Simply my favorite equine website
By Edouard Aldahdah
Posted on June 18th, 2010 in General
You really need to visit this website: http://www.akhalteke.info/. I am serious. Start with the introduction, and go through the history and purity chapters, then the rest. The ‘politics’ chapter is also interesting.
It has nothing to do with Arabians, but is instead about this famous other eastern horse, the Akhal Teke. Except that, unlike most websites on the Akhal Teke, it methodically and relentlessly deconstructs all the myths and folklore surrounding the origins of the Akhal Teke (e.g. that it is the oldest ‘pure’ breed in the world, that it is the horse of the Scythian tribes of 3000 B.C., that is was kept unmixed with foreign blood in remote desert areas, etc, etc). It tells you the REAL story of the breed, about how the breed was managed (or rather, mismanaged) by the Soviets, who cross-bred it with English Thoroughbreds, and kept valuables lines outside the formal Akhal Teke Studbook. It puts informed criticism and hard facts before romanticized mythology and brand marketing. It is simply impressive. It’s the most impressive bofy of information I have ever come across online, all horse breeds considered.
June 18th, 2010 8:42 pm
Superb website!
June 19th, 2010 9:51 pm
From Joe Achcar:
“”The peoples of the South, the Arabians, appreciated the horses of central asia as well. Arabia was not remarked for its horse-breeding during the graeco-persian wars. Neither Straton (1st century A.C.), nor Vegetius (4th century A.C.) mentioned arabian horses, though they wrote in detail about the horse breeds of other countries. It is proven that Mohammed’s army was mounted on camels. There were but few horses, spoils of war themselves. The Koran names the camel, the mule, the donkey of the Prophet, it does not name a horse.”"
Therer is some errors in this statement:
–If Straton or Vegetius did not mentionned Arabian Horses,Pline the Young.(Pline le Jeune) Rome’s miltary governor in Syria 89 AC (Tribun Militaire de Rome en Syrie 89 apres JC) mention:
“Arabs are warriors and they cant be catch due to their fast horses” (les Arabes sont des guerriers et personne ne peut les rattraper ceci a cause de la raspidite de leurs chevaux).
– According to Raswan, ancient books mentions the Phoenicians trading horses trough their establishments around the Mediterranean sea
–the Holy Koran do name the Prophet horses ,the most famous were “Al Ward” and “al Lazzaz” who was a gift from the Christian Patriach of Egypt together with “Maria” a Christian women who gave the Prophet “Ibrahim” his only son.
– Bukhari, Volume 3, Book 40, Number 559:
Narrated Abu Huraira:
Allah’s Apostle said, “Keeping horses may be a source of reward to some
(man), a shelter to another (i.e. means of earning one’s living), or a
burdento a third.
He to whom the horse will be a source of reward is the one who
keeps it in Allah’s Cause (prepare it for holy battles) and ties it by a
long rope in a pasture (or a garden). He will get a reward equal to what its long
rope allows it to eat in the pasture or the garden, and if that horse
breaks its rope and crosses one or two hills, then all its foot-steps and
its dung will be counted as good deeds for its owner; and if it passes by a
river and drinks from it, then that will also be regarded as a good deed for
its owner even if he has had no intention of watering it then.
Horses are a shelter from poverty to the second person who keeps horses for
earning his living so as not to ask others, and at the same time he gives
Allah’s right (i.e. Zakat, from the wealth he earns through using them in
trading etc.,) and does not overburden them.
He who keeps horses just out of pride and for showing off and as a means of harming the Muslims, his horses
will be a source of sins to him.” When Allah’s Apostle was asked about
donkeys, he replied, “Nothing particular was revealed to me regarding
donkeys.”
June 20th, 2010 7:10 pm
Would love to have Michael B’s comments on the genetic information shown on that website (under the Genetics section, the subsection “Breeding Schemes”
The site is fascinating. Wish there were references shown for some of the statements.
