Arab Horse

Origin: Arabia. Now widespread throughout the world, many countries having produced separate strains.

Height: Roughly 14.2-15.1hh, but can be smaller and occasionally atrifle larger according to severity of climate and richness of pasture.COLOR: Gray, bay, chestnut; occasionally black.

Character: Remarkably spirited horse, fiery and airy; possessed of greatintelligence; bold, loyal, and enduring.

Physique: Exquisite head, short and fine, with concave face, wide nostrilson an elegant muzzle, large, dark eyes and small, prick ears; carried nobly ona graceful arched neck, set into good shoulders. Body compact and well-muscled with strong hindquarters; legs at once delicate and strong; feetsmall and hard. The whole effect is one of symmetry and grace, carried withpride and full of life, and the action straight, free and airy.
Allah said to the South Wind: "Become solid flesh, for I will make a newcreature of thee, to the honour of My Holy One, and the abasement of Mineenemies, and for a servant to them that are subject to Me."

And the South Wind said: "Lord, do Thou so."

Then Allah took a handful of the South Wind and he breathed thereon,creating the horse and saying: "Thy name shall be Arabian, and virtuehound into the hair of thy forelock, and plunder on thy back. I have preferredthee above all beasts of burden, inasmuch as I have made thy master thyfriend. I have given thee the power of flight without wings, be it in on-slaught or in retreat, I will set men on thy back, that shall honor and praiseMe and sing Hallelujah to My name." Bedouin legend.

The Arab horse has been selectively bred for more than 1,000 yearslonger than any other breed, and there are those who claim that he has runwild in the deserts of Arabia for many millennia. Others disagree on the grounds that no prehistoric horse bones have ever been found in the desert,and they are supported by the fact that the Arab was not one of the 12breeds mentioned by the Romans; nor is there any mention of him in pre-Roman history. The Mohammedans believed, literally, that Allah created himout of a handful of the south vvind; but the mundane truth of it must be that,like all other breeds of horse and pony, the Arab evolved over many cen-turies from the prehistoric wild horses who roamed the plateaux and steppesof Europe and Asia before man was civilized, and who looked very muchlike the Tarpan and the Asiatic Wild Horse of today.

Selective breeding of the Arab by the Bedouin has been going on sinceat least the time of Mohammed (7th century AD), and there is evidence tosuggest that it was practised for as long as a thousand years before that.The Bedouins' ruthless attention to purity of line - so absolute that unless ahorse was knovvn to be asil (pure) he could never be bred into the asil line,no matter how perfect his conformation - plus the exceptional hardshipsof the desert climate are the two factors that have produced this, the mostgraceful and individual horse in the world. Food was scarce in the desert.Grass grew only in winter and early spring, and for the rest of the year thehorses lived off camel's milk, dried dates, locusts, and dried camel's meat.Only the strong could endure it. So convinced was Mohammed of themilitary importance of these tough desert horses, which he bought fromthe wandering tribes and paid for with human slaves, that he wrote intothe Koran an irresistable injunction to men to feed their horses well: "Asmany grains of barley as thou givest thy horse, so many sins shall be for-given thee."
Religious commandment reinforced by an extraordinary passion for theirhorses led the Bedouin into a man-to-horse relationship unequalled to thisday. It was to last for 13 centuries. Not only did a man share his food withhis horse, but even slept with him; and this, too, was on the instruction ofMohammed ("The Evil One dare not enter into a tent in which a pure-bredhorse is kept"). The mares, and not the stallions, were the most highly prizedand were the mounts that were used for war and plunder. Purity of bloodline was treated with fanatical seriousness, and horses were generallyinbred to reinforce good qualities - an entirely foreign concept to theWestern breeder, whose school of thought has it that inbreeding producescongenital weaknesses. The several hundred "families" of the Arabianhorse divided into three main types, which are still to be seen today. Theyare:

Kehylan - masculine type, symbol of power and endurance,
Seglawi - feminine type, symbol of beauty and elegance,
Muniqi - angular type, symbol of speed and racing.
The breeding of one Arabian type with another is not always desirable, sincethe offspring is sometimes of lesser quality than either parent.

Arabs were probably first introduced into Europe during the Moorishinvasions of the western IVI mediterranean. Incidental breeding with localmares must have occurred, but there is little evidence to suggest that theArab was thought of as anything more than perhaps a decorative parade mount. During the Cruusades, captured Arab horses seem again to haveacquired some stature ass fit mounts for kings and princes on state occasions,though as cavalry chargers they never entered into consideration becausethe heavy armor of the times required horses of enormous size and power tocarry it. Light arms arqd armor changed all that. From the Renaissancethrough the Napoleonik wars the superiority of the Turkish mounts, infleetness of foot and movement and in endurance, was obvious, and thedemand for Arab blood began to grow in Europe.

Following the disastrousretreat from Moscow in the bitter winter of 1812, Napoleon's aide-de-campwrote to his superior officer:

The Arab horse withse'ood the exertions and privations better than theEuropean horse. After the cruel campaign in Russia almost all the horsesthe Emperor had left were his Arabs. General Hubert was only able tobring back to France cone horse out of his five, and that was an Arab.Captain Simonneau, of the General Staff, had only his Arab left at the end,and so it was with me els°.

Given such proofs as these, Arabians were wanted wherever courage andstamina were at a premium and so it came about that during the CrimeanWar vital news of the Russian defeat was entrusted to an Arab-mountedmessenger. The bay stallion Omar Pasha galloped the 93 miles from Silistrato Varna in one day. His rider died of exhaustion, but Omar Pasha seemedfresh as ever. Arab horses are sometimes known as Drinkers of the Wind.

Today the Arabian is bred in many countries, showing slight differencesof type according to national preference and variations in height and buildaccording to the climate and the pasture (obviously a horse bred on richtemperate-zone pasture will be bigger and softer than his dry, desert-bredcousin). Though his cavalry days are over, his dash and spirit as a ridinghorse ensure his future and his prepotency as a sire will endure, as in somany cases in the past, wherever a new breed of quality and fire is evolved.