You do not know some owners of karabagh horses? Her Royal Majesty, queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain is one of them, another one is Mr. Reinhold Messner, who had mounted the highest Mount Everest without any oxygen mask, further the children of the Russian Zars and last not least he Minister of Azerbaijan, Mr. Haydar Aliyev..
Time to saddle up - Fetima Guliyeva Historian -
"We have seen of another year, the
year of the wise snake, embracing that of the horse, a
generous gift of nature, an animal that has proven its
faithfulness to man over the millenniums.
The horse has always taken a special place in the
life of
The horse was believed to be sacred in the state
of Manna, an ancient Azeri realm in the 9th century B.C.
There were required special rituals to bury horses.
Assirian
sources say that our ancestors, Manna and Midia tribes
had plentiful herds of strong pedigree horses. Diadorus
from
According to ancient Greek geographer Strabonus
tribes in Atropotena, an ancient state in
The contemporary Azeri runners, especially the
horses of Karabagh, root back to ancient times. The
medium-sized, brown and gold-brown horses shined among
other breeds. Horse breeding specialist S. P. Urusov
noted that
"Karabagh horses played as a tremendous role in
the development of horse-breeding in
Some data available show that there were around
150,000 horses in the
People in Karabagh used to sell horses to European
countries. In one of these massive sales, an English
company purchased as many as 60 mares from the horse
breeding enterprise of Mehdigulu Khan of Karabagh in
1823.
The renowned painter Vershaghin was struck to see
the grandiosity and beauty of horses in his tour of
Shusha, a key town of
After the demise of Mehdigulu Khan her daughter,
the famous poetress Khurshud Banu Natavan persued her
father's business on. Earning fame for Karabagh horses.
The Khan's herds admired nearly all expatriates
traveling to Karabagh, including the son of the great
Alexander Dumas.
The Khan horses won a gold medal in an
international show in
In
1949, the horse breeding enterprise was revivaled in
Agdam and the Karabagh horse breed Zaman was presented
by the Soviet government as a gift to the English Queen
Elizabeth the second in 1956. Horse specialist Juanita
Berlin wrote that that horse would be admired very much
by the English people.
Another fact testifying to the popularity of Azeri
horses is that the horse breeding enterprise in
All 120 thoroughbred Karabagh horses were
fortunately salvaged from Agdam several days before the
Armenian occupation in 1993. The horses are currently
bred in
winter pastures of Lanbaran between Barda and,
Aghschabad provinces.'
These facts illustrate that horses have been not
just of military and economic importance for
Azerbaijanis, but also part of their life.
P.S. Especially noteworthy among
local horses is the gray-colored Dilbaz breed, which has
been acclimatized to mountainous conditions and can
carry over 200 kilograms of cargo.
Azernews 9 yan. 2002
Yes, of course, you could not get any karabagh horse neither in Europe, nor in
Azerbaijan himself. Why?
Karabagh horses had been sold and sold and perhaps been stolen all the centuries ago, because
they were as expensive as gold and as worthy.
But now, it is possible to get these horses. Step by step the breed recovers
and all people who loves them will do anything to care for.
Verena Scholian
chairman of IG Karabagh