The Turkoman horse, or Turkmene, was an
Oriental horse
The term oriental horse refers to the ancient breeds of horses developed in the Middle East, such as the Arabian, Akhal-Teke, Barb, and the now-extinct Turkoman horse. They tend to be thin-skinned, long-legged, slim in build and more physically ...
breed from the steppes of Turkoman desert. Its closest modern descendant is thought to be the
Akhal-Teke
The Akhal-Teke ( or ; from Turkmen ''Ahalteke'', ) is a Turkmen horse breed. They have a reputation for speed and endurance, intelligence, and a distinctive metallic sheen. The shiny coat of the breed led to their nickname, "Golden Horses". ...
.
It influenced many modern horse breeds, including the
Thoroughbred
The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word ''thoroughbred'' is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed. Thoroughbreds are c ...
horse. Some horses bred in
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
and
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan ( or ; tk, Türkmenistan / Түркменистан, ) is a country located in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the sout ...
today are still referred to as Turkoman, and have similar characteristics.
Modern descendants include the
Akhal-Teke
The Akhal-Teke ( or ; from Turkmen ''Ahalteke'', ) is a Turkmen horse breed. They have a reputation for speed and endurance, intelligence, and a distinctive metallic sheen. The shiny coat of the breed led to their nickname, "Golden Horses". ...
, the
Iomud
The Iomud is a breed of light horse from Turkmenistan. Like other breeds of Turkmen horse, it is named for the Turkmen tribe that raised it, the Iomud. Both the name of the horse and the name of the Turkmen clan may be spelt in many ways, includ ...
(''also called'' Yamud or Yomud), the
Goklan and
Nokhorli.
Characteristics
The Turkoman horse was noted for its endurance. It had a slender body, similar to a
greyhound
The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Since the rise in large-scale adoption of retired racing Greyhounds, the breed has seen a resurge ...
. Although refined in appearance, the breed was actually one of the toughest in the world. They had a straight profile, long neck, and sloping shoulders. Their back was long, with sloping quarters and tucked-up abdomen. They had long and muscular legs. The horses ranged from 15–16 hands.
The Turkoman and the Arabian compared
![Gatsby](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Gatsby.jpg)
Though both the
Arabian horse
The Arabian or Arab horse ( ar, الحصان العربي , DIN 31635, DMG ''ḥiṣān ʿarabī'') is a horse breed, breed of horse that originated on the Arabian Peninsula. With a distinctive head shape and high tail carriage, the Arabian is ...
and the Turkoman may have had a common ancestor in the
Oriental horse
The term oriental horse refers to the ancient breeds of horses developed in the Middle East, such as the Arabian, Akhal-Teke, Barb, and the now-extinct Turkoman horse. They tend to be thin-skinned, long-legged, slim in build and more physically ...
prototype, in their purest old forms they were very like one another in some ways and very different in others. Both had excellent speed and stamina. Both had extremely fine coats and delicate skin, unlike many horse breeds found in Europe. They both had large eyes, wide foreheads and tapering muzzles. They both came from very arid environments. Here, however, the similarities between the Turkoman of
Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
and the Arabians of the
Nejd
Najd ( ar, نَجْدٌ, ), or the Nejd, forms the geographic center of Saudi Arabia, accounting for about a third of the country's modern population and, since the Emirate of Diriyah, acting as the base for all unification campaigns by the H ...
desert lands of Central Arabia end, and the horses begin to diverge to suit their environments and the fighting styles of their breeders. Some divergence may be attributable solely to
natural selection
Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charle ...
of
landrace
A landrace is a domesticated, locally adapted, often traditional variety of a species of animal or plant that has developed over time, through adaptation to its natural and cultural environment of agriculture and pastoralism, and due to isolation ...
traits, other differences may be attributable to
selective breeding
Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant mal ...
.
The Turkoman had small hooves, an adaptation to the steppes of the Central Asia, which largely consisted of a hard, rocky ground, covered with coarse sand, more like fine gravel and of stiff, parched vegetation. The Arabian had fairly large hooves for its size; this was useful when adjusting to the deep sand found in the Central Arabian desert, providing a larger surface area on which the horse's weight could be spread, making it less likely to sink.
The back of the Turkoman, the Tekke Turkoman, and today in many cases, the Akhal-Teke, is much longer than that of the Arabian. The reason for this may likely to be that when riding long distances, the Turkoman was expected to
trot
The trot is a ten-beat diagonal horse gait where the diagonal pairs of legs move forward at the same time with a moment of suspension between each beat. It has a wide variation in possible speeds, but averages about . A very slow trot is someti ...
