There is a legend about the
Akhal-Teke horse breed that states that in 1956,
Nikita Khrushchev made
Queen Elizabeth a gift of the golden Akhal-Teke
stallion Melekush. Thinking that the horse had been polished to give it an unnatural shine,
grooms cleaned it off only to discover that
Melekush shone even more when clean.
Indeed, the Akhal-Teke is a
breed with a long history of being prized by
rulers. The first known evidence of the breed's existance is in
skeletal remains from the 24th century BC, which were found in
Turkmenistan. The breed first evolved to be light and quick to avoid the wolves which populated the
Turan Steppes, between the
Caspian Sea and the
Altai Mountains. The first known
breeders of the Akhal-Teke were the
Teke tribe,
nomads from Turkmenistan who roamed the desert with their horses as companions. They bred these horses to need little
food and water, and to have the speed to cross great stretches of
desert at a time. The horses first lived with the Teke at the
Akhal oasis in the
Kopet Dag Mountains.
The tumultuous early history of
Central Asia did not destroy these horses, but rather led to their being used as
cavalry and personal
steeds by leaders of the
Scythians,
Parthians,
Ywati,
Huns, and natives of Turkmenistan. They appreciated the Akhal-Teke's predisposition for fast travel with little food, as well as its loyal yet
suspicious nature developed over decades of living closely with nomadic families. The first recorded official name of the breed is the
Massaget, and it was also later known as the
Parthian,
Nisean,
Persian, and
Turkmene before being named the Akhal-Teke in the late 1800s.
The Akhal-Teke's modern fame is mostly a result of a strenuous test the breed was put through in
1935 to determine if it was suitable to be used as a
cavalry horse. Before this ride, many Akhal-Teke breeders were considering introducing
thoroughbred stallions into the Akhal
bloodline to improve its speed and
stamina. Twenty-eight riders, some on Akhal-Tekes, crossed the
Kara Kum desert and rode from
Ashkhabad to
Moscow, finishing the 2600-mile trek in 84 days. At the end of the ride the Akhal-Tekes were in much better shape than the horses of the two other breeds used, and they had subsisted with much less water. Because of this feat, the breed's purity in the modern day has been as strictly preserved as it once was in Turkmenistan.
Nowadays, the Akhal-Teke is a rare
breed, with perhaps 3000 horses worldwide, mostly in
Russia and
Turkmenistan with a few hundred in
Germany and the
United States. Official breed records have been kept since 1976 by the leading expert in the breed,
Tatyana Nikolaevna Ryabova. The horse competes frequently in
dressage,
eventing,
jumping,
reining, following
hounds, and
endurance trials, and horses of the Akhal-Teke breed have won prestigious awards in many of these categories. Its efficient and powerful
heart and
lungs are prized by competitors.
Byerly Turk, one of the three founding stallions of the
English Thoroughbred, had some Akhal-Teke blood.
Appearance
The most notable
feature of the Akhal-Teke is its gleaming
coat. The hair has a
metallic sheen particular to this breed, due to its unique structure. Under a
microscope, the hair of an Akhal-Teke can be distinguished from hairs from other breeds. Colors of the coat are many and varied, including
black,
mahogany bay,
bay,
liver chestnut,
chestnut,
claybank,
grey,
gold,
perlino (white with reddish accents),
grulla (olive-colored),
cream grulla (white with olive accents),
cremello (white),
palomino,
dunskin, and
light palomino. The most common colors are
grey,
black, and
chestnut, while the rarer ones are
claybank,
grulla, and
cremello.
The Akhal-Teke gives an overall impression not unlike that of a
greyhound. Its stride is long, low, and flowing, unusual in most horses. It stands 15 to 16
hands and weighs around 1000 pounds. It is a narrow horse with sloping shoulders. Very few horses look much like the Akhal-Teke, although other breeds native to
Turkmenistan, such as the
Yomud, come close. The face and neck of the breed are long and narrow, like the rest of the body. The features are large, with large eyes, wide
nostrils, and long ears.
sources:
Akhal-Teke America: http://members.tripod.com/akhaltekeamerica/
The Akhal-Teke Association of America: http://www.akhal-teke.org
Kentucky Horse Park Akhal-Teke Page: http://www.imh.org/imh/bw/akhal.html
Sport-Horses Akahl-Teke Pictures: http://www.sport-horses.org/pictures/akhal_teke.shtml
Akhal-Teke Breed Resources: http://www.raresteeds.com/Breeds/akhal-teke.htm