchen breed was started in 1923 by the then Duke of Arenberg as a semi-feral herd on his estates in Nordkirchen, near Münster in Westphalia.
In 1968 the entire herd was sold to a breeder from Nordkirchen, who introduced other pony and small horse blood to improve its riding-horse qualities.
In the 1980s the herd was broken up, and the horses sold in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia, where they became part of the regional German Riding Pony populations.