Arabian horse

Arabian thoroughbred horse

Arabian thoroughbred [1] is an ancient breed of riding horses, bred on the territory of the Arabian Peninsula in the 4th-7th centuries AD2

]. The horses are small, the height at the withers is on average 153.4 cm for stallions, for mares - 150.6 cm. The girth of the chest for stallions is 178.9 cm, for mares - 172.9 cm. , in mares - 18.4 cm. An adult animal weighs up to 450 kg.

Characteristic features of the breed: correct, dense, dry build; in particular - a beautiful, square forehead, with a slightly concave bridge of the nose, a long curved neck, a rounded body, a long and straight croup with a high-set tail.Suits - mostly gray of all shades, often bay and red, less often black. Gray Arabian horses, for the most part, acquire “buckwheat” with age - small dark spots on the coat throughout the body [3]. Sometimes there is a piebald color like "sabino", which the World Arabian Horse Organization traditionally registers as a roan. Very rare is a silver-bay suit, which in the past was mistaken for a playful one.

The modern Arabian horse has a small head with a concave profile and large bulging eyes, a high neck with a slight swan-like curve. The back is of medium length, the chest is wide and deep. The limbs are well developed, very strong, also very strong hooves. A special difference between the Arabian horse and other breeds - in addition to the concave head and large eyes - is the so-called "cock" tail, which the horse raises high with any kind of fast gait.

The Arabian horse is a long-lived domestic horse breed. Many of the representatives of this breed live up to 30 years. Mares retain the ability to reproduce until old age and are distinguished by fertility.

Traditionally, four intrabreed types are distinguished in the purebred Arabian horse breed:

siglavi - medium-sized horses of a refined exterior, pedigree and elegant; the suit is mostly gray;

coheilan - massive horses with a strong constitution, broad-chested, hardy, and highly efficient; the suit is mostly bay or red;

Hadban - horses of strong constitution, characterized by high performance and simplicity of exterior.

not pedigree, but the largest horses in the breed, frisky, hardy horses and sports horses; the color is red or bay, less often gray;

coheilan-siglavi - a mixed type that combines elegant, dry forms of siglavi and the massiveness of coheilan; this type is also characterized by higher growth and high performance; suits - bay, gray, red.

In modern horse breeding, it is also customary to divide horses into types “according to specialization”: show type and race type.

Currently, the Arabian horse is very widespread in the world. To coordinate breeding work with this breed, the World Arab Horse Breeding Organization was created, uniting 60 countries.

History of the breed

In the formation of the breed, the constant wars of the Bedouin Arabs, who used these horses as military ones, played an important role. As a result of such specific selection, with excellent care and feeding in desert and semi-desert conditions, a medium-sized, tightly knit, thoroughbred horse appeared, very hardy and frisky at a gallop, with excellent movements in all gaits.

For a long time, Arabian horses were the most valuable wealth of local nomads. They were banned from sale to other lands, including Europe, under pain of death. Crossbreeding of Arabian horses with other breeds was forbidden, so the breed has been developing in purity for many centuries.

The first Arabian horses in Europe appeared during the Crusades. Despite their small stature (in those days, Arabian horses were somewhat smaller than modern ones), these horses were so frisky and beautiful that they immediately became improvers of many European breeds of horses - riding, draft and heavy trucks.

The breed has played a huge role in world horse breeding. With its use, Thoroughbred (Great Britain), Barbary (Morocco), Andalusian (Spain) and Lusitano (Portugal), Lippitan (Austria), Shagia (Hungary), Oryol trotter, Orlov-Rostopchinskaya, Streltsy (and on its basis - Terskaya) (Russia), as well as heavy draft breeds - Percheron and Boulogne (France).

The Arabian is one of the world's oldest man-made horse breeds.[5] It is believed that its progenitor was a local horse of the Arabian Peninsula, distinguished by its lightness and endurance. The first images of such horses found in caves on the Arabian Peninsula date back to the 2nd millennium BC. [6] Horses with delicate heads and high tails are found in the works of art of Ancient Egypt as early as the 16th century BC.

Some researchers of the Arabian horse breed suggested that it was descended from the equus caballus pumpelli, a separate subspecies of the horse. However, most scientists are sure that the “dry” eastern desert horses, the ancestors of the modern Arabian horse, descended from Equus ferus caballus, and the exterior features characteristic of the breed were formed under the influence of the environment. Recent genetic studies of mitochondrial DNA in Arabian horses of Polish and American origin suggest that the modern breed has a heterogeneous origin with ten haplogroups. The modern concept of breed purity in the modern population is not traceable beyond 200 years.

There are different opinions about where the ancestors of modern Arabian horses originally lived. Most scholars assume that the "proto-Arab" came from an area along the northern edge of the Fertile Crescent. This theory is supported by the fact that ancient household items with the image of horses were found on the territory of the Fertile Crescent, while on the Arabian Peninsula they date back no earlier than 1800-2000 BC. Other scholars believe that the homeland of the Arabian horse is the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula in the territory of modern Yemen, where at that time there were good natural pastures. This hypothesis has again attracted attention after the discovery in Al-Magar in southwestern Saudi Arabia in 2010, artifacts with images of horses dated between 6590 and 7250 BC. e.

Arabian horse in "native costume", used both in the exhibition and in the competition

But in the end, it was the climate and the Bedouin nomadic culture that created the Arabian horse. Desert horses required endurance and unpretentiousness, the ability to withstand the conditions of arid deserts with extreme daily temperature changes. During military campaigns, where there was no pasture or water, the Bedouins fed their horses with dates and camel milk.

