Tarpan Horse Conservation Program

15/07/2024

You will remember Kat, who was rescued last September 2023, and diagnosed with EPM. She has persevered with the daily, assiduous care of Christal and Jane at Abingdon Donkey Lodge. Christal did not manage to uncover her ancestry. Her DNA test confirmed her Heck Tarpan ancestry. Kat is an example of a miracle of healing. See her transformation here: https://www.facebook.com/christal.presley/.

02/04/2024

We have posted the current registry of Heck Tarpan Horses in North America as a pdf on our website registry page. https://www.thcponline.org/registry
The historical registry can also be requested at [email protected].

Learn about the breed standard. Tarpan horses are rare. Our current registry of Heck line Tarpan horses in the US and Canada numbers under 100 with only half of these of breeding potential. Records were lost for both Heck line and Stroebel Tarpans, although we have segments of the historical registr...

09/03/2024

We are very proud to have reconnected with Candy Peters and Darrith Russell, who both worked closely with Ellen Thrall, breeding and training Heck Tarpan horses. Ellen compiled the American Tarpan Studbook (published in 1975), which includes horses from 1954 to 1973. Below, please find what Candy has told us. Soon, we will also post a bio for Darrith, who is a Bearfoot Ranch. Candy says:
"My journey with Tarpans began in 1990 when I responded to a plea to "Help Save the World's Rarest Breed of Horse" printed on the last page of an issue of a horse magazine. Owning my first Tarpan stallion and mares in my late teens, Ellen Thrall and Tarpans laid the foundation for my lifelong passion for horses, teaching me common sense and practical approaches to horse management and horsemanship. With Ellen’s encouragement I served as registrar and ambassador for the American Tarpan Studbook Association from 1991 - 2004 meeting with 4H groups, riding in NATRAC competitive trail rides with Ellen, administering the Adopt-a-Tarpan program, publishing newsletters on breeding and preservation efforts, providing information to universities on the breed and writing articles for contemporary equine publications on Tarpans. Assistance from THCP has allowed my daughter and I to revive my original Tarpan breeding program (Antiquity Farms) as Relics of Antiquity. Our current aspirations with our Tarpan horses lie not only in preservation of the Tarpans in North America, but we also hope to expand the available genetic pool for preserving these horses through importation of European breeding stock. We seek to honor the legacy of Ellen Thrall's passion for animals and people and the generosity of the many equine enthusiasts who have touched our lives. We hope to inspire other existing and potential horse lovers to share our appreciation of the unique character and beauty of the Tarpan horses." Here is a photo of Antiquity's Romulus, who was an important stallion for us. You can find more info at Relics of Antiquity: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555490721997

26/02/2024

We are so enthused about this article in the Foothills Forum of the Rappahanock News featuring our team member Debbie and written by Ireland Hayes! Ireland is new to Tarpan horses and Debbie says a few details may be imperfect, but we are over the moon to see this in print! https://www.facebook.com/100063637897100/posts/915527700578485/

One morning after a storm, Debbie Capasso woke up to three camels standing in her yard. Little did she know, a chance encounter nine years ago with an exotic animal

22/02/2024

Join Mustangs to the Rescue (https://www.facebook.com/MustangsToTheRescue) for five days filled with invaluable insights into the world of Wild Horse Gentling with Anna Twinney Holistic Horsemanship, featuring the beloved Tarpan Horses.
Your Contribution Matters: By auditing the entire clinic for just $250, you not only enrich your own understanding but also directly support the health care needs of these unique Tarpan Horses our contribution will help us ensure they receive the veterinary care they deserve, setting them up for a successful lifetime ahead.
Let's Reach Our Goal: Our goal is to raise $5000, which will provide essential health care for these pre-historically significant rare horses. With your support, we can make a significant impact on their well-being.
How to Register: To secure your spot or inquire further about auditing, simply email us at [email protected]. Spaces are limited, so don't delay!
Thank you for considering joining us for this important cause. Together, we can make a real difference in the lives of these beautiful animals.
If you're not able to audit the clinic but want to help these unique and very rare horses, please consider donating the audit fee and that amount will go directly to health care for this group of Tarpan horses.
… See more

