Iran

Horse/Light Horse

Pony

    Although a centuries old crossroads for the world trade routes to India and China, Persia (Iran) remained an almost medieval land of mystery until relatively recent times. Now, owing to the present (1970) Shah and his father, Iran is modernizing at fantastic speed. Yet despite the motorized traffic loading the wide boulevards of Tehran, the air-conditioned buses and laden trucks thundering along miles of metaled roads and the growing network of railroads and expanding internal air service, it will be many years before horses and donkeys become pleasures, rather than necessities in this vast land. Agriculture yearly becomes more mechanized, yet in many parts, tractors are still a rarity, and where mud walls, for irrigation, enclose small cultivated tracts, machines remain impracticable.
    Some of the many nomadic tribes are being settled. Yet even in the desert, southeast of the Caspian Sea, where the once traditionally horse-raising tribe of Turkoman are now mostly prosperous, mechanically minded farmers, droves of semi-wild mares still roam the sand hills close by the Russian border. (This was during the time of the U.S.S.R. and I believe the borders are now Turkmenistan, etc.) Prized stallions, swathed in seven, time-honored layers of felt, remain tethered beside the concrete, or old-time felt-and-osier "beehive" homes of their owners. In Turkoman towns, carts rattle to and fro, drawn by the slim desert horses, harnessed with H-shaped wooden collars, their drivers wearing distinguishing black lambskin Turkoman hats.
    Twenty-four of the Shah's favorite stallions are housed in one long building at the Royal Stud at Faharabad, outside Tehran. Some of these beautiful animals are gifts, like the Arabian horse presented by ex-King Ibn Saud; the Arab-like Jaf, a Persian and Turkish breed from Kurdistan, presented by the late Turkish President; an English Thoroughbred sent long ago by the President of Pakistan. Tahmiahn, the Shah's splendid pleasure horse, and Azar, a regal animal kept for ceremonial occasions, are half-brothers, both Anglo-Persians. The Thoroughbred cross adds height and even more presence to Persian Arabs. Koshro, another royal favorite, is a Bajalan Arab, used for mountain hunting, that well satisfies the Shah's love of speed and spirit. All Persian horses are of Oriental type, but many are crossbred.
    Other strains of Arab in Iran have now been grouped together under the breed name of Plateau Persian. The Plateau Persian was crossed with the Thoroughbred to create the Pahlavan.
    In addition to the above-mentioned breeds, Iran is or was also home to the Hyksos-Persian horse, the Circassian horse, the Persian horse, the Iranian horse, the Persian mountain pony, and the Darashoori (Shiragi).
    The Persian is one of the three principal Oriental races of the domestic horse, the others being the Arab and the Turk. The original Persian breed has been variously described as both larger and smaller than the Arab, and as being either ancestral to the latter or descended from it. Perhaps all that can be said with certainty is that the Persian was a small hrose of southwestern Asia, developed for the same purposes as the Arabian horse and closely resembling the Arab both in size, coloration, and running ability. Today in Iran (Persia) there are so many different breeds--some indigenous but others mostly introduced, especially from the U.S.S.R.--that a single, distinct "Persian" horse can no longer be identified.