Akhal-Tekes at Shenandoah Farm, VA

10/28/2024

10/21/2024

at pasture on Saturday afternoon. ❤️

10/07/2024

The ancient and amazing horses and their incredible are discussed on the BBC “Unexpected Elements” broadcast this week.

The recording is now up at the BBC. The lead-in to the Akhal-Teke bit starts at 28:42 on this cut…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct5q2d

Shiny things that make you smile. 💖

Thank you, !

📷 metallic shine on the golden buckskin Akhal-Teke stallion Amanat-Dacor

10/03/2024

Amazing story…

Akhal-Teke stallion Kiergen has just defied the odds to come out unscathed from a freakishly rare, typically devastating infection with a terribly low survival rate.

The Veterinary Teaching Hospital at Virgina Tech tells this life-saving story here…
https://news.vt.edu/articles/2024/10/vetmed-vth-success-story-kiergen.html

With your valiant help, the Akhal-Teke Foundation will do anything we can for the dear horses in our care. The hospital bill for saving Kiergen is $8056.41. Please help as you can.

Donate here:
https://akhaltekefoundation.networkforgood.com

❤️‍🩹

09/21/2024

🐴💕

08/29/2024

08/28/2024

Adamek! 😍🤩💖

08/28/2024

Hooray!! 🎉

Babies incoming! 🤞💖

We’re celebrating five mares in foal by four stallions for the first breeding season at the nonprofit Akhal-Teke Center:

• Anduma x Arima (chestnut x palomino)
• Caladesi x Gavinka (buckskin by buckskin)
• Ehyr Atlaz x Zenus (bay x black)
• Kiergen x Swan Yurekli Sazada (Sayda) (perlino x buckskin)
• Kiergen x Swan Kyzyl Kometa (Kizy) (perlino x chestnut)

The Akhal-Teke Foundation depends on your donations to support these pregnancies. Our conservation breeding program works to sustain the fundamental diversity of the Akhal-Teke breed, in North America and worldwide.

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

Sponsor the foaling of your choice with a recurring monthly donation!

Donate here…
https://akhaltekefoundation.networkforgood.com

📷 Kizy (Kuwwat x Pallas Athena, 2016) now has her first pregnancy. 🎉Ellen L Chappell Photography

07/09/2024

Gavinka & Kurinka, barn & raised at Shenandoah Farm.

Akhal-Teke moms & babies. ❤️

Robbie, Gavinka, Ruby, Kurinka

06/26/2024

A warm welcome to Lexington, Virginia and the great Virginia Horse Center (VHC), to the Equus Survival Trust (EST), the Akhal-Teke Association of America (ATAA), and all the rare horse breeds organizations, exhibitors, competitors, volunteers, and horse owners!

This is the SANA 2024 Rare Breeds Show, presented by EST and their partner organizations:

Today, Wednesday 6/26/24, is moving in day.

Thursday is “Akhal-Teke Day”.

Friday is the Breeder’s Symposium.

Saturday has special events open to the general public.

Sunday morning brings dressage!

And there’s so much more every day.

EST has the full daily schedules online here…

https://www.equus-survival-trust.org/sana2024.html

PS: The ATF’s new Akhal-Teke Center is just five miles up the river road from the VHC, and if we can help with local knowledge while you’re visiting Lexington for the rare breeds show, please don’t hesitate to text or call Kevin at 541-514-4766.

06/24/2024

“The Disappearance of the Turk”

DNA research has recently proven the pivotal influence of the Turkoman/Akhal-Teke horses on modern athletic horse breeds across Europe and worldwide, from the Thoroughbred to the Lipizzaner.

A probing essay by Donna Landry delves into how and why the foundational role of these special Central Asian horses was mistakenly attributed to “Arabians,” and thus hidden from Western history… until now.

Abstract:

“Between 1650 and 1750, the English Thoroughbred horse was created from Ottoman imports grafted upon native racing stock in an asymmetrical Anglo-Ottoman exchange, with appropriation leading to naturalisation and radical assimilation. The Ottoman Empire was a rich source of equine genetic material of the superior bloodhorse type. The Ottomans were equine multiculturalists. For Evliya Çelebi, the küheylân (Arab thoroughbred) was as Ottoman a breed as any other. Evliya never speaks of “Turk” or “Turkoman” horses as Western visitors did; instead he particularizes the breeds of the steppe, employing the Tatar term aġırmaq [Argamak] (thoroughbred), and identifying the Nogay and Karaçubuk as ‘thoroughbred’ breeds.

