Читать книгу The Majesty of the Horse: An Illustrated History - Tamsin Pickeral - Страница 11

HEIGHT

Up to 14 h.h.

APPEARANCE

Robust in build with a rectangular body frame; short, strong, clean limbs; and an attractive head with large, kind eyes. Strong back, with a well-formed, muscular croup. Heavy through the neck and front end, with a broad, deep chest.

COLOR

Chestnut, bay, black, or grullo, often with a dorsal stripe and zebra markings on the legs.

APTITUDE

Riding, light draft

STRETCHING IN A STEADY ARC across central and eastern Europe are the Carpathian Mountains, Europe’s largest mountain range and home of the highly prized Hucul, or Carpathian Pony. It was here among the rugged peaks and diving valleys that the Hucul, a direct descendant of the wild Tarpan, developed. It is also a meeting point of several countries, as the borders of Romania, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Serbia, and Slovakia come together, and many of these countries either claim the origin of the Hucul or raise and breed the hardy pony. The breed’s name derives from the Hutsuls, a Ukrainian culture of highlanders who rely heavily on their horses and whose history goes back many centuries. Despite being their namesake, however, the Hucul pony existed long before and was bred by the mountain tribes of Dacians, for whom the tough and enduring ponies were essential in everyday life, for transport, packing goods, and in warfare. Though they were and are ridden, the Hucul was most widely used in a draft capacity early in its history and was able to negotiate the forbidding, mountainous terrain where other horses failed. Bas-reliefs of Hucul-like ponies—showing little difference in physicality from their present form—appear on Roman monuments depicting battles between the Romans and Dacians. Even when the Dacians fell to the Romans in the battle of Sarmizegetusa in 106 C.E. they continued to breed their indomitable Hucul ponies.

Once the breed was established, the inhospitable and inaccessible mountain habitat of the Hucul contributed to maintaining its purity. The Hucul, which is noted for its quality, is thought to have developed directly from the Tarpan (it is described in early accounts as the “mountain Tarpan”), as well as through breeding with Oriental horses, Mongolian stock introduced to the area by nomadic tribes from Central Asia, and quite possibly even the Asiatic Wild Horse. Other than these relatively infrequent outside influences, the Hucul remained largely untouched until several attempts to improve the breed were made in the late nineteenth century through the introduction of other blood. Despite this, the innate Hucul characteristics—its extreme and virtually unequaled hardiness, its strength in relation to its size, and a certain air of quality not always seen in native mountain breeds—have perpetuated.

The Hucul is particularly prized in Poland and Romania, and it was in Romania that the first specialized stud farm was established at Rădăuţi in 1856, the primary aim of which was to produce Huculs for use in the Austro-Hungarian army. After some years, the stud activities floundered, but they were reactivated in 1876, and the program expanded to establish Pietrosul, Hroby, Ghoral, Gurgul, and Oushor bloodlines, with Ghoral being one of the most important and prodigious.

In 1922, thirty-three Huculs were sent to Czechoslovakia, where a new line of Gurgul horses was established, with the breeding still focused on producing horses for use in the military. The breed suffered enormous losses during both world wars, and after World War II, in light of increasing mechanization, Hucul numbers dwindled rapidly. In the 1950s, the State Forest Directorate at Murán Plain National Park in Slovakia made efforts to increase breed numbers, and then in 1972 the Czech Republic’s Association for Protection of Nature and Landscape founded the Hucul Club to implement a more effective preservation program. The initiative has been a great success, and Poland, Romania, Ukraine, Hungary, and Austria have all joined in, while the Hucul continues to be bred in Russia.