Читать книгу The Majesty of the Horse: An Illustrated History - Tamsin Pickeral - Страница 14

HEIGHT

Up to 14.2 h.h.

APPEARANCE

Although there are several different types of Kazakh horses and they vary greatly in appearance, they tend to be small with tremendous stamina and hardiness. Muscular through the frame with very hard, sound limbs and feet.

COLOR

Mostly bay, chestnut, dun, or gray.

APTITUDE

Riding, pack, light draft

KAZAKHSTAN IS BORDERED by the Caspian Sea in the west, the Altai Mountains in the east, the Tian Shan Mountains in the south, and the Ural Mountains in the north. Huge herds of Kazakh horses roam in this vast, unforgiving landscape that matches striking beauty with a ferocious climate, a place where many other breeds would quickly perish.

The Kazakh is extraordinarily tough and hardy, resistant to extreme climatic conditions and able to survive and even thrive on the sparsest of diets. It is such a product of its environment that during hard times maturing horses will stop growing; then, as food becomes more plentiful, they will undergo a growth spurt. The horses have strongly developed jawbones designed to cope with tough grasses and foliage, and those horses that live in the desert areas also grow thick hair along the upper lip designed to remove sand from grasses before they are eaten. Like many of the other ancient breeds, the Kazakh has a double-layered, water- and cold-resistant coat.

The Kazakh horse was central to the lives of the nomadic Kazakh people throughout history, and even in modern times the horses continue to be of the utmost importance. The lives of the nomadic Kazakh people revolved around their horses, which provided them with transportation, meat, milk, and entertainment, and far back in history formed part of their religion. Powerful spiritual beliefs were, and in some cases still are, attached to horses. Horse bones—and the skull in particular—are thought to embody supernatural forces and should be treated with respect. Occasionally, horse skulls mounted on sticks are included in ceremonies, and in exceptional circumstances a gray or white mare (the most prized colors) might be sacrificed—for example, to secure the protection of a family. Horses are also thought to have an omnipotent protective spirit called Kambar-ata.

Even today horses play an enormous role in the nomads’ culture. Distances are measured in terms of how far a horse can run during a race; a colt’s run is approximately 6 to 9 miles (10–15 km), and a stallion’s run would be between 19 and 25 miles (30–40 km). Days are divided according to the routine of milking mares, which are milked around five times a day at intervals of an hour and a half. Fermented horse milk, called koumiss, is a delicacy and is believed to have curative properties for more than forty illnesses. Horses still also form an important part of many traditional ceremonies surrounding births, weddings, deaths, and festivals.

The Kazakh horse has evolved into a number of significantly different types. The Berik, the heaviest and stoutest, is a workhorse, and the Zhurdak is used as a general riding animal. The Zhuirik is a finer, faster type and is the most highly prized; it is used for racing, a hugely popular pastime. The Adaev is a good riding horse with a high milk yield, and the more massive Jabe is widely used for its meat, an important aspect of the Kazakh diet, and also its milk yield. Despite the significant variation among Kazakh horses, in general, they are slightly unprepossessing in appearance, though this is compensated for by their enormous stamina and hardiness.

The Kazakh shares much in common with the Bashkir, which evolved in the southern foothills of the Urals, and the Buryat of Siberia, which along with the Mongolian horse were fundamental in expanding the ancient geographic boundaries of their associated cultures and saw the spread of humans across Eurasia into Russia and throughout Europe.