[1][better source needed] The genetic foundation was based on French native mares, Iberian horses, English Thoroughbreds, Arabians, and Anglo-Arabians.

With the earliest records of the breed dating back to the 12th century (1100s), with some documents dating the origins of the breed to as early as 506 A.D.[2] and 1063 A.D.,[3][page needed] Limousin horses were bred during the Middle Ages and the era of the Angevin Empire (French: Espace Plantagenet) during the 12th-13th centuries, when the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Duchess of Aquitaine, and King Henry II of England, Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, brought Aquitaine under the control of the House of Plantagenet and England.

Horses were an important resource for the Duchy of Aquitaine for both military purposes and equestrian sports, and early Limousin horses served as mounts for Eleanor of Aquitaine[4][failed verification] and Aquitainian troops, as well as crusaders to the Holy Land.

[5][page needed][7]: 4–5 Once used in sports like fox hunting, as well as field hunter and show hunter disciplines, the Limousin horse was also an excellent riding mount, bred largely by French aristocrats, bourgeois, and the Pompadour National Stud Farm at Pompadour Castle in Arnac-Pompadour, Corrèze, France.

The head of the Limousin horse was described as "long, with a convex profile", and it had "strong and small feet" and "excellent agility", being used in light cavalry divisions, as well as in classical dressage.