Anita
June 21st, 2010 9:12 pm
” The Arabian Thoroughbred has been found to be a hybrid of Caspian and Turkoman.”, which they say is a conclusion based on genetic markers from the Turks showing up in Arabians.. I think not. Because the website doesn’t tell us how the genetic samples tested by Dr. Cothrans were obtained, or where they were obtained. For example which Arabian lines were reviewed? Were they from Skowronek line horses which were recently reaffirmed to have non arabs in the dam line? Or were they from Russian Arabs bred at Tersk? Or were the samples from Davenports or Saudi line horses bred by Edie Booth? This reminds me of the ,” Research Report,” on the purity of the polish Arabs in which the scientists compared Polish Arabian genetic samples
with so called ,”purebred”, genetic samples. The problem here also is that the scientists don’t tell you where the Polish genetic samples were obtained, or where they got their ,” asil,” or Al Khamsa genetic samples. So once again if the reports don’t mention sources they arean’t valid. In this instance they don’t mention if their conclusions werebased on WAHO horses or Asil, or Al Khamsa stock. So there really isn’t a valid conclusion..
The problem i have with all of these ,’ this is the worlds oldest breed,” breed associations” is that they take any of several breeds descended from the proto hot blood- type 4 horse, find some genetic markers and then claim that eureka our Turkman, or Caspian, or Kiger Mustang, or Andalusion or WAHO Arab, is the oldest breed of horse in the world. What most of this genetic marker business means is that many of these breeds had common root anscestor stock, and that these breeds were then bred away from that common root stock to create the breed being discussed. For example Andalusions and Kiger mustangs reputedly have the same number 2 locus, IIRC. It is known that both descend from the old Spanish Jennet. Hence they are related- think cousins with common grandparents- but are both equally distant from those grandparents so are certainly seperate and distinct breeds.
As for Turkman genetic markers showing up in Arabians- what a wonderful affirmation of Raswans Muniqi theory.
Best wishes
Bruce Peek
June 21st, 2010 10:44 pm
Here is another web site on the Turkoman horses. It was highly controversial in its day within the Akhal Teke community.
June 21st, 2010 10:46 pm
Well, sorry ’bout that, but here’s the website I forgot to include:
http://www.turanianhorse.org/
June 22nd, 2010 3:23 am
We respect Dr Cothrans and the late Mrs. Louise Ferouz, findings (Mrs Ferouz is an American who studied at the American University of Beirut) were she met her Iranian husband, even if don’t agree with their conclusions: That the Arab is a mix of Turcoman and Caspian.For the time being,we are still waiting for the presence of Caspian horse blood in Arab horses.
As for Turkmen genetic markers showing up in Arabians, I think that the contrary is also true ;History tell us that Persian Emperors use to bring Arab stallions to improve the Turkmen horses (As I’m at my farm in Damascus ,I cant give the name of the famous Persian Emperor ,as soon I go at my Beirut home I will post the name).
I don’t deny either the presence of Turkmen blood in some Arab horses, I know that this will shock a lot of you, but we must not hide our head in the sand.
There was other breeds of horses than the Arabian in Syria and Mesopotamia
–Louis Damoiseau the French veterinary of the de Portes mission to buy Arab stallions in1819/1820 noticed the presence near Aleppo of Turcoman tribes and Turcoman horses called “Tchoukour Ova” .He wrote also of “Barak Arab horses”?
– The “Shimali” or Northern horses: these are the stock which existed in Al Jazira before the coming of the Nejdian Bedouins hordes Aneze (Amarat) and Shammar starting the second half of the 17th century, it is very possible that these horses (who still exist in Syria) have Turkmen blood. the winners of 160 km and 120km endurance races in Syria today are often “Shimali” horses.
–The Mesopotamia now known as Syrian and Iraqi Al Jezira, were the road to Damascus ,the city were the Hajj caravan started each year to join the Holy city of Mecca, or the road to the merchants gate of the Orient the city of Aleppo.