22/01/2024

Della, our Canadian representative, says the weather is good for driving Tarpan horses! Our Heck and Stroebel Tarpans, including recovering Kat, are well suited to the cold weather! We just connected with the owner of two more Heck Tarpan horses in Northwest Frontier Province, Lublin and Dream Boat, who were evacuated to Alberta during the forest fires. For more Tarpans in the snow, see this video from Belarus!
Belarus Tarpan Horses video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGhFhXgDDFs

04/01/2024

Oak Grove Anysia, aged 27, died in her sleep the night of Christmas Eve. Anysia had many foals, including Kuno, Samo, and Elora at Brightfields, and Julia, Donald, and Saturn at Dixie Meadows in Virginia. After Anysia was diagnosed with Cushings disease a few years ago, Sid coaxed her back to vitality. Debbie showered her with affection. Always preferring pasture to stall, her gait remained notably elegant. Sweet and particularly curious, she had the expressive dark face and luxuriant mane of the Tarpan horses bred in this region.
Anysia was born on the farm of Stephanie Jones in Ideal, Georgia. As a young mare, she lived at Pleasant Hill, the farm of Chad Grizzle and his family in Sylvania, Georgia. She lived there with Pleasant Hill Heidi, and later, also with Heidi, on the farm of Julia Bright.

22/12/2023

Christmas for the Stroebel Tarpan Horses
Donald Shurtleff's extraordinary generosity ensures that the herd of Bend, Oregon will have plenty of hay during the coming winter months! Donald also cares for the stallions in his own pastures. Joan Steelhammer and her husband care for the mares and foals. We are very grateful to you!

14/12/2023

We have the exciting news that Katarina is indeed a pure bred Heck line Tarpan horse!

13/12/2023

Katarina continues to recover under the exceptional care of Christal and Jane at Abingdon Donkey Lodge (https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=abingdon%20donkey%20lodge) . In a recent video Christal sent to me, she walked in a straight line towards her! In another, she galloped up the hill. Here she is with a new friend, Ruth Ann, an American Mammoth donkey. Thank you again to all those who contributed to her rescue. She is a very special mare. We are awaiting genetic confirmation of her Heck line ancestry from Texas A & M. To us, she looks very much like the Antiquity's Farm Tarpan horses bred years ago by Candy Peters.

04/12/2023

Finding a Tarpan Horse Conservator

We are enthralled to have reconnected with Candy Peters, who bred the Antiquity's line on her farm from 1990. The Antiquity's line is the major known living Heck Tarpan line in North America other than the Catskills line, which was free range bred before the farm closed in 2006. After years of challenging work as an emergency physician and raising her children, Candy is ready once again to breed Tarpan horses. She just purchased and transported eight mares across the country from Virginia to her farm in the west. Candy has agreed that we call her an "Honorary Conservator." She advises us about Tarpan horses, recounts their history, and with her doctor's eye for details, helps us maintain our documentation of the breed correctly. Welcome back, Candy!

23/10/2023

From Christal Trivett-Presley, we have an update about the mare rescued with your contributions, Katarina at Donkey and Mule Lodge, Abingdon. "Kat has had a good weekend hanging out in the big pasture with the donkeys and her mini-horse friend, Little Debbie. We even got to see her gallop (see video). It wasn't pretty, but she was too weak to even attempt this four weeks ago, so we're grateful for progress. Thanks to your generous donations and with the help the Tarpan Horse Conservation Program, Kat is on all supplements recommended by her equine nutritionist, Dr. Martha Faraday. Thanks to this extra nutritional support, her body condition and muscling have improved dramatically from when she was rescued from the slaughterhouse pipeline. This morning Kat had an episode of turning in circles (see video), but a couple hours later wasn't doing it so much anymore. This is one is the hardest things about EPM. Kat can look better--then not--then better again, all in the same day. A lot of this has to do with inflammation (which ebbs and flows). It's also likely she has nerve damage. Time will tell the extent of that damage, but in many cases, with proper nutrition and supplements, the nerves can heal. We are about to finish our first 30-day course of Ponazuril, an EPM treatment. We plan to switch to a newer treatment this week called Orogin--and a new anti-inflammatory medication too. In spite of this terrible neurological disease, Kat is happy, eating, drinking, and very peaceful. She is a fighter, and as long as she fights, so will we. We love her so much. She is the sweetest, gentlest horse. "