, and the Arabian was not; the
Bedouin
The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (; , singular ) are nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert and A ...
tended to ride
camel
A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. C ...
s over long distances, leading their war horses, saving them for raiding, which was primarily done at the
gallop
The canter and gallop are variations on the fastest gait that can be performed by a horse or other equine. The canter is a controlled three-beat gait, while the gallop is a faster, four-beat variation of the same gait. It is a natural gait pos ...
.
The Turkoman was taller than the desert-bred Arabian and had a sparse
mane. The Arabian carries its tail high when galloping, and higher than most when walking or trotting; the Turkoman ran with its tail streaming behind. The Turkoman horse was also narrower in the body than the Arabian, or indeed than any other breed of horse. This helped it to dissipate heat quickly, but it was also a great aid in twisting and turning in the saddle, which would be invaluable to mounted archers who need to shoot in any direction, as opposed to lancers who need a firm footing from which to thrust a lance. Lance-throwing from horseback would be far easier on an Arabian horse shaped wider in the body would also help with making the sharp turns that close-fighting requires.
In other words, the Turkoman was the ideal horse for the Turkmen, and the Arabian was the ideal horse for the Bedouin.
History
The breed was developed from an ancient
Oriental
The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of ''Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the ...
horsekeeping tradition and breeding philosophy. The horses were raised in an unusual manner, with the mares kept in semi-wild herds that have to defend themselves against the weather and predators and finding their own food. Male
foal
A foal is an equine up to one year old; this term is used mainly for horses, but can be used for donkeys. More specific terms are colt for a male foal and filly for a female foal, and are used until the horse is three or four. When the foal i ...
s,
colt
Colt(s) or COLT may refer to:
*Colt (horse), an intact (uncastrated) male horse under four years of age
People
* Colt (given name)
*Colt (surname)
Places
*Colt, Arkansas, United States
*Colt, Louisiana, an unincorporated community, United States ...
s were caught at six months, when their training begun. The colts were kept on long tethers, usually for life. At only eight months of age, they were saddled and ridden by young and lightweight riders, racing on the track, by the age of one. These horses were bred for racing. They had free-flowing movements and a good temperament.
The Turkoman horses were fed a special
high-protein diet
A high-protein diet is a diet in which 20% or more of the total daily calories comes from protein.Longe, Jacqueline L. (2008). ''High-protein diet''. In ''The Gale Encyclopedia of Diets: A Guide to Health and Nutrition''. Gale. pp. 524-526. Most ...
of broiled
chicken
The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult m ...
,
barley
Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley pr ...
,
date
Date or dates may refer to:
*Date (fruit), the fruit of the date palm (''Phoenix dactylifera'')
Social activity
*Dating, a form of courtship involving social activity, with the aim of assessing a potential partner
** Group dating
*Play date, a ...
s,
raisin
A raisin is a dried grape. Raisins are produced in many regions of the world and may be eaten raw or used in cooking, baking, and brewing. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia, the word ''raisin'' is reserved for the d ...
s,
alfalfa
Alfalfa () (''Medicago sativa''), also called lucerne, is a perennial flowering plant in the legume family Fabaceae. It is cultivated as an important forage crop in many countries around the world. It is used for grazing, hay, and silage, as w ...
, and
mutton
Lamb, hogget, and mutton, generically sheep meat, are the meat of domestic sheep, ''Ovis aries''. A sheep in its first year is a lamb and its meat is also lamb. The meat from sheep in their second year is hogget. Older sheep meat is mutton. Gen ...
fat.
How much the Arabian and the Turkoman have been crossed in the past is open to debate. There are those who believe that this was never done, on either side; and it may well be that in remote places like the Nejd the core Arabian was kept "pure," just as the Turkoman would have been kept "pure" by the most remote tribes of Turkmen.
However, it is very likely that there was some intermingling between these two types of Oriental horses, especially where their borders met. Turkoman stallions were kept for use by the elite palace guards of the
Caliph
A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...
of Baghdad, and that it was these stallions which the Caliph used for breeding with his Arabian mares. It may have been from these horses that the Muniq'i strain of Arabian arose, a strain with known crosses to Turkoman horses some time during the 17th century.
"Turks" and the English Thoroughbred
The Turkoman horse may have influenced the English
Thoroughbred
The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word ''thoroughbred'' is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed. Thoroughbreds are c ...
, most notably via the
Byerley Turk
The Byerley Turk (c. 1680 – c. 1703), also spelled Byerly Turk, was the earliest of three stallions that were the founders of the modern Thoroughbred horse racing bloodstock (the other two are the Godolphin Arabian and the Darley Arabian).Ahner ...