“Yet it was this “Turkoman” lineage of early imports such as the ‘Byerley Turk’ that was most originally formative for the English Thoroughbred, evidenced by studbook records, contemporary observers, phenotypical resemblances, and recent genome research. From the evidence of Evliya Çelebi, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Sir John Malcolm, Lady Anne Blunt, and others, this essay argues for the formative influence of the Ottoman “Turkoman” genotype that, as a consequence of imperial rivalries, British prejudices, and equine bloodstock politics, has been erased from history. The impact made by Ottoman imported horses constitutes an instance of collective, rather than individual, equine agency.”

Donna Landry, “The Disappearance of the Turk: The Cultural Politics ofThoroughbred Horses in the Ottoman and British Empires,” DIYÂR , pages 28-48.

https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/2625-9842-2022-1-28/the-disappearance-of-the-turk-the-cultural-politics-ofthoroughbred-horses-in-the-ottoman-and-british-empires-jahrgang-3-2022-heft-1?page=1

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=akhal-teke&hl=en&as_sdt=0,38&as_ylo=2022 =gs_qabs&t=1663627242994&u=%23p%3D0JNPC5cIK2IJ

📷: stallion Yasman (Garem x Yalma, 1983). h/t Alexander Klimuk, Leonid Baboev.
http://www.akhaltekeregistry.com/Database?id=1546&searchField=Horse+name

06/18/2024

Abby and Zenus.

05/24/2024

Love this. 😊

https://www.facebook.com/BoysRideTooMagazine

05/21/2024

05/19/2024

Our new purebred Akhal-Teke foals for 2024.

Gavinka & her two week old chestnut c**t, and Kurinka with her eleven hour old chestnut filly. 💕

05/19/2024

The legacy continues. 💞

Born at 10pm on Saturday, May 18, 2024, a purebred Akhal-Teke chestnut filly, out of Kurinka, by Ehyr Atlaz. 💖

Ehyr Atlaz (Pan Tau x Pallas Athena, 2013)
Kurinka (Marakhan x Kurina, 2005) a Senetir granddaughter, bred by Phil & Margot Case

This little red filly is the second foal born at the new Akhal-Teke Center in Lexington, Virgina, and to the best of our knowledge, the sixth purebred Akhal-Teke foal born in North America for 2024. She’s about ten hours old in this photo.

05/07/2024

Gavinka needs our help! 🐴❤️‍🩹🙏

05/06/2024

Success Story!

One year ago, the nonprofit Akhal-Teke Foundation posted this fundraiser for trying to breed Gavinka, Kurinka, and Kebelek. Folks stepped up and donated, and with that help, two days ago Gavinka had her first foal, that sweet little red c**t!

Kurinka is pregnant too, and she’s due in a couple of weeks!

All with the help of your donations!!

Can you give $10 today for these special mares, and help this fundraiser reach our goal?

Donate here:

https://akhaltekefoundation.networkforgood.com/projects/195035-save-these-akhal-teke-bloodlines

Thank you so much, whatever you can give!!!🙏

“Help Save These Akhal-Teke Bloodlines”

You are the last chance for these special mares!

Three mares rescued from Shenandoah Farm have come back from leases to Akhal-Teke Foundation foster care, and they should be bred this year to recover the Akhal-Teke breed, and continue their special bloodlines.

You and the Akhal-Teke community are the last chance for these special mares!

With only some ten Akhal-Teke foals born last year in North America, the mission to raise the low numbers and to maintain the genetic diversity of this rare & ancient breed, and to carry forward the priceless genetic legacy of historic Shenandoah Farm, is more critical than ever.

The Akhal-Teke Foundation is grateful to be working with the top equine reproductive specialist in the Pacific Northwest — who is also providing us very reasonable fees.

In addition, all the stud fees for breeding these mares are being donated to the Foundation by the stallion owners.

In turn, the all-volunteer non-profit is asking for tax-deductible contributions from the Akhal-Teke community to help cover the remaining breeding costs.

PLEASE HELP US BREED THESE IMPORTANT MARES!

Donate here:

https://akhaltekefoundation.networkforgood.com/projects/195035-save-these-akhal-teke-bloodlines