20/10/2023

Tarpan horses are especially good with children who have never met a horse..Here is a testimonial from a visit to Staunton Tarpan Horses (also see our local page):
"When I picked them up today, Grandma pulled me aside and said the boys (both of them) were so excited about being with you and the Tarpan horses. She said this is the first and only thing that has truly excited them this summer. They both talked about it constantly and wanted to show them the photos and videos. They are (sadly) mainly interested in games on their tablets and watching TV, and to have something like this ignite a spark in them is very exciting for me and the other grandparents....I just wanted to you to know what an impact you had on them. Perhaps this will alter the course of their lives in one small way; you never know!..."

16/10/2023

Who we are:
Melinda is the Principal Officer of THCP, which she established with Linda Martin in 2019. As a child, she enjoyed showing three- and five-gaited American Saddlebred horses in junior exhibitor competitions. She rediscovered horses decades later as a volunteer at Hope’s Legacy Equine Rescue. In 2017, she brought five 4-year-old Tarpan horses who had never been handled to Hope’s Legacy and later to Walnut Grove. She says "I have had the extraordinary experience of living with and learning from these captivating horses. Seeking to share this experience with others, I was certified in equine-assisted learning by E3A (e3assoc.org/) in 2022. I am a retired professor and researcher of agricultural economics, a volunteer for the historical archives, and fascinated by the history of the Tarpan horse

Emily is the Second Principal Officer of THCP. She is a lifelong naturalist, trained botanist, teacher, and equestrian. In 2018, she started volunteering at Hope’s Legacy Equine Rescue with Melinda and was introduced to her five geldings. Since 2018, she has worked with Tarpan horses using natural horsemanship methods and has co-hosted demonstrations with Melinda. Beyond the ring or paddock, she volunteers for the Tree Stewards, The Nature Foundation at Wintergreen, and the Virginia Master Naturalists. Even with a Tarpan on a lead line, she is known to stop, pull out a hand lens, and verify the identity of a nearby plant. Tarpan horses will stand patiently as she quietly tells them her findings.

Krisstie is our West Coast THCP Representative, Breeder for the Stroebel herd, and Administrator/Registrar for Stroebel's Tarpan Registry of America. She was introduced to and became involved with Tarpan horses in the year 2000. She has since owned 26, trained several for Trails, Cow Sorting, competed in competitive Trail Events, participated in the (Oregon) NW Horse Expo three times, twice in the Breed Showcase, once in the Extreme Trail Challenge, and bred 9 Tarpan Foals. She is a big advocate and believer in these horses. She says they have proven to be highly intelligent, extremely hardy, incredibly low maintenance, very social with their humans, and they willingly go the distance for a savvy horseperson.

Della is our Canadian representative and registrar for THCP. She was raised with horses and admired her first Tarpan horse about 15 years ago. Her granddaughter was born severely handicapped in 2014. She says "we wanted to share horses with her, but we had no experience with disabilities. We decided to try a Tarpan horse, which is smaller in size, as a way to connect with our granddaughter. Tarpan horses are perfect for driving, and we could modify the wagon to include us. Since then, we have acquired several amazing Tarpan horses. They have been wonderful companions for our special needs family."

