The Arabs always rode mares. The reasons for their choice of mares is many and varied, and probably has mostly to do with the land the Arabs inhabited. It was, and is moreso today, lowland, semi-tropical and tropical desert. It is hot, and very dry, year round, and pasture for the rearing of large numbers of horses simply does not exist, even for a small part of the year. It was necessary to keep all the horses, stallions and mares, close to home, if only so they could be fed. With a mixture of the sexes in close proximity, it was probably simply easier to take the mares away from camp than to take the stallions. Also, if the people whom you are constantly fighting are riding stallions, a mare just might be able to provide the distraction one needs to unhorse an opponent.

The Turkmen lived in a different environment. The Turan Flats are highland steppes and not necessarily flat. The summers are hot, long and dry, but there is winter, and snow. There is spring, and rain; and so there is pasture. Mares can be kept in herds or taboons on the steppe, and larger numbers of horses could be bred. Stallions could be kept at home, without the distractions of the opposite sex. Geldings were also widely used for raiding; Ferrier notes that the Turkmen at that time considered them more alert than stallions.

Before the middle of the 19th century, it was the norm that each Turkmen family kept at least one stallion, and owned one or two mares kept communally with the herd. The family stallion was caught from the herd as a six month old colt, and brought to his new family's tent. His ties of dependence to his mother were replaced with ties of ropes and reins to his human family, his rider, his tent. Throughout his life he never knew liberty, and he never missed it.

The stallion became an integral part of the family; he provided them the means to acquire everything they needed. "On waking in the morning," a Turkmen saying goes, "first greet your father, then see to your horse." The Turkmen was fed by hand, with chopped straw, barley, mutton fat and a little forage from time to time in the spring. His water was brought to him. As he grew older, he was covered with the first of seven ritual layers of felt. Sunlight was thought to be especially harmful to the back, and the thought that an Argamak might accumulate the least bit of body fat was abhorrent to those who cared for him. "The Turkmen shares his life and luck with his steed," wrote Alexander Borns, a functionary of the East India Company, "as easily as he would with one of his comrades." Bamber, writing a few years later, noted that , "This splendid animal, in spite of all his labor, is himself an extraordinary being. The value of this son of the steppe is that of a precious wife, a precious child, precious in himself in his own being. The stories of his endurance and speed are not in the least exaggerated."

General Ferrier wrote in the 1860s,

The best Turkomans were always kept by the tribes, although Ferrier cites a few exceptions:

One European, Mr. William Moorcroft, had already learned the difficulties of acquiring the genuine Turkoman horse. Morrow travelled Central Asia for years, trying to get for himself just one. In 1825 he came rather close:

But somehow or other, the deal broke down. Morrow died a few months later under "suspicious circumstances" while traveling in Turkmenistan, with this being the closest he ever was to come to his dream.

Many currently available sources of information on Turkoman horses -- especially Akhal-Tekes -- depict the Turkoman as a mean or "vicious" horse. Owners of "Turks" report consistently that the truth is quite the opposite, but one can perhaps forgive some of these early writers as they were writing generally from the point of view of the raidee, not the raider. Many Turkomans, like many Arabians, were deliberately taught to fight, and Burnes gives us a 19^th century description:

Many British explorers noted the "Turkmene" in their travels, and the best description of the horse comes from an individual known only by his initials, W. T. L., writing in response to a letter to the editor in Field magazine in 1877:

W.T.L. also gives an account of how "Turcomans" were trained for raiding:

The Turkmen Horse was well appreciated in his own land. A horse who was particularly valuable in a raid was rewarded with a collar studded with silver, carnelian, turquoise presented to the owner of a mare, or when he was a future bride's mount. If the bride's suitor's horse could not best her horse in a race and the suitor bring back the bridle, the marriage was off. Further incentive to breed good, fast, reliable horses.

The Turkmen themselves were divided into several tribes, the most numerous of these being the Tekke, the Yamoud and the Goklan. Each tribe lived in a different area, and needed a slightly different type of Turkoman horse.

The Tekke inhabited the broad expanse of the Turan Flats north of the Kopet Dag Mountains, and their need was for a lean, fast horse able to run, to run fast, and to run all day over terrain that was, at the time before desertification became as extreme as it is today, flat and with relatively firm footing. Their horses became what the Abbas Pasha Manuscript described as "The Greyhounds of the North," the Tekke Turkoman.

The Yamoudi lived mainly on the plateau area of Northern Iran, and while they had similar need of a swift horse, they also needed a horse capable of maneuvering on hills and sand. They developed the Yamoud Turkoman, slightly smaller in stature than the Tekke and with a shorter back to give it better cornering ability.

The Goklan inhabited the mountainous areas south and east of present-day Turkmenistan, and their Goklan Turkoman horse was the stoutest of all, but still lightning swift, strong and enduring.

In the 1920s, many Turkmen fled with their horses into Afghanistan and especially Iran when the new Soviet regime outlawed the private ownership of horses. In their new countries, they continued to raise and race their Turkoman horses as did their forefathers. While Akhal-Tekes are bred according to the stallion lines to which they belong, and with an eye toward racing at shorter distances. The Turkoman breeding his own horses differently. Herd stallions are changed every two to three years. The stallions were chosen because they pleased the breeder in size, color and conformation; and especially because they had been victorious in long-distance racing (with eight kilometers being considered a "short" race).

According to Dr. Maloufi and Mrs. Firouz, the Turkmen still breed their horses in this way. The horses are usually bred, as is said of Arabians, "pure in the strain"-- i.e., Tekkes with Tekkes, Yamouds with Yamouds, etc. But the strains are sometimes mixed, in order to keep certain points of type from becoming too exaggerated. For example, a Yamoudi or Goklan stallion may be used with some mares to keep the length of back from becoming too long in the foals.

The Turkmen even today race their horses on rectangular tracks laid out on the steppes, their corners marked with bundles of reeds.