Travelers ,Merchants from Persia use to cross Mesopotamia and the Syrian Badia to join these two cities ,a lot of them mounted on Turcoman horses. Major General Tweedie mentions them as a mixed of Arabs and Turcoman (I will post later the name from Beirut) but I think it is “Armajak”.
We can imagine different scenarios for the presence of Turcoman blood in Arab horses ,discarding the ridiculous Raswan Muniqi theory.
The war mare of the Bedouins was the main goal of producing pure bred horses These mares had to be able to protect their owner from a raid (Gazu) or to enable him to raid other tribes. These horses (mares) had to have the known Arab horse qualities.
And if these qualities could be found in an other breed? As far as we know the Turcoman horse have the same qualities that a Bedouin was looking for in his war mare.
We can imagine a Bedouin, who had lost his Arab mare buying a Turcoman mare and use her to raid ,mate her by an Arab stallion and use her daughter for the same purpose. It is just a scenario but it could have happened.
Here we enter in the world of “Hajeen” horses mentioned by Edouard, these horses the product of an Arab stallion with a Persian mare, Turkmenistan was then part of the Persian Empire. According to the Bedu, in ancient writings, these horses where some times more beautiful than a pure Arab ,the contrary (Turkmen stallion mated with an Arab mare was not accepted and called “Mukrif” or disgusting.
Here one should remember General Mikhail el Haddad words in his book on his journey in Iraq 1902/3 to buy horses for the famed Babolna Stud.” I saw nearly 450 horses at the Shammar, which 50 only are pure”.
Naïve Westerners buyers could have be easily fooled by these “Hajeen” horses and brought them back as Pure Arabs.Maybe the descendents of these horses were used for testing by Dr Cothrans and Mrs. Ferouz?
All the best
June 23rd, 2010 11:13 am
Yes Joe, ” Maybe the descendents of these horses were used for testing by Dr Cothrans and Mrs. Ferouz?”. Thats exactly it. I would be much more inclined to accept the reported findings that the Turkomans are anscestral to Asil Arabs, if we knew whether or not the samples were from blue star stock or whether or not they came from
WAHO horses, which we know for certain had Persian and Turkish blood from the Polish and other Eastern European stud farms. To be very clear, I am not saying that babolnas purebreds were not Asil. We know for sure that under General Haddad and his sucessors great efforts were made to ensure a nucleus of Asil horses were maintaned for purposes of top crossing into the shagyas in order to preserve Arabian soundness, intelligence and thriftyness. For purposes of clear discussion I say that if you compare any sample of genetic material from sources
that were known to have been crossed with Persian and Turkish horses with other samples who may be more distantly related to crossbreds, the Persian and Turkish genetic material will still be there. It is only by comparing Blue Stars for example, with the WAHO samples, and the Persian and Turkoman samples that you will find out if there are genetic markers from the Turkomans present in Asil stock.
To put it another way, an informed observer of breeding trends in both WAHO and Asil stock, would upon learning of Dr. Cothrans work reply, of course there are Turkoman genetic markers in Waho horses, numerous Polish,” Arabians,” are descended from Tarpan, Turkoman, and Thoroughbred horses, in addition to being top crossed to Arab stallions. What we need to do clear things up is to find out if Dr. Cothrans samples were drawn from Blue stars, and to see if his findings can be replicated by other labs. Because until those steps are taken we don’t know for sure.
Best wishes
Bruce Peek
June 23rd, 2010 1:08 pm
I’m still not convinced how much these “breed-specific” markers can actually tell us. To quote from replies to an earlier entry on this blog:
Ambar said:
janvier 27th, 2010 %H:%M
Considering the amount of Arabian topcrossing that was used to create the English Thoroughbred, any similarity at the DNA level between the two breeds is already explained, and cannot support an investigation of alleged historic « contamination » of the Arabian line.
