Turanian Horse

Fossil and Frozen Horses From Prehistoric Times

How The Oriental Horse Arose and Diverged

The Turanian horse, in all its forms, goes back a very long way.

We know that the prehistoric horse came over from North America at the time of the last Ice Age, and soon after that time, four types of horse are noted in the fossil record. Whether the types split from one archaic Horse which left North America, or four types of horse came from there is unknown. The horse or horses seem to, for the most part, have followed the margin of the ice sheets across Eurasia, each becoming more specialized for the environment into which it settled as the ages passed.

Two basic kinds arose--the pony, suited to a wet, cold climate, and the horse, suited to a warmer, dry climate. While ponies were built to dodge a predator in swampy and forested areas until a hiding place could be found, horses were built to run, to run fast, and to run far--hiding was not an option.

Pony Type 1 became what to most people is the archetype of a Pony. The Exmoor Pony is an good example of how Pony Type 1 looked. It lived mainly in the wetter, forested areas of northwestern Europe.

Pony Type 2 was a larger, heftier animal, looking more like a small draft horse than what is brought to mind when most people think of a "pony." It inhabited the Taiga area of Northern Eurasia. A good idea of what this animal looked like is the Highland Pony.

Horse Type 3 is the horse which inhabited Central Asia, where the continental climate is in the main dry, but the steppes are vast, hard and for some parts of the year, forage is plentiful. This was the tallest of all the different types, and seems to have inhabited the Turan Flats and possibly ranged, either on its own or through human intervention, as far as Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula. This was the main ancestor of the Turanian horse in all its present forms.

Horse Type 4 was a true horse in miniature--a virtual replica of the Caspian. It shared much of the range of Horse Type 3 and may have been present as far as Egypt in prehistoric times, although, again, whether it migrated there on its own or was brought there is uncertain.

Which prehistoric horses evolved into which modern breeds--or even, into which ancient breeds--is a matter of lively debate. The many ways of addressing this question often lead to very different conclusions.

It is, for example, widely accepted by Arabian Horse enthusiasts that the Arabian represents the oldest and purest breed of horse in the world. Lady Wentworth, writing in The Authentic Arabian Horse and His Descendants, opined that the Arab should be "a separate species, Equus arabicus, because there is nothing anywhere like him and there never has been." Yet recent work to establish the genetic relationships between the various breeds and types of Oriental Horse show that this may be more a matter of legend than actual truth. Work in progress at the University of Kentucky shows a "family tree" more like this (this is a large file, please be patient):

It should be kept in mind that even though it appears that each branch of this tree represents a horse who was "bred apart in purity" from horses on other branches, this is not the case. While "breeding in purity" or "breeding for type" was certainly the tendency, conditions of geography, trade and politics saw to it that there were many infusions of the blood of one branch into the blood of another. Legends and marketing aside, there was really no such thing as an absolutely "pure" breed until the advent in the 18th century of Stud Books. To the people who bred and used the horses as a means of obtaining a living, what a horse could do was ultimately more important that what it was.

The Turanian horse developed over time partly from the uses to which it was put and partly as a result of its environment. It was tall and long, to run a long way; while the Proto-Arabian became shorter and more compact, to run and dodge. The Turanian horse had (and its modern representatives still have) smallish hooves to facilitate navigation over hard, often stony ground; the Arabian of old had large hooves to facilitate maneuvering on loose sand.

Somewhere along the line, the horse of Turan developed its glowing coat. The metallic glow is caused by a hair structure which is unique to these horses and to horses carrying the Champagne gene, although the "Turkoman Glow" does not alter the color of skin, coat and eyes as does the champagne coloration. One of the most "open questions" in following this horse is exactly why the glow developed. The photo at right shows the metallic glow on a modern-day Turanian horse, Akhal-Teke yearling gelding MV Kazam, owned by Magic Valley Akhal-Tekes.

The earliest records we have of the Turanian Horse -- characterized by her overall appearance of length, angularity and uprightness -- are from the excavations at Anau, a site about seven kilometers outside present-day Ashkabad. The archeologist Dürst found the skeletons of horses which are in nearly every respect like those of the modern-day Turkoman strains. The skeletons date from the third millenium B.C.E, and were described by Dürst as being "from the first of the typical conformation of the Steppe Horse."

The earliest human presence in the Turan area dates back 300,000 years, and the first settlements were along the shores of the then-much-larger Caspian Sea, and date back as much as 9,000 years. Settled agriculture was found along the southern end, and horse and cattle raising along the northern shores. As the Caspian dried up and the land became less arable, agriculture diminished and livestock rearing moved steadily southward.

Horses are the darlings of many families and children. What could be more natural than to make of this man in essence very similar animals a good book, namely, a photo book (german: Fotobuch), which brings all the joy.