Content
The Arabian horse breed is one of the oldest in the world. At the same time, it is not reliably known where horses with such an original appearance came from on the Arabian Peninsula. If you do not take seriously the legends about the thickened south wind at the behest of Allah, from which the Arabian horse arose.
Or the legend of a warrior who escaped the pursuit on a foal mare. Moreover, the mare was already so ready for foaling that she foaled at one of the halts. But the warrior could not wait and rode away, abandoning the newborn filly. And at the next halt, the filly caught up with her mother. The warrior picked up the filly and, returning home, gave it to an old woman to be raised. From this filly, the ancestor of all Arabian horses in the world grew.
The magical version with the wind is good for the Middle Ages, when people believed in such miracles. And the legend of the ultra-fast newborn foal is full of absurdities. But it sounds romantic.
Nevertheless, the chronicles of ancient times, listing the trophies captured during the war in Arabia, do not mention horses anywhere. In those days, the horse was a very valuable animal and would definitely be included in the list of trophies. But the number of captured camels is indicated, and not a word about the horses. With a high degree of probability, at the beginning of our era, horses were completely absent on the Arabian Peninsula. As there were no Arab tribes themselves. The first mentions of Arabian horses appear only in the 4th century AD.
History of the breed
It is impossible to lead a sedentary life in the desert. Only nomadic is possible there. But due to the scarcity of resources, all nomadic peoples, to a greater or lesser extent, trade in robberies. The Arabian purebred horse breed originated as a Bedouin warrior's war horse, capable of long runs with heavy loads and in extreme conditions.
It is believed that the process of formation of the breed took place from the 4th to the 7th centuries AD. In fact, the breed was formed earlier than the 7th century. It was the Europeans who met these horses when the power of the Arab Caliphate was established on the Iberian Peninsula.
Arabian horses were highly prized and difficult to obtain even at a later time. Arab tribes traced their horses along the maternal lines, believing that all their horses descended from the five mares of the Prophet Muhammad.
The Bedouins were convinced that a good mare will bring a good foal from a stallion of any quality, and from a bad one there is nothing to expect a quality foal from even the best stallion. Hence the pedigree of their horses, traced only to their mothers.
Since the main qualities valued in horses by the Arabian nomadic tribes were endurance and speed, the knowledge gained empirically was confirmed. Indeed, mares with high performance give the same foals. In mares with low efficiency, foals are born even worse than their mothers.
Accordingly, mares were highly prized in Arabia, while stallions were kept only in the stables of very rich people. They kept the stallions "in a black body", giving them exactly as much food as was needed so that the horse did not die of hunger.
Acquainted with the Arab breed in the Early Middle Ages, Europeans highly appreciated the quality of the horse population of their then enemies. Trophy Arabian horses were used to improve local European breeds. Almost all modern European horses have the blood of Arabian horses.
After the decline of the Caliphate and the weakening of the Ottoman Empire, expeditions began to be equipped to the East to search and purchase Arab horses. But it was impossible to buy mares. They could only get to Europe as a trophy or a gift to the royal person.
Even with the purchase of stallions, the Europeans had serious difficulties. Taking advantage of the ignorance of the "savages", the Arabs sold culling under the guise of high-class horses. Most often, graceful, beautiful, but the least hardy horses of the Siglavi tribe came to Europe. It was they who formed the image of the Arabian thoroughbred horse with a concave profile, which is familiar to Europeans. The Arabs themselves preferred horses with a straight profile, since in this case the air channel does not block anything.
Today the deserts are driven by jeeps, not horses. Tourists, on the other hand, prefer the familiar type of siglavi.
Russian Arabs
The fascination with Arabian horses, as horses that improve local breeds, did not bypass the Russian Empire. The first horses of this breed appeared in the stables of Ivan the Terrible. It is believed that they influenced even such seemingly completely aboriginal breeds as Karachai, Karabakh and Kabardian. Although what are the Arabian desert horses to do in the mountains?
Arabian horses became the ancestors of the Oryol trotter, Oryol horse, Rostopchin and Streletskaya breeds. They bred them and clean. During the Soviet era, Arab producers were bought from various populations. And sometimes high-quality stallions were presented to heads of state. One of such donated stallions was the famous Aswan. The present was made by Egyptian President Nasser.
The USSR traded Arabian horses all over the world. Pesnyar was sold for $ 1 million. Menes was bought for more than $ 1.5 million. Peleng was purchased for $ 2 million 350 thousand. All these horses were sold in the United States. And the Arabian horse Peach was sold to France - a horse, even a photo of which can only be found somewhere in a private collection. At the same time, Peach is considered the best racehorse producer. His descendant is the famous Nobby, multiple winner of the 160 km race.