R.J. Cadranell said:
janvier 28th, 2010 %H:%M
Yes Ambar, good point. I’ll make one more point: assuming you could identify a marker that seemed to be unique to Thoroughbreds and Thoroughbred crosses, you would have no way of knowing whether it was originally an Arabian marker that went extinct in the Middle East but was preserved in the Thoroughbred breed.
These remarks referred to Thoroughbreds, but couldn’t they just as easily apply to any other breed that had crosses to Arabians, or to breeds that share common ancestors with Arabians?
June 23rd, 2010 1:30 pm
Well not really. Just got off the phone with Dr. Cothrans. He said that while the study he did of Blue Stars compared to other breeds was performed some years ago he did not recall any Akhal Teke markers showing up in the Blue Star sample. Cothrans also said that its extremely difficult to tell where specific genetic markers came from in horses which share descent from common anscestors. So for example if Thoroughbreds were crossed into Akhal Tekes which we know they were the Thoroughbred with its genetic constituents, including at least some Arabian, would of course show up.
Also Cothrans said one of his PHD students from Syria is one year into a three year study of several strains of Arabians looking for similarities and differences between them. This should be a truly definitive study which I would think would be able to answer many of the questions we have had about what happened to the various horses that were exported from Arabia.
Best wishes
Bruce Peek
June 23rd, 2010 1:55 pm
Thanks, Bruce!
“…its extremely difficult to tell where specific genetic markers came from in horses which share descent from common anscestors. So for example if Thoroughbreds were crossed into Akhal Tekes which we know they were the Thoroughbred with its genetic constituents, including at least some Arabian, would of course show up.”
Is pretty much what I was talking about. Sorry if I was being unclear.
The Syrian student’s project sounds very interesting! Is this the one for which a large number of samples have recently been collected from Arabians in the U.S.(and probably other countries)?
June 23rd, 2010 2:03 pm
Sorry to go off on a tangent!
The parts about the Arabian horse on this Akhal-Teke website are minor.
Even if you are not particularly interested in Tekes, the A-T blog has a wealth of information and much food for thought. Many of the issues that have affected, and continue to affect, the A-Ts, are similar to ones in the Arabian. I also urge you to check it out.
June 23rd, 2010 3:11 pm
Joe,
that persian Emperor was Nadir Shah – I think.
László
June 23rd, 2010 3:48 pm
Jenny- I’m not sure if the samples recently gathered are for the Syrian students project or not. Cothrans did say that not just U.S. Arabians are contributing samples. This is what makes this kind of exciting news.
Laszlo: Are you referring to the Persian Emperor whose bodyguard was mounted on Akhal Tekes which were subsequently crossed into the Arabian gene pool?
Best wishes
Bruce Peek
June 23rd, 2010 7:09 pm
Dear Bruce
you wrote ” if we knew whether or not the samples were from blue star stock or whether or not they came from
WAHO horses, which we know for certain had Persian and Turkish blood from the Polish and other Eastern European stud farms.”
No my friend I was not thinking about Polish horses and that some of them have the blood of “Zboj” a Turkoman stallion trough his daughter “Persja”.
I was thinking about horses that some people believe that they are “Asil” or Blue Star or what ever name you gave them.
No one can tell on the “look” if a horse is a pure Arabian or not.I have seen a lot of mixed Arabs in Lebanon race track having more “Arab” caracteristics than the pure ,dished face and carrying their tail very high ,Edouard should remeber seing these horses too.(one of them called “Sattam” belonging to our friend Counsellor Khamis)
So a lot of the “Asilness” of a horse was depending on the honesty of the guide and the translator (sometimes the Guide knowing the taste of the buyer for a certain strain used to send someone to inform the tribe to be visited of this so the seller gave the buyer the wanted
“Strain” )
Dont take the Bedouin for what they are not:
Selling a horse to an Arab townsman or a mare to a fellow Bedouin ,they dont lie about the origin of the horse.
