The Akhal-Teke has been a horse of many names, due to its mythos and how it dispersed over the millenia. They were most often called the Turkoman, Turkmen, or Turk horse, for the Turkic tribes of their Middles Ages homeland. In ancient times, they were also known as the Nisean horse, the highly sought after royal mounts of Persia. The Romans, Chinese, and Scythians are all believed to have fought and traded for the “Heavenly Argamak”, or the “Heavenly Horse”–a term for the breed that is still used by hippologists today. The Akhal-Teke horse was so coveted they became the target in the first war over horses and later contributed to early development of the Thoroughbred, and even some bloodlines of the Arabian.

Akhal-Tekes faced the brink of extinction before proving their worth as an incomparable athlete in the famous 85-day, 3,000km ride from Ashkhabad to Moscow in 1935. Following that fateful event, the Akhal-Teke gained international attention with Stalin’s eventing and jumping champion stallion Arab, who won “The Cup of the Soviet Union” in 1949 and sired his even more famous son, Absent–who secured the first Olympic Gold victory for Soviet Russia in 1960. The breed has been gifted for ages, and, though still considered a “threatened” heritage breed, now graces stables worldwide with a population of about 6,600 and growing.