Akhal-Teke Society of America

To Preserve, Promote and Protect

 

 

A Short History of the Akhal-Teke Horse

 

 

One of the only remaining pure and unique breeds of the world is the Akhal-Teke.  The Akhal-Teke is the most distinct strain of the ancient race of horses known as the Turcoman or Turkmene.  The Turkmene horse has been known by many names, including the Massagetae, the Bactrian, the Parthian, the Nisean and the Persian.  Both physical and written evidence points to horses very similar to today’s Akhal-Teke dating back to 2400 BC.  Poets and historians have written of these horses over the millennia, praising their elegance, strength, stamina and beauty.  In 101 BC the Han Chinese under Wu-Ti were so impressed by the ‘heavenly blood-sweating horses’, that they tried to buy a stallion for a horse statue made of pure gold.  When this offer was rejected, they sent an army of 80,000 into ancient Turkmenistan and came home with 30 purebred horses and less than 3000 partbreds. When Marco Polo traveled the Silk Road through what is now Turkmenistan on his way to Cathay, he wrote of ‘good Turcoman horses” in his famous “Travels.” Alexander the Great captured hundreds, if not thousands of these horses during his campaigns in Central Asia.  His famous horse Bucephelos is said to have been a Turcoman. Five successive empires, the Scythian, Parthian, Ywati, Hun and Turkmen, invaded the area, laying waste to everything before them, and taking horses as spoils of war.

The modern representative of these ancient horses takes its name from the “Akhal” oasis, nestled in the foothills of the Kopet Dag mountains (once part of the Persian Empire and now Turkmenistan) and “Teke” after the Turkmen tribe who inhabited the oasis. Located in Southern Turkmenistan, away from the trade routes, the Akhal oasis is in an area that was not subjected to continual conquest or occupation.  This isolation, along with the great pride the Teke tribesmen took in the purity of their horses has produced a breed of ancient lineage and great purity.

The history of the Akhal-Teke is tied to the wars that swept through their homeland, time and time again.  Mongol invasions in the time of Genghis Khan divided the Turkmen into small clans and pushed them into the deserts, northward to the plains of Kazakhstan or eastward to the shores of the Caspian Sea.  They took their horses with them into the deserts, treating them as part of the family and developing a specific regime of care, including blanketing with many layers of felts, which not only protected the horse from the biting cold and stinging flies, but also was said to increase the metallic shine of the horse’s coat.  It has been hypothesized that the metallic golden glow would help the horses disappear into the treeless steppes. 

Besides utilizing the horses in wars, they were often useful to the nomads in their attacks on caravans coming from Bukhara or Samarkand on their way to India.  Because the life of these ‘robber knights’ depended on the speed and endurance of their horses, special attention was paid to their training and preparation.  In his book, “Travels through Turkmenia and China: the Russian Muravjew (1820) wrote about the performance and endurance of the Akhal-Teke horse; “It is hard to imagine what these horses can endure.  In eight days, they cover about 143 German miles through waterless, bare deserts, eating only small quantities of millet and sometimes going without water four days in a row”.

At one point, there were estimated to be over 100,000 Turkmene horses in Central Asia.  Wars, famines and selling horses to other countries brought their numbers down to dangerously low levels.  Horse-breeders across Asia and Europe prized the Turcoman horse for cross-breeding.  It is said that Byerly Turk, one of the founding stallions of the TB breed, was captured in battle and was most likely an Akhal-Teke, and that Darley Arabian was of the Muniqi strain of Arabians that had Turcoman blood in them. Horses taken to Europe from Central Asia were usually called ‘Arabian’, no matter if they were Akhal-Teke, Barb or Arab.  Over 200 purebred Akhal-Teke stallions were used to develop the thoroughbred in the 18^th and 19^th century.  The Akhal-Teke stallion, Turkmen Atti, bred more than 200 mares at the Trakhenen stud beginning in 1791, which then influenced many warmblood breeds.  The stallion Merw ended up in Ireland, influencing the large Irish breeds.

