[5]: 115  It was bred to compete in show jumping, three-day eventing and dressage, but is also suitable as a general riding horse.

[3]: 309  Breeding was based principally on cross-breeding of Hanoverian, Thoroughbred and Trakehner stallions with mares of local or of Hungarian Furioso, Gidran Arab or Nonius stock, but also incorporated the last bloodlines of the extinct Orlov-Rostopchin or Russian Saddle Horse.

[2] The breed received the official approval of the State Committee for Food and Procurement of the Council of Ministers of the USSR in 1990,[7] not long before the break-up of the Soviet Union and the independence of Ukraine.

This represented about 23% of the total purebred horse population of the country, and was slightly lower than the numbers of the Russian Trotter, the most numerous breed.

[3]: 310 [6]: 250 The Ukrainian Riding Horse has been bred to compete in show jumping, three-day eventing and dressage.