Desert Origins


The Arabian prototype was originally tamed by the people of the Arabian peninsula known today as the Bedouin, probably domesticated shortly after the Bedouin learned to use the camel.

Arabians are one of the oldest human-developed breeds in the world. The original wild progenitors, "Proto-Arabian" horses with oriental characteristics similar to the modern Arabian, appeared in rock paintings and inscriptions in the Arabian Peninsula as far back as 2,500 B.C. In ancient history, throughout the Ancient Near East, horses with refined heads and high-carried tails were depicted in artwork, particularly that of Ancient Egypt. Proto-Arabians may have been brought to Egypt by the Hyksos invaders.

There are different theories about where the wild ancestor of the Arabian originally lived. Most evidence suggests the "proto Arabian" or "Oriental" horse came from the area along the northern edge of the Fertile Crescent. Others argue for the southwestern corner of the Arabian peninsula, in modern-day Yemen, where three now-dry riverbeds suggest good natural pastures existed long ago, though perhaps as far back as the Ice Age.

The Arabian prototype was originally tamed by the people of the Arabian peninsula known today as the Bedouin, probably domesticated shortly after the Bedouin learned to use the camel.

Some scholars of the Arabian horse theorized that the Arabian came from a separate subspecies of horse. Gladys Brown Edwards, a noted Arabian researcher, commented that this animal was called Equus agilis. However, Edwards and other scholars believe that the "dry" oriental horse of the desert, from which the modern Arabian developed, was one of four basic subtypes of Equus caballus that had specific characteristics based on the environments in which they lived, rather than being a separate subspecies. Horses with similar, though not identical, physical characteristics include the now-extinct Turkoman Horse, the Barb of North Africa and the Akhal-Teke of western Asia.

The desert environment required a domesticated horse to cooperate with humans to survive. Humans were the only source of food and water in certain areas, and even hardy Arabian horses needed far more water than camels in order to survive (most horses can only live about 72 hours without water). Where there was no pasture or water, the Bedouin fed their horses dates and camel's milk. The desert horse needed to thrive on very little food, and possess anatomical traits to compensate for life in a dry climate with temperature extremes from day to night. Weak individuals were weeded out of the breeding pool, and the animals that remained were honed by centuries of human warfare.

In return, the Bedouin way of life depended on camels and horses: Arabians were bred to be war horses with speed, endurance, soundness, and intelligence. Because many raids required stealth, mares were preferred over stallions because they were quieter and would not give away the position of the fighters. A good disposition was critical; prized war mares were often brought inside family tents to prevent theft and for protection from weather and predators. Though appearance was not necessarily a survival factor, the Bedouin bred for refinement and beauty in their horses as well as for more practical features.

For centuries, the Bedouin tracked the ancestry of each horse through an oral history tradition. The first written pedigrees in the middle east that specifically used the term "Arabian" date to 1330 A.D. Horses of the purest blood were known as Asil and crossbreeding with non-Asil horses was forbidden. Mares were the most valued, both for riding and breeding, and pedigree families were traced through the female line. The Bedouin did not believe in gelding male horses, and considered stallions too intractable to be good war horses, thus they kept very few male foals (colts), selling most, though also culling those of poor quality.

Over time, the Bedouin developed several sub-types or strains of Arabian horse, each with unique characteristics. According to the Arabian Horse Association, the five primary strains were known as the Keheilan, Seglawi, Abeyan, Hamdani and Hadban. There were also lesser strains, sub-strains, and regional variations in strain names. Thus, many Arabian horses were not only Asil, of pure blood, but also bred to be pure in strain as well, with crossbreeding between strains discouraged, though not forbidden, by some tribes. Purity of bloodline was very important to the Bedouin, and they also believed in telegony, believing if a mare was ever bred to a stallion of "impure" blood, the mare herself and all future offspring would be "contaminated" by the stallion and hence no longer Asil.

This complex web of bloodline and strain was an integral part of Bedouin culture. The Bedouin knew the pedigrees and history of their best war mares in detail, via an oral tradition that also tracked the breeding of their camels, Saluki dogs, and their own family or tribal history. However, important as strain was to the Bedouin, studies of mitochondrial DNA suggest that modern Arabian horses recorded to be of the same strain actually may not necessarily share a common maternal ancestry.