Tersky Horse

Origin: USSR — Stavropol region.

Height: Average 15hh.

Color: Gray.

Character: Kind, intelligent, enduring.

Physique: Three types exist, light, medium, and thickset. Elegant, medium-sized head with a straight face, large, liquid eyes, and longish, pricked ears. Long, well-carried neck set on good shoulders; prominent withers, a longish back with strong loins, good hindquarters with a high-set tail. Legs fine, and with good bone.

Founded on the remnants of the old Streletsk Arab, which was an Anglo-Arab with predominant Arab blood, mixed with Kabardin, Don, and then Barbs also contributed to the new breed). While the Turks occupied the eastern half of the Mediterranean the Barbary coast was for years open to traders, many of whom took the Barb away with them to wherever home might be and crossed him with their local horses.

In 1662 King Charles II of England married the Barbary port of Tangier(it was part of his wife’s dowry). In the21 years of his rule, Barbs were exported plentifully to England, where they were used to improve the speed and stamina of early British horses and were thus forerunners of the Thoroughbred (not to be recognized as a breed for another half-century). When Tangier passed back to the Moors the exportation of Barbs was so widespread that by the 18th century, inferior barbs could be bought very cheaply in places as distant as northern Europe.

See more: Tennesse Walking Horse