The Majesty of the Horse: An Illustrated History. Tamsin Pickeral
fantastic show ponies, but of more importance is their immense historic significance and their impact on the development of modern light horse breeds.
KAZAKH
ANCIENT – KAZAKHSTAN – COMMON
HEIGHT
Up to 14.2 h.h.
APPEARANCE
Although there are several different types of Kazakh horses and they vary greatly in appearance, they tend to be small with tremendous stamina and hardiness. Muscular through the frame with very hard, sound limbs and feet.
COLOR
Mostly bay, chestnut, dun, or gray.
APTITUDE
Riding, pack, light draft
KAZAKHSTAN IS BORDERED by the Caspian Sea in the west, the Altai Mountains in the east, the Tian Shan Mountains in the south, and the Ural Mountains in the north. Huge herds of Kazakh horses roam in this vast, unforgiving landscape that matches striking beauty with a ferocious climate, a place where many other breeds would quickly perish.
The Kazakh is extraordinarily tough and hardy, resistant to extreme climatic conditions and able to survive and even thrive on the sparsest of diets. It is such a product of its environment that during hard times maturing horses will stop growing; then, as food becomes more plentiful, they will undergo a growth spurt. The horses have strongly developed jawbones designed to cope with tough grasses and foliage, and those horses that live in the desert areas also grow thick hair along the upper lip designed to remove sand from grasses before they are eaten. Like many of the other ancient breeds, the Kazakh has a double-layered, water- and cold-resistant coat.
The Kazakh horse was central to the lives of the nomadic Kazakh people throughout history, and even in modern times the horses continue to be of the utmost importance. The lives of the nomadic Kazakh people revolved around their horses, which provided them with transportation, meat, milk, and entertainment, and far back in history formed part of their religion. Powerful spiritual beliefs were, and in some cases still are, attached to horses. Horse bones—and the skull in particular—are thought to embody supernatural forces and should be treated with respect. Occasionally, horse skulls mounted on sticks are included in ceremonies, and in exceptional circumstances a gray or white mare (the most prized colors) might be sacrificed—for example, to secure the protection of a family. Horses are also thought to have an omnipotent protective spirit called Kambar-ata.
Even today horses play an enormous role in the nomads’ culture. Distances are measured in terms of how far a horse can run during a race; a colt’s run is approximately 6 to 9 miles (10–15 km), and a stallion’s run would be between 19 and 25 miles (30–40 km). Days are divided according to the routine of milking mares, which are milked around five times a day at intervals of an hour and a half. Fermented horse milk, called koumiss, is a delicacy and is believed to have curative properties for more than forty illnesses. Horses still also form an important part of many traditional ceremonies surrounding births, weddings, deaths, and festivals.
The Kazakh horse has evolved into a number of significantly different types. The Berik, the heaviest and stoutest, is a workhorse, and the Zhurdak is used as a general riding animal. The Zhuirik is a finer, faster type and is the most highly prized; it is used for racing, a hugely popular pastime. The Adaev is a good riding horse with a high milk yield, and the more massive Jabe is widely used for its meat, an important aspect of the Kazakh diet, and also its milk yield. Despite the significant variation among Kazakh horses, in general, they are slightly unprepossessing in appearance, though this is compensated for by their enormous stamina and hardiness.
The Kazakh shares much in common with the Bashkir, which evolved in the southern foothills of the Urals, and the Buryat of Siberia, which along with the Mongolian horse were fundamental in expanding the ancient geographic boundaries of their associated cultures and saw the spread of humans across Eurasia into Russia and throughout Europe.
EXMOOR
PREHISTORIC – UNITED KINGDOM – ENDANGERED
HEIGHT
Up to 12.3 h.h.
APPEARANCE
Large head with small, intelligent ears and large, hooded eyes. Good, balanced conformation, which allows for particularly good and smooth paces. Distinctive tail that often exhibits a bushy top.
COLOR
Always bay, brown, or dun with black points, often a dorsal stripe, and mealy colored hair around the nose, eyes, under the belly, and on the inside of the flanks.
APTITUDE
Riding, light draft, jumping, dressage, competitive horse sports
IN THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF ENGLAND bordering thirty miles of breathtaking coastline and stretching inland to incorporate forest, hills, moorland, and valleys is Exmoor National Park, home to Britain’s oldest indigenous pony, the Exmoor. This vast park, once a Royal Forest and hunting ground, is still largely undeveloped and provides great areas of relative wilderness and isolation, both factors of immense significance in the development of the Exmoor pony, and in its continuance. Despite this, the numbers of these extraordinary little ponies suffered greatly through the twentieth century, and the breed has been listed as endangered by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust in the United Kingdom since 1974.
Like the Tarpan and the Asiatic Wild Horse, the Exmoor is considered to be one of the earliest pony types to have emerged, making it one of the very few breeds that still exist virtually unchanged to the present day, and consequently of enormous scientific interest. Study of Exmoor skeletons and fossil remains indicates that the ponies originated in North America and were widespread between the latitudes of 45 and 50° north approximately one million years ago. It is conjectured that the Exmoor’s ancestor may have evolved most significantly in Alaska, possibly trapped there for many years by ice barriers, and that this extremely hostile climate contributed toward the development of its unique insulating coat, as well as its ability to withstand extreme cold and survive on minimal rations. At some point, while land bridges between continents still existed, the ponies migrated to the British Isles, which then became cut off toward the end of the Pleistocene era (c. 12,000 years ago) when sea levels rose after the end of the last ice age. During this long period of virtual isolation, the Exmoor’s characteristics and adaptability to its terrain and climate became fixed. Even when horses began to be imported from mainland Europe, they did not have a lasting effect on the diminutive Exmoor, and attempts to “improve” the Exmoor by the introduction of foreign blood have only weakened the breed’s innate hardiness.
The Exmoor is unique among pony and horse breeds in the configuration of its jawbone, which exhibits the partial development of a seventh molar, also seen in the North American fossils. The ponies exhibit further “primitive” characteristics that reflect the antiquity of their roots, most specifically in the structure and coloring of their coats, in their “ice” tails, which have short, thick, bristly hair at the top and longer hairs at the bottom, and in the heavy ridge of bone over their eye socket, which lends them a hooded look. It is the structure of their coats, however, that is so unusual and such a product of their original environment. The hair grows in two layers, with a short undercoat of woolly-type hair covered by a coat of longer, greasy hairs that are extremely water repellent. It is not unusual for them to have a number of whorls of hair at sensitive areas on the body to help direct water away. Such is the insulating level of these unique coats that snow can remain frozen on the surface of the coat while the pony remains warm and dry underneath.
In order to preserve and honor this ancient breed, the Exmoor Pony Society