Akhal-Teke Center

01/17/2025

🐴🐴🐴🐴❤️

Moms ’n baby dragons this morning at the Akhal-Teke Center.

Ruby, Kurinka, Robbie, and Gavinka. The kiddos are eight months old. ❤️

01/16/2025

Chilly Thursday morning at the ATC, waiting for a bit of thaw projected for this afternoon.

01/13/2025

01/11/2025

Fresh snow, wind swept.

01/09/2025

Feeding the Zebra-Tekes by moonlight tonight.

01/09/2025

Hooray! Our beautiful & info-packed has arrived from Europe. 💖

Thank you, AkhalTeke HorseAssoc!

📷 gelding Ata Khan d'Akhal

01/06/2025

A winter afternoon for the Akhal-Teke girls at the big barn today.

01/05/2025

Solar pump gave out in a part of the farm that’s off-grid. Let’s see if we can fill the upper cistern this way, so the gravity-fed automatic waterers in the Hay Barn and Pond pastures will keep supplying water to mares & foals, etc. through the imminent snow, potential power outage, and subsequent days of deep freeze. 👍

01/02/2025

Sunshine on the hay line this morning in the Blue Ridge foothills. ☀️

girls Dory, Sarka, Tina, Ally, Kizy, Abby, and Nusha. ❤️

01/01/2025

🎉💖🎉

First sunset of 2025, with Abby and the Akhal-Teke girls at the big barn. Happy New Year, dear Friends! 💞🎉

12/31/2024

Dear Friends of Akhal-Tekes,

This is it for the Akhal-Tekes... for 2024. Saving the root stock breed of modern athletic horses is a big job.

And frankly, we need your help.

Thanks to a generous donor, all contributions made before midnight tonight will be matched — so your gift today will be doubled!

Since the Akhal-Teke Foundation is an all-volunteer public charity, the Akhal-Teke horses at our national Akhal-Teke Center depend on the support of the community of Akhal-Teke lovers.

Please help our precious new foals, like the next little Sayda, to survive and thrive. Can we count on you for $25 before midnight to meet our 2024 goal?

Donate here for 2024:

https://bit.ly/akhalteke2024

Donate for 2025 here:

https://akhaltekefoundation.networkforgood.com

We’ve all had an unexpected and uncertain two years – and we’re wishing you and yours a healthy, safe, and joyful 2025!

P.S. Setting up a recurring monthly donation helps to budget your gift over the next year—for you and for us. And our donor will match the full amount for the year right now! Please consider making a recurring contribution today.

https://bit.ly/akhalteke2024

Donate for 2025 here:

https://akhaltekefoundation.networkforgood.com

Checks can be written to "Akhal-Teke Foundation" and be mailed to...

Akhal-Teke Foundation
2989 Maury River Rd
Lexington, VA 24450

Contributions are tax-deductible. The Akhal-Teke Foundation is an award-winning, all-volunteer 501(c)3 public charity for preservation of the rare and amazing Akhal-Teke horses.

There's more about Akhal-Teke Foundation programs online here...
https://www.akhaltekefoundation.org/programs.html

Join our email list here…
https://www.akhaltekefoundation.org/email_list.html

12/30/2024

Such a nice day here today!

12/28/2024

“Why do we fight for the Akhal-Tekes?”

The number of these rare and amazing horses is just too low. The ancient Akhal-Teke breed is slipping toward oblivion, right before our eyes.

Together, we can turn this around.

First, we have to understand that commercial breeding will not sustain a rare breed. The painfully low numbers show that breeding and selling horses is not sustaining the Akhal-Tekes in North America.

Most young horses who are bred and sold go to riding homes, rather than breeding homes. This is natural — only a small fraction of horse people are horse breeders — and Akhal-Tekes are terrific riding horses! The riding horse market is essential for commercial, sales-based breeding.

And even if most breeders lose money supporting this market — as they do — the riding horse market provides a valuable income for breeders to keep going.

But with most horses going into the riding market, there are simply not enough active broodmares to sustain the breed. We’ve seen just ten to 12 foals born per year in all of North America, for the last several years — when the replacement rate, just to maintain our current subpopulation of Akhal-Tekes, would be more like 25 foals born per year.

And of those recent foals, around half have come from our horses — from an Akhal-Teke Foundation stallion or mare… or both. In a way, we're already propping up the regular commercial market for Akhal-Tekes.

To reach sustaining numbers, though, the breed needs substantially more mares for years to come, who are focused on breeding more Akhal-Tekes, rather than on riding, whether for sport or pleasure.

And the commercial market just can’t support this. Breeders who survive by selling young horses can’t also afford to keep enough of their own fillies to substantially grow their production — even if they had the room and the resources to operate at a higher volume. It just doesn’t pencil out.

Wishing and cajoling for more horses doesn’t change this hard reality for a rare breed. Without a different approach, Akhal-Tekes will continue to dwindle.

Fortunately, there is an alternative to the inherent limitations of commercial breeding. It’s called “conservation breeding.”

It’s breeding for the horses, not the horse market.

This is why the Akhal-Teke Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit public charity, is growing a conservation breeding herd of selected horses at the Akhal-Teke Center. The current Akhal-Teke Foundation herd of 20 purebreds includes descendants of 29 originally-imported purebred Akhal-Teke horses, imported from eight countries between 1979 and 2008, representing 11 sire lines.

With the support of a broad community of Akhal-Teke lovers like you, the foundation can actually grow the Akhal-Teke population, while maintaining excellence and preserving the essential root stock genetic diversity.

The rare and amazing Akhal-Teke horses need your support to survive and thrive. Our goal is to raise $2700 by the end of this year, matched by an anonymous donor to reach $5400, to support the new foals at the nonprofit Akhal-Teke Center.

Can the Akhal-Tekes count on you?

Donate:

https://akhaltekefoundation.networkforgood.com

Thank you!


Join our email list here…
https://www.akhaltekefoundation.org/email_list.html

More about ATF programs here…
https://www.akhaltekefoundation.org/programs.html



📷 Ellen L Chappell Photography

12/27/2024

Year end 2024 🦄❤️

The rare and amazing Akhal-Teke horses need your support to survive and thrive. Our goal is to raise $2700 by the end of this year, matched by an anonymous donor to reach $5400, to support new foals at the nonprofit Akhal-Teke Center. Can the Akhal-Tekes count on you?

Donate here…
https://bit.ly/akhalteke2024