But selling to a Christian European who is going to take the horse or the mare away,In that case my friend they are capable to lie on their mother origin.
Dont forget that until more or less the end(1880) of the 19th century Christians were forbiden to mount on horses in the Moslem word,so selling “mongrels” to them was “halal” or “Permitted”(if any one doubt about this just let me know,and I will post the proof.)
Until today some fanatic Moslem breeders are not very happy to see my horses winning the title of “Syrian National Champion” only because I’m a Christian Arab
Moreover the word “Asil” may not have the same signification for us today ,that it had 100 years,or more,ago.
i.e. In the Vol II of the Raswan Index there is 4 pages of photos of an Egyptian Pasha 1895 Herd Book,were the products of Arabian stallions and English mares were under “Asils” or in Arabic “Assayels”
On the other side Dr Olms President of the Asil Club and Mrs,Hansi Melnyck mmember of the Board of Directors of the same club believe firmly that “Ofir was the last Asil stallion in Poland” Mrs Melnyk stated this to me in a private communication.
This to show you my frieds how vague is the “Asil horse” concept
Best wishes to all from Damascus
June 23rd, 2010 8:34 pm
Dear Joe: Here is what I meant- Dr. Cothrans analysis of genetic material from Blue Star arabians here in the U.S. did not find genetic markers consistent with Akhal Teke horses. This can only mean that there was no Turkoman blood in the Blue Stars. However we do know according to the Akhal Teke website that some lines of arabs do indeed have Akhal Teke genetic markers. I for one would be inclined to think that the Polish lines, and some others from Eastern Europe would be the most suspect, simply because we do know that they did use ,” Oriental,” stallions, and mares that had been topcrossed with desertbred sires. This really is juris stasis- it is known, and has been scientifically confirmed.
An even more interesting question is how much scrutiny can the General List Arabians take. How much outsourced blood have show system and race breeders been sneaking into their horses to get their 15.3 to 16.1 hand horses. How about a genetic test of the U.S. nationals winner? After all the trend in U.S. show horses has been toward horses with weaker couplings, longer stilt like legs, and longer necks- resembling Saddlebreds, which do look a great deal like an Akhal Teke.
Best Wishes
Bruce Peek
June 23rd, 2010 10:02 pm
Dear Bruce
r the mare is not pure and he sale her or the mare is pure and it is very difficult to him to sale her because in that case he must have had so many partners in her that selling her was very very difficult.
you wrote,I quote
“How much outsourced blood have show system and race breeders been sneaking into their horses to get their 15.3 to 16.1 hand horses”
At the Syrian National Goverment Stud there is an Asil Kuheilan el Rabda stallion named “Shamel” (Basel x Shahnaz) measuring 1.64m .I know ,because when I take one mare to be mated by Shamel we measure him.
The question is :when a bedouin had a 1.60m mare does he sale her?
2 answers
June 23rd, 2010 10:32 pm
I would certainly like to see a lot more information about and peer review of any genetic work that says “these are breed markers for this breed.” Where genetic data is carried forward from thousands of years ago, to separate modern breeds on a few markers seems simplistic to me. I am not educated in genetics, but I just want to slow us down. In My Opinion.
June 23rd, 2010 11:22 pm
I think one of the things that Dr. Cothran discovered in his genetic work with the Blue Star horses years ago (I believe most of the samples were Sa’ud desertbred progeny) was that there are very few markers in these horses. All other `Arabs` had their markers but they did not have the many many markers represented in the other `Arabs` compared. There can be at least a couple of reasons for this…. and probably more possibilities than I could imagine with my small knowledge of genetics.
There are samples supplied to Dr. Cothran from all over the world. He never really produced a scientific article on the earlier research, and I don’t think there is anything to conclude about what they are doing right now… we have to wait for the conclusions to be drawn by the scientists. However, I hope there is going to be some very interesting information revealed about certain successful `racing` Arab lines.