Description
There are five types in the Arabian breed:
- siglavi;
- coheilan;
- hadban;
- obeyan;
- maanegi.
According to legend, such nicknames were worn by the mares of the Prophet Muhammad, who became the progenitors of these tribes in the Arab breed. The performance characteristics of Arabian horses of different knees differ greatly from each other.
Siglavi
The most elegant and most "worthless" in terms of practical use is the intra-breed type. Differs in the pronounced appearance of the Arabian horse with an exaggerated concavity of the profile. The neck is long, arched, with a long bend at the junction of the head with the neck. Horses are very dry, but tender in constitution. The chest is flat, rather narrow. Poor bones.
Abroad, for the most part, this type is bred, using it only for shows. The exaggeration of the Siglavi type reached the point when veterinarians were already sounding the alarm, and riding practitioners noted the complete inability of such horses to carry loads. It is enough to look at the photo of the "extreme" Arabian horse to catch the eye with a too narrow muzzle with refined jaws and an exaggeratedly concave profile.
The only area of application for Arabian horses of this appearance is in the show. Like any other show animal, such siglavi are very expensive. The usual price for them is more than $ 1 million. Therefore, breeders of Arab horses for the show do not agree with the veterinarians and argue that there are no breathing problems for Arab horses of their breeding. In general, the representatives of the Arab breed for the show suffer from the same as the decorative breeds of dogs and cats: the desire to exaggerate the distinctive features, even to the detriment of the animal itself.
If we compare the photo of a high-quality purebred Arabian horse of a custom direction with the photo above, then the comparison will not be in favor of the show Arab.
Nevertheless, in one of the richest Arab countries, exhibitions of just such show-Arabs are held. Show of "extreme" Arabian horses on video from Dubai.
To make the eyes and muzzle of Arabian horses more expressive and shine during the show, snoring and the skin around the eyes are lubricated with oil.
The light gray Arabian horse is believed to have black skin on snoring and around the eyes. The oil helps to "show" this feature.
Coheilan
Horses of harmonious strong build. The head is small with a wide forehead. The neck is shorter than that of the siglavi. The ribcage is round. Relatively economical to maintain, keep the body well.
Obeyan
In the Russian version, it is usually designated as coheilan-siglavi. The type is in between the two. Combines exquisite oriental siglavi breed with coheilan boneiness, strength and endurance. Most successful for those who need a beautiful horse that can withstand loads.
When breeding, the type is taken into account only when matching pairs, therefore in Terskoy it is the coheilan-siglavi that is most widespread.
Hadban
The coarsest type, often with a humpbacked profile, showing the influence of the Barbary breed. This is the question of the thoroughbred Arabian horse. Hadban horses are the largest of all. Although they hardly look Arab, they have good leverage and great jumping ability.
Maanegi
The type most reminiscent of the Akhal-Teke breed. Horses are long lines, with long legs and a narrow, shallow chest. They are typical racehorses of long lines.
The height of the Arabs previously ranged from 135 to 140 cm. Today, thanks to good feed and selection, the horses have “grown up”. Stallions often reach 160 cm.Mares are slightly lower, on average 155 cm.
Suits
The most common in the breed is the gray color, which was highly valued by the Arabian Bedouins. There are bay and red colors. The black color is found in the breed, but somewhat less often than others, since the Bedouins once believed that the black horse brings misfortune and rejected individuals with this color from breeding. But they did not take into account that it was necessary to discard those black horses that later turned gray up to a completely white color.
Milky white Arabs are actually light gray, but have reached the final stage of graying. The black skin of the groin and snoring confirms that genetically these are dark-colored horses.
Mutations in the dominant white color gene occur spontaneously in any breed. Because of this, it arose among the Bedouins to lubricate gray horses with snoring and eyes with oil to show that the horse is gray, not white. Real white horses would not have survived under the scorching Arabian sun. For the same reason, in the Arabian breed there are no suits, except for the four main ones: gray, bay, red and black.
Application
In classical disciplines, the Arabian horses are irrevocably inferior to the European sports breeds. Today, Arabs are only used in horse races and runs. And if in the races the Arab is inferior in speed to the Thoroughbred horse, then in the races of a serious level he has no equal.
Testimonials
Conclusion
Today one can come across the opinion that the Arabian breed has degenerated and can no longer serve as an improver for other breeds, but professional horse breeders strongly disagree with this thesis. It is not known how on the Arabian Peninsula itself, but all over the world they continue to improve half-breed breeds with Arabian horses. To win in races, you need at least an Arab cross. And for world-class races, only Arabian horses are suitable, and even in this case, not the first ones. But for the personal maintenance of such a horse at home, you need experience in handling horses.