Josepha, is the Youth Educator for THCP. Born in the Netherlands in 1957, she moved to the US in 1995. She began riding horses when she was 6 and has been riding ever since. She won the Dressage Dutch Nationals in 1976 Level M, on a very unlikely (and unliked by some) horse….She says "Horses and art are my passion. I have been working as a dressage instructor since the 1980s. My focus is on improving the balance and freedom of movement of the horse by working with my clients on correctness of position and aids while paying attention to the horse’s body language. I hope to find a way to educate young (and old...) horse kids about the history of horses and Tarpan horses."

Debbie, is our Leader and Imprinter at Dixie Meadows Farm. She was born in Norfolk Virginia and raised in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, a suburb 24 miles southwest of Boston. In 1979 she earned an A.S. degree in Veterinary Nursing, and spent the next 4 years doing cutting edge monoclonal antibody research at DuPont. At age 28, she landed back in Virginia (no pun intended) after accepting a job as a flight attendant with United Airlines which lasted for 28 years. She says"My love for horses goes as far back as I can remember, and my desire to spend as much time as possible in their presence began as a little girl and has never waivered." She has worked as a Wrangler/Outrider at the Marriott Ranch in Hume, VA, and at a private, high end thoroughbred breeding farm in Marshall, VA where she worked with the young foals and prepared/conditioned the yearlings for the Keeneland sale in Kentucky. She is presently employed at Equine Reproductive Concepts where she assists with embryo recoveries, breeding, stallion collection, and everything fertility related.

Equine Experiential Education Association - Start here to discover E3A - our history, leadership, focus and vision for the future.

16/10/2023

What are Tarpan horses?

Tarpan horses are descendants of horses and Tarpans. We recognize three types of Tarpan horses: Koniks, Heck horses, and Hegard or Stroebel Tarpans. All are replicas of Tarpans. Their developers sought to recreate the ancient tarpan that roamed the forests of Eurasia. Since DNA approaches did not exist, they used back-breeding based on observable physical characteristics.

Koniks, meaning “small horses” in Polish, were derived by Polish scientists during the 1930s, when they bred offspring of domesticated (possibly Panje) horses and Tarpans to re-produce a horse that closely resembled the Tarpans they had known. Koniks have been introduced in the management of nature reserves (for example, for example, see https://www.wildwoodtrust.org/conservation-and-rewilding/conservation-projects/conservation-grazing-with-koniks/. Many are reported to be found in forests of Poland and Belarus.

THCP horses of Heck lineage are the descendants of horses that were developed by Lutz and Heinz Heck during the 1920s in Germany and Poland. Some were imported from Germany to zoos and game parks in the US during the 1950s, and later distributed into private hands. Today, Heck horses are a registered breed in Germany. In North America, we have identified fewer than 100 of these Tarpan horses, and even fewer with breeding potential.

In the US, Hegardt created a look-alike Tarpan from the genes found in American mustangs originally brought by Spanish conquistadors. An article suggests he introduced a Polish Konik into his breeding effort (see FARM SHOW Magazine 2003 https://www.farmshow.com/a_article.php?aid=18398). The Stroebels continued Hegardt’s work from 1990. THCP supported the rescue of the current Stroebel herd of 31 Tarpan horses in early 2023.

We have been busy over the last year and a half identifying horses and conducting genetics analyses on the Heck and Stroebel herds here in North America.

01/10/2023

How does a sweet Tarpan Horse end up in an Auction kill pen with no story... Though she has a long road to recovery, so glad to see she has found a soft landing.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=290708937243025&id=100089117636254&mibextid=ZbWKwL

Here is a hopeful photo of Katarina, who is Tarpan horse beauty even though very unwell. She has a long road ahead but is in expert care with Christal and Jane--and of course, the mini Debbie.

26/09/2023

28/01/2023

https://youtu.be/ydCRQhUvfAs

Film Trailer for the documentary film by Horsefly Films. In 1879, Europe’s last wild horse ran off a cliff attempting to avoid capture. The loss of the last...