After explaining all about the good sense in the way the nomads bred pure and still managed to outbreed to horses not directly related to their herds, you may be astonished to discover, that the crossbreeding forced upon the Turkoman/Akhal Teke breed during the first decades of the 20th century should without ifs, ands, or buts be regarded as extremely detrimental to the breed.

To understand what has happened there, we need to first look at how scientific, knowledgable and benevolent outbreeding is done and what for:

• to create a completely new breed
• to change an existing breed quickly

The third objective, ensuring consistent great genetic diversity or relieving inbreeding depression of a pure breed, is actually done the way described in the article about nomadic purebreeding.

Creation of a new breed

To do this breeders will assemble founders from a variety of breeds which show the traits desired in the new breed and crossbreed them. The F1 generation is then bred back to the one original breed which is closest to the ultimate goal. Many now well-established modern breeds have started this way, e.g. the Aegidienberger horse (Icelandic pony x Peruvian Paso), the English Thoroughbred (Irish Hobby x Turkmenian x Barb x Arabian) or the Angloarabian (Arabian x English Thoroughbred).

Change an existing breed

The commonest reason for doing this is the wish to ameliorate a breed. E.g. the heavy European warmbloods, mostly used for draft work and lacking hardiness and ridability, often were ameliorated into better riding horses by lighter breeds, such as oriental hotbloods or English Thoroughbreds. The Russian Orlov trotter was ameliorated by the Dutch Friesian and the Lippizzan by infusions of Arabian and Andalusian blood.

The accepted scientific method is to do these changes in a "sandbox" situation, especially when the breed which is being ameliorated has a low population number and a large amount of appreciated traits. Excellent sires of the main breed are used to cover foreign mares, the subsequent generation is culled according to the combination of wanted traits and again sires of the main breed are bred back to that group. This is repeated until the results show what was aimed for, allowing them to be bred back into the main gene pool.

The reverse method, using foreign sires on the main breed body, usually is only done when these crosses either already have proven their suitability in the abovementioned sandbox situation, or when the gene pool is very large or already of crossbred stock (e.g. warmblood breeding).

It also needs to be mentioned, that the four main ameliorator breeds in horsebreeding were/are the purebred hotbloods Barb, Turkmenian and Arabian and the English Thoroughbred. Purebred ameliorator breeds of course do not need amelioration through any outcross, they ameliorate, they are not being ameliorated.

This leads us directly to what was being done to the Turkoman horses. It can be safely said, that change (of the Turkoman breed) still was the objective of the enormous infusion of English Thoroughbred blood which was commanded by the Russian and Soviet military.

Between the defeat of the Turkmenians in 1881 and roughly 1930 a huge amount of foreign blood infusion took place, not in the manner of a scientifically sound sandbox breeding (meaning breeding Turkmenian/Teke sires to English Thoroughbred mares and evaluating the offspring for excellence) either.

English sires were used nillywilly on the pure Turkoman mares of the first studbook, there were many pure mares with diverse and excellent pedigrees which never once were allowed to have a pure Teke foal. The partbreds resulting from these crosses were directly inscribed into the studbook as sires and dams of the Akhal Teke breed. Except for racing short distance races there was no evaluation done, to be more precise, there was no evaluation done according to the original traits of the Turkoman horses. Contrary to what sometimes is maintained by Russian/Soviet officials, the partbred and crossbred horses never were dropped from the studbook. They were allowed to stay inside the population up to the day. The subsequent rearward closure was pure window dressing, it was not even taken care to drop the then most crossbred individuals from the studbook.

Over time a broad variety of explanations and excuses for this disaster were tendered by current officials of the breed. They range from maintaining, that this was some benevolent act of creating a riding horse better suited to modern times and sports, or adding height to the Turkoman horses, or making them faster on the racetrack. The infusion was excused as having been misguided, yet well-meaning, as the only way to rescue the breed, as unfortunate oldfashioned breeding science. Whichever.

Let us make this ansolutely clear: Russian/Soviet horsebreeding experts can be accused of many things, but not of being dumb or underinformed.

They created and maintained a couple of truly superior riding horses on their own soil, such as e.g. the Tersk horse, the Kabardin, the Trakehner, and the Arabian. The Tersk horse is a warmblood cross bred within a few decades into an ideal riding horse for the army with high resilience, excellent stamina and gaits as well as looks which make any dressage aficionado salivate. The Kabardin was preserved as pure stock, and a faster, taller variant was created with the Anglo-Kabardin, which has better riding points, than the pure mountain stock. Do note: the original gene pool of purebred Kabardins was maintained as it was. The Trakehner horses left on Soviet territory after WWII were gathered, cherished and bred true up to the day, providing valuable outbreeding chances for the Trakehner breed worldwide. The Russian Arabian is famed all over the world these days, and there never was a question of "ameliorating" this purebred oriental hotblood with English Thoroughbreds to create some better riding or racing horse, in fact the Russian Arabian was always raced and ridden as a purebred, and belongs today to the contributions to WAHO sought after even by major purebreeding fanatics.

Given all this expertise and all this foresight regarding other, quite similar breeds and newly created breeds, it is quite clear that the abovementioned explanations are simply lies. They may be political and politicking lies, but that does not change the fact, that so far no Russian official of the breed has owned up to what happened and what really was intended: the destruction of the breed to once and for all quell the Turkmenian resistance. A secondary goal may have been the creation of a racing breed, which would provide the Turkmenian masses with bread and circuses, but definitely not on par with the old warhorses.

What sense does it make to rub it in? To force owning up to what has happened?

Firstly, it debunks the longstanding myth that Russians/Soviets "rescued" the Akhal Teke. They did not, they all but destroyed it. It were actually the Turkmenian dshigits, who 1935 rode from Ashgabat to Moscow to prove its superiority, who managed to rescue the breed to some extent.

Secondly, together with the further executed forceful changes of how the Teke/Turkoman has and is being bred (see selection, genetics and studbook), it serves to firmly put the Soviet/Russian influence on the breed in its place. Especially when reviewing current troubles with democratic structures within the breed's organisation and the - one cannot call it differently - quite arrogant manner in which non-CIS breeders are as a whole kept from taking responsibilities and making decisions regarding the horses they own and breed, it is important to remember, that Russians/Soviets were by no means original to the breed, nor did they always act to its best interests. Whenever horsepeople and experienced breeders from outside of Russia/CIS are made to feel as if they are firstgraders without the simplest knowledge about the "so very special" Akhal Teke breed, they should remember these facts.

Lastly, only full acceptance and owning up to what happened, enables breeders as a whole, to debate what now and in the future can and should be done. This includes everything from selection methods, studbook management and revisiting the marketing of this breed. As long as false facts are propagated, people, especially newcomers, stand no chance to make educated evaluations and decisions.

While it is quite understandable, that people who are normally so excellent horsebreeders, wish to sweep such a black chapter under the table, while it is equally understandable, that the people, who have been trained and sponsored to important positions in horsebreeding by exactly those who behaved so unsavorably, do not wish to lose them their face and fame, it is not in the best interest of this breed to do so, and this is what should count.