Some Akhal Teke breeders, not the least influentual ones either, are currently in an inner dilemma they apparently do not even seem to notice. On the one hand they - rightfully so - claim, that a pure breed should have but one criterion for breeding: purity. But if you ask them, what is important, how the breed ought to be selected, you get answers like:

• purity and type are most important
• purity, type and racing results are what is needed
• purity, type, bone and correct built is the way

We have dealt with the relativity of purity, the current studbook definitely needing to be revisited. However, with any kind of regard for the concept of an ameliorator breed, already the qualification as per "type" is a deviation from that concept.

It actually gets worse, however. As we learned, the Turkoman nomads did not breed for looks, looks is what happened to the breed and most certainly not just one sort of look, what happened was a large diversity of looks. This is not unheard of among other animal breeds bred according the same kind of needs as the Teke and Turkoman horses.

E.g. the Hortaya Borzaya, an ancient sighthound breed descending from the even more ancient shorthaired Southern Russian sighthounds, was bred in villages all along the southern steppe belt from Ukraine to the Caspian Sea. Bred by small-time hunters who rarely kept more than 2-3 dogs at a time, hunters whose families very literally depended on the ability of these dogs to put food on the table in late fall, winter and early spring. The hunters did not care at all, how their dogs looked like, they bred those who were the best and hardiest hunters to each other, while avoiding inbreeding at the same time. That is all they did. No shows, no judgement of looks, only hunting ability, good character and stamina. Period. The result is a huge variety of colors, sizes, conformations including the form of the head, densities of coat, hair lengths, calibres: all within one, purebred landrace breed. The different main strains and their variety of sub-type expressions clearly are adapted to the regions they are being bred in. Apart from being formidable hunters these dogs, wherever they are bred and whichever way they look, share some important basic traits: very good health, longevity and superior fertility. And, inspite of the huge diversity among them, it is easy to see, that they all belong to the same breed, once you know what to notice and what to disregard.

Whether these hunting dogs or the Turkoman horses: form follows function

It is not the other way round. And only via that route the necessary genetic diversity, so important for the inner values, is maintained.

In the chapter about genetics you can read up on the dire consequences of show breeding. Well, what has been happening to the Akhal Teke ever since they were taken away from the nomads was show breeding, and this sort of breeding is gaining speed given the current streamlining of "type". With the overpowering successes of the Stavropol horses in breed shows, comes the danger of the "Popular Sire Syndrome". A close look at the back pedigrees of current horses shows us, that we are not just gaining momentum, the Akhal Teke actually by now already is coming down the other end of the curve. It already is hard to find pedigrees which do not carry at least once one of the most popular sires of the late 60ies and early 70ies.

The main reason for this is not any purported "natural" bottleneck. If we had to only deal with the genetic bottlenecks which  occurred to the breed due outward stringencies, such as the mass slaughters or the losses due famine or wars, it would have been no problem to breed very diverse inspite of that. No, the reason for this narrowing of the gene pool is - mainly - the breeding for "type" and the overpowering use made of the champion sires. This basically started with the declaration of Boinou as being the epitome of the "breed type".

Once again, this needs to be said again and again: the Turkoman nomads never bred for type, they bred for function and function gave them a pretty large spread of strains with distinct looks to each. They did not even prefer any of these strains over the other because of these looks, they preferred those strains doing the job best.

The current efforts to streamline the breed into one or two kinds of outward looks, is nothing but the manner in which e.g. cat and dog breeds are developed. Yes, developed. The huge difference between show and functional breeding is that in showbreeding there is no end to the spiral.

A breeder selecting according to function will be satisfied once the function is achieved effectively. We already had that state among the Turkoman horses prior to 1900, we had that state even hundreds of years before 1900.

A breeder selecting according to looks in a showbreeding situation will never be satisfied. His horses do not need to do a job, they need to win against other horses in shows. The looks of the breed are hence homogenized, and once they achieve this, they are breed for such outward extremes which will catch the eyes of the breed judges.

From species with a faster generation turnover, such as dogs, we know the mechanism active with these extremes. One e.g. is size, some breeds go for height (e.g. Great Dane, Dobermann), others for smallness (e.g. miniature/teacup poodle, Yorkshire Terrier), for some it is the change of the skull (e.g. Bulldog, Pug) or the line of the back (e.g. German Shepherd).

What is very obvious by now is that this kind of breeding always ends up completely disregarding function. This is an inbuilt result of showbreeding, it is not possible to showbreed and not arrive at disregarding function.

Some of the worst examples are the Azawakh (bred to be taller than long, color restricted), which went from a working dog breed to physically and mentally dysfunctional wreck within but a mere 30 years under western showbreeding, the Halter Quarterhorse (just compare a halter champion to a quartermiler or ranch horse, HYPP being a result of the Popular Sire Syndrome as well) and the Great Dane (average lifetime reduced to 6 years, needs corrective operations of the stomach and joints at an average of 80% of the population). None of them can do the job anymore they had been originally bred for. The list of breeds destroyed by showbreeding is actually much, much longer. Indeed, no species bred by humans for looks and shows has escaped major damage. Currently the Australian Shepherd and the Border Collie, two highly functional working breeds joined these ranks after a mere 10-15 years of being bred by show breeders.

As mentioned, horse breeds are very definitely not immune to this mechanism. We find it very active among show Arabians, Quarterhorses, Paints, Saddlebreds, Friesians, mini(ature) horses, even such pure working breeds as the Icelander and Shirehorses (both of which made considerable populationwide jumps in height). The Akhal Teke, after 120 years of mainly showbreeding, also has to be mentioned here.

Any pre-1900 Turkoman nomad worth his salt (and loot) would have a screaming shitfit talking but 5 minutes with most of the modern breeders, looking at the horses they breed and listening to all that to-do about "type". You don't believe that? Well, think a bit about such sayings which for ages and ages were touted by working horse breeders all over the world, "a good horse has no color", "you don't ride the head of a horse", "no hoof, no horse" or "a head is just to hang a bridle on".