June 23rd, 2010 11:26 pm
Thank you Bruce for the nice comment on AAS AL SAKB+/ riding in the mare pasture. I shared that with my son (the rider/ owner). He dearly loves that horse. Most of our foals in 2011 will be his; they have such pleasant dispositions…. he has produced too may colts for us already. We need his fillies.
June 23rd, 2010 11:42 pm
No Bruce, I would like to say only , our beloved Arabian horse was very important in the purification of the Turcoman breed. Nadir Shah was not the only – but He used them particularly- who bought the most beautiful Arabian horses for his breeding work…and naturally imported these horses into Persia.
We can read about it in Karl Wilhelm Ammon’s book,( “Pferdezucht der Araber”, Riegel und Wiesner,1834)and about the method, why used the persian breeders Arabian stallions in every third or fourth generations, too.
June 24th, 2010 5:41 am
Dear Bruce
” The Arabian Thoroughbred has been found to be a hybrid of Caspian and Turkoman.”,
I might accept the presence of Turkmen horses in any Arab horse Asil or not for the reasons I explained above. But where Dr Cothran found the Caspian horse blood?
Allow me to quote Major General Tweedie:
“One of the good deeds of Abbas I Shah of Persia whose dominions at his death (1628) stretched from the Tigris to the Indus,was to collect and distribute a large numbers of Arabian mares and stallions….
We have heard it stated by those who know “Turkmenia”that the best variety of the Turkmani horse,that known in Central Asia as the Argamak essentially is a modified Arabian.”
More
“A son of the historical Amir Dost Muhammad Khan of Cabul,resided till he died at Baghdad.He often told us that,according to his experience ,the Argamak is even a better traveler and campaigner than the Arabian”
(The Arabian at home)pages 273/274
I dont want to argue about the qualities of the Argamak horse,as I never saw one,but one cannot ignore such a statement,who may help us to understand why a Bedouin who just lost his war mare may have bought an Argamak mare from a traveller.Thus,her descendants sold to a naive European could explain the Turkmen blood.
June 24th, 2010 10:55 am
I’m sure the Argamak partbreds were at least one of the sources of AT blood showing up. Also of course as Edouard has recently mentioned there were most likely numerous Hajin, and Kadisch horses pawned off on naive europeans. And of course as you mentioned,” selling to a Christian European who is going to take the horse away, in that case my friend they are capable to lie on their mother origin.” Well what Dr. Cothrans research shows is that in some cases the Bedouins outsmarted themselves.
As for the Caspian blood, we do know that Arabians, Akhal Tekes, and Caspians all descend from the type 4 proto hotblood which evolved after the last ice age in the near east, and west central asia. And as Cothrans says its difficult to say exactly when genetic markers were added to a gene pool. But in the case of the Akhal Teke we do know precisely when their Toroughbred genes showed up due to the mismanagement of the breed by the Communists at Tersk in the days of the old Soviet Union.
Best wishes
Bruce Peek
November 29th, 2011 1:04 am
The Mu’niqi Type: Mu’niqi derives from the Arabian terms mi’niq or ma’naq for “long neck”. Here, long and angular body lines are the distinguishing mark. Mu’niqis are long and narrow with a long neck, a long and not always strongly coupled back, long limbs and a comparatively long and narrow, sometimes coarse head without any dish and with smaller eyes set higher in the forehead. Their withers are set higher, the root of the tail lower and the croup is sloping more. A long shoulder, a long humerus, a short cannon bone and onot overly strongly angled hind legs also belong to this type. As a reason for the development of this type, Raswan gives the explanation that from about 1630 on, some of the nomadic Bedouin tribes from the middle and the south of Arabia relocated their migrations into the areas to the west of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, getting into contact with the Turkomans living there. They had their mares covered with Turkmen stallions: the resulting horse were Arabians with a “racing horse conformation” who were only marginally similar to the “classical types”.