The life of the Bedouins depended on camels and horses. The Arabian horse was brought up as a fighting comrade - frisky, hardy, smart. Since many raids required secrecy, mares were used in hostilities, as they were calmer, quieter and did not give out the positions of the fighters with their neighing. To avoid horse-stealing and to protect them from predators and bad weather, the Bedouins let the most valuable animals into their tents at night.

Origin of types

For centuries, the Bedouin have traced the origin of each horse through oral tradition. Horses of the purest blood were known as Asil, and crossbreeding with non-Asil horses was forbidden. Mares were the most valuable both for riding and for breeding, and the pedigrees of all horses were traced through the female line. The Bedouins did not believe in geldings, and stallions were considered too hard to train to be good war horses. Therefore, very high requirements were imposed on stallions in the selection. The purity of the pedigree was very important to the Bedouins. They believed in telegony, believing that if a mare ever happened to a stallion of "impure" blood, then the mare herself and all future offspring would be "polluted" by the stallion.

Over time, several types have developed in the breed, each of which has unique features and can be traced through the maternal line. According to the American Arabian Horse Breeders Association, there were originally five types in the breed: Keheilan, Seglavy, Abeyan, Hamdani, and Hadban. The propagandist and writer Karl Raswan, who has specialized in Arabian horses since the mid-20th century, believed that there were only three types: Kehilan, Seglavi and Muniki. However, recent studies of mitochondrial DNA suggest that modern Arabian horses, descended from mares of the same intrabreed type, may not actually have common maternal ancestors.

The first written pedigrees in the Near East to use the term "Arab horse" date back to 1330 AD.

Arabian horses in Russia and the USSR

In Russia, the Arabian horse first appeared under Ivan the Terrible. Under the influence of these horses, not only the famous breed of the Oryol trotter and the archery horses were created. Arabian horses had a great influence on the improvement of such breeds as the Don, Kabardian, Karabakh, Deliboz and others.

In the 19th century, the influx of Arabian horses into the country increased significantly. Stallions were used to improve riding breeds and obtain high-quality drill and hunting horses. By the middle of the century, there were already about 50 factories in the Russian Empire, where Arabian stallions were used.

At the end of the 19th century, Count S. A. Stroganov, who traveled a lot in the Middle East, founded a stud farm, for which he acquired a group of excellent horses. The Stroganov stud farm, located on the Caucasian Mineral Waters, became the basis for the Tersk stud farm, the flagship of the domestic Arab horse breeding.

In the 30s - 40s of the XX century, the stud farm was completed by acquiring breeding stock in European countries - France, England, Poland, Germany. These horses laid the foundation for the formation of the type of "Russian Arab" - a horse of exclusively pedigree, but at the same time distinguished by high performance. This was made possible by the fact that since the 1930s, all Arabian horses have been race trained and tested on racetracks in open prizes with half-blooded horses. Races for horses of the Arabian breed were singled out as a separate direction only in the 1960s.

A revolution in domestic Arab horse breeding was made by the stallion Aswan (Raafat) (Nazir - Yusriya), presented to N. S. Khrushchev by the President of Egypt G. A. Nasser for the help provided in the construction of the Aswan Dam. During the period of factory use, 249 foals were raised from Aswan - more than 70 of his daughters and 30 sons received breeding assignments. At international auctions, 150 descendants of Aswan were sold to foreign countries, and his descendants are used in breeding work on almost all continents of the planet.

In the 1960s, the export of Arabian horses began, and after the recognition of the Russian studbook in 1978 by the WOAC (World Arab Horse Breeding Organization, WAHO), the demand for the “Russian Arab” increased significantly. The two decades that followed were a golden period, bringing horses born in Russia world champion titles, victories at major race rallies and millions of dollars in auction sales. So, the bay stallion Pesnyar (Raid - Song), born in 1975. was sold in the USA for 1 million dollars, his half-brother Menes (Foray - Metropolis) born in 1977. was leased in the USA for an even higher amount - $ 2.4 million (both stallions are representatives of the Amurat line). Many Arabian horses born in the USSR were recognized as European and World Champions at exhibitions, and then successfully used in stud farms from the USA to the United Arab Emirates.

Today, Arabian horses are used in racing, distance horse races, as well as in amateur equestrian sports and riding.

Arabian horse racing can be seen at the Moscow, Pyatigorsk, Kazan, Krasnodar and Pavlovsk hippodromes. The main prizes are played at the Pyatigorsk hippodrome. Among them are the Grand All-Russian Prize (Derby) and the Grand Prize for three-year-old mares (OKS).

legends

Arabian horses are the subject of many myths and legends. According to one of them, after a long journey through the desert, Muhammad released his herd of horses so that they could quench their intense thirst at the oasis. However, before the horses reached the water, Muhammad urged them to return to him. And only five mares obeyed. Because they had shown loyalty by returning to their master, although they were very thirsty, Muhammad selected them for breeding work. These five mares, Al-Hamsa (Arabic for "five") became the legendary founders of the five "types" of the Arabian horse. And although the Al-Hamsa are considered fictional horses, some breeders today claim that the modern Bedouin Arab really descended from these mares.

Another story says that King Solomon gave the people of Banu Azd the stallion Zad el Raheb or Zad el Raqib ("Gift to the Rider") when they came to pay tribute to the king. This legendary stallion was said to be faster than zebra and gazelle, and every hunt with him was a success. Therefore, he became the legendary founder of the breed.

Another myth points to the emergence of the Arabian breed during the time of Ishmael, the son of Abraham.[28] In this story, the Angel Jibril (also known as Gabriel) descended from heaven and woke Ishmael with a whirlwind. The Angel then ordered the storm cloud to stop scattering dust and rain, and so it turned into a hopping beautiful creature - a horse - that seemed to be swallowing the earth. And the Bedouins awarded the first Arabian horse the title "Drinking Wind".

The story told by the Bedouins is that Allah created the Arabian horse from the south wind.