. However, it has also been argued—mainly by Arabian breeder
Lady Wentworth
Judith Anne Dorothea Blunt-Lytton, 16th Baroness Wentworth, (6 February 1873 – 8 August 1957) also known as Lady Wentworth, was a British peer, Arabian horse breeder and real tennis player. As the owner of the Crabbet Arabian Stud from ...
—that all the "Turks" listed in
Weatherby
Weatherby, Inc. is an American gun manufacturer founded in 1945 by Roy Weatherby. The company is best known for its high-powered magnum cartridges, such as the .257 Weatherby Magnum, .270 Weatherby Magnum, .300 Weatherby Magnum, .340 Weatherb ...
's
General Stud Book
The ''General Stud Book'' is a breed registry for horses in Great Britain and Ireland. More specifically it is used to document the breeding of Thoroughbreds and related foundation bloodstock such as the Arabian horse. Today it is published e ...
are actually "Arabians of the highest class" who are only called Turks because they were bought or taken as prizes of war in
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
and the
Crimea
Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...
. There is, however, evidence that the "Turks" were actually Turkomans and not mislabelled Arabians.
The confusion was probably due to several contributing factors. One of them was that when the first Oriental horses were imported to England, it simply did not matter what kind of horse it was, as long it was elegant, fast and could race. In England, as Sidney tells us, "Every Oriental horse -- Turk, Barb or Egyptian bred -- is called an Arab in this country."
The first Turkoman recorded in England is said by Marvin to have been a stallion brought over by Colonel
Valentine Baker
Valentine Baker (also known as Baker Pasha) (1 April 1827 – 17 November 1887), was a British soldier, and a younger brother of Sir Samuel Baker.
Biography
Baker was educated in Gloucester and in Ceylon, and in 1848 entered the Ceylon Rifles ...
, who wished to see it used to breed with the English Thoroughbred. However, there is no evidence that this happened.
Turkomans were brought to England by soldiers stationed in various parts of the East, the most famous of them was the stallion called Merv, who was brought to England by Baker Pasha in the 19th century. What was so astonishing about Merv was the incredibly high stud fee which was charged for his services, £85, which at that time was considered exorbitant for any stallion. Unfortunately, other Englishmen did not esteem Merv the way Baker Pacha did. Sidney quotes a correspondent who had seen Merv and stated: "He looked to me about 16 hands high, fine shoulders, good head and neck, fine skin, good wearing legs, bad feet and leggy. I thought him unsuited to breed hunters ... he looked to me about an 11
stone
In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...
horse, and did not like going through dirt." In this context, "11 stone" referenced rider weight, thus such a horse would be one expected to be able to carry about . Merv covered no mares in England, and in 1877 he was sold to the
Earl of Claremont's stud in Ireland.
On the European continent
Turkoman horses, aside from being occasional gifts of state, were often brought into Western Europe by various individuals, mostly connected with the military in some way. Some of these horses have had a profound impact on various European warmblood breeds.
During the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, one of the most universally acclaimed war and racing horses in Europe was the
Neapolitan Courser. Though much heavier than the Turkoman horse, it may have had some Turkoman ancestry.
Gervase Markham
Gervase (or Jervis) Markham (ca. 1568 – 3 February 1637) was an English poet and writer. He was best known for his work '' The English Huswife, Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to Be in a Complete Woman'', first publishe ...
, Master of Horse to
James I of England
James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and King of Ireland, Ireland as James I from the Union of the Crowns, union of the Scottish and Eng ...
, describes the Neapolitan horses in terms which will sound very familiar to the fancier of the Turanian horses:
Markham preferred the English
Thoroughbred
The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word ''thoroughbred'' is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed. Thoroughbreds are c ...
first among all breeds of horses; the Neapolitan second, and the steppe-bred Turk third. He had seen Turks racing on English race courses, circa 1566–1625. He also noted that the Turks he had seen were: "Naturally in they desire to
amble
Amble is a town on the North Sea coast of Northumberland, England, at the mouth of the River Coquet; Coquet Island is visible from its beaches and harbour. In 2011, it had a population of 6,025.
Etymology
There are two suggested origins of ...
, and, which is most strange, their trot is full of pride and gracefulness."
References
Further reading
{{commons category, Turkoman horse
* Heritage of Central Asia, from Antiquity to the Turkish Conquest, R. Frye
* Illustrated Book of the Horse, S. Sidney, Wilshire Book Company, 1875
* Authentic Arabian Horse and His Descendants, Lady Wentworth, 1945
* Rewriting the Stud Book, Melanie Cabel-Allerstone, Country Life, January 1993
* Illustrated Book of the Horse, S. Sidney, Wilshire Book Company, 1875
* http://www.lrgaf.org/articles/foundation-turks.htm
Extinct horse breeds
Horse breeds originating in Turkmenistan
Horse breeds