In the 19^th Century, the Turkmen were one of the last ethnic groups to absorbed into the Russian empire. Before the Russian revolution of 1917, most Turkmen families owned at least one horse.  They depended on their horses for transport, battle and companionship.  The horses were tethered to the family tent, hand-fed, and blanketed with layers of felt, summer and winter.  On top of that, a stiff saddle, pillow and silken cover were added.  Then the horse would be decorated with necklaces and breast collars made of semi-precious stones and metals, some of which were considered to protect horse and rider from evil spirits. 

While some Turkmen welcomed the Russians, others did not.  The battle of Geok-Tepe broke the Turkmen tribes though, as General Grodekoff, who conducted the war against the Teke tribe said “if we can only capture the best stallions and mares from the Tekes, they would no longer be dangerous”.  After Turkmenistan joined Russia, the numbers of Akhal-Tekes dwindled again, between horses killed in wars and horses being sold out of the country by people needing income.  Russia gathered up many of the remaining purebred Akhal-Tekes and started 2 State Studs, and started keeping written records, as there was only oral tradition before this time.

The Russians conducted an experiment in the early 20^th century, crossing Akhal-Tekes and Thoroughbreds, with the idea of increasing the horse’s size and racing speed.  This experiment was a failure, with the crossbreds less hardy than the purebred Akhal-Tekes.  This was demonstrated most convincingly by the famous 1935 ride from Ashkhabad to Moscow a distance of 4330 km (2600 miles). Twenty-eight riders, riding Akhal-Tekes, the related Yomud breed and Anglo-Teke crosses, covered a broad range of terrain, including a severe three day 360km (215 miles) test under the sun of the scorching Kara Kum desert. From the desert, which though stressful, was familiar terrain, they then rode through mosquito infested swamps, over rugged stony footing, through heavy rain and huge forests. Eighty-four days later they arrived in Moscow. The  purebred Akhal-Tekes, notably the stallions Arab and Alsakar, arrived in significantly better condition than the Anglo-Teke crosses, impressive evidence for the superiority of the purebred Akhal-Teke for hardiness and endurance.

Arab subsequently proved his exceptional talent in eventing and jumping, as well as prepotency as a breeding stallion. His son, Absent, at the tender (for dressage horses) age of eight, won the gold medal in individual dressage under Sergei Filatov at the 1960 Rome Olympics with an astounding score of 82.4%. Absent went on to a bronze individual medal (again with Filatov) in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and in 1968, under Ivan Kalita, was a member of the gold medal Soviet Team in Mexico. Absent was also named “Horse of the World” by the Association of Equestrian Journalists. After his retirement, he was sent to stud and we are fortunate to have some of his descendants in the US.

Akhal-Tekes were competing in other sporting events from this time on, but the numbers of this lovely breed were still very low. It was estimated that there were only about 3000 purebred horses in the world at this time. Breeders from all over Europe and Asia were starting stud farms, from Uzbekistan to Germany.

Russia started the Russian Institute of Horse breeding, and in 1941, the first written Akhal-Teke studbook was issued.  Beginning in 1973, blood-typing was instituted.  The Stud book of pureblood Akhal-Teke horses is a closed stud book, meaning that to be considered a purebred Akhal-Teke, the horse’s dam and sire must be in a previous Stud book. At this time, Dr. Tatyana Ryabova took over all AT studbooks at the Horse breeding Institute of Russia and instituted many improvements, including setting up methods for selecting breeding stallions.

But the breed’s tie to the Turkmen people was still very real – in 1988, Geldi Kiarizov, a Turkmen horse-breeder, recreated the 1935 ride from Ashkhabad to Moscow to revive private interest in breeding these horses.  Up to that point, private individuals were not allowed to own more than one horse and many people had turned their horses into the desert instead of following Russian directives to deliver horses to meat factories.  Some Turkmen people voted with their feet, crossing the borders into Iran and Iraq with their prized horses.  When Turkmenistan became an independent state from Russia in 1991, the Akhal-Teke horse was instituted as a national symbol.

In 1979, the first Akhal-Teke Stallion was imported into the United States by Phil and Margot Case, and today there are about 400 purebred horses in North America with more being imported and born here each year.  Akhal-Tekes compete in dressage, endurance, competitive trail, jumping, eventing and western events and each year we see more horses imported and more people getting involved with this rare and ancient breed.