Azerbaijan set to sell rare Karabakh horses to save the breed

Azerbaijan’s loss of control over separatist Nagorno-Karabakh is a history mixed with the issue of national identity and culture. This is also includes history of one of the horse breeds.

Karabakh breed horses are valued for their endurance in the mountains, calm character and dark chestnut color, are considered the national animals of Azerbaijan, although to date thoroughbred Karabakh horses seem no longer exist. The war, lack of attention and crossing with Arabian horses had a negative impact on breeding stock, and today preserving the remaining horses is the forefront challenge today.  

A question remains - how many Karabakh horses - which one Azerbaijani owner jokingly calls "displaced horses" by analogy with "displaced persons" – exist. Some believe that they exist in very small numbers. According to other estimates, there still are several thousands left.

"In my opinion, there are a dozen mares, which are genuine Karabakh horses by half," Verena Scholian, German horse breeder who devoted 20 years of life to study Karabakh pedigree horses, said in an interview from Ginsheim-Guvstavsburg.

In 2007, the Azerbaijan Ministry of Agriculture developed a program to preserve and popularize this breed in 15 years. According to Handan Rajabli, CEO of ministry’s breeding research and production facility, the goal of this program is to bring breeding documents in line with international standards and annually sell horses in such a number to ensure work of facilities required for their breeding.

The first step is to try to analyze what Karabakh horses Azerbaijan has. "We want to draw up a genealogical picture, to know that our national breed is unique," Rajabli says. Recently, his facility sent samples of wool of 137 Karabakh horses for DNA testing in a German laboratory.

It remains unknown how the ministry plans to use the data to promote this breed of horses in foreign markets. Rajabli declined to say what livestock the government has. He noted, however, if Azerbaijan could sell 10-20 Karabakh horses annually most likely to Europe, the money would help to defray the cost of work to preserve the breed. According to horse breeder Sholian, prices for stud-horse will likely be 2,000-3,000 euros (from 2,555 to 3.831 dollars).

Meanwhile, in order to stimulate economic interest in breeding, representatives of the Ministry are discussing the idea of a "heavy" award in addition to the money won by Karabakh horses in competitions. This idea may encourage private horse breeders to preserve the breed. It is believed that some Azerbaijani clubs are not too concerned about this problem.

This strategy however, may fail to achieve its goal. "I do not care whether they will win in competitions or not. They are mainly mountain horses, they love freedom," said Azerbaijani businessman Yashar Hajiyev, who owns dozens of Karabakh horses in his farm located in the highlands in northern Sheki region. According to him, he has a love for this breed and to Azerbaijan. "I'm doing it because everything about my country is important for me," he says.

He is not the only one to say this. Without a doubt, if it had not been for heroic rescue of hundreds of Karabakh horses from the Agdam horse-breeding facility near Karabakh in 1993, now occupied by Armenian forces, this national treasure might have already been lost. Horses were evacuated by two groups of horse breeders, who, acting on their own initiative, returned to the stud repeatedly amid bombing by the Armenian forces risking their own lives.

When hostilities broke out, Kamil Qadirov was holding one of the senior positions in the horse breeding factory. Today he is 61 years old. On July 2, 1993, he along with his son, and two employees of the horse farm began to corral 285 mares entrusted to his care and transport them to the nearby town Yevlakh. "I realized that I should take out horses,” Qadirov recalls. “I would not cast a single horse, and we did not abandon them. We were responsible for these horses. We couldnt just leave them."

Three months later Qaridov was told to bring Karabakh horses back to Agdam, but the hostilities did not cease there. Instead of returning to the plant, mares were loaded onto trucks and transported to the Baku hippodrome.

Meanwhile, Atael Shamsadin, horse breeder of third generation, had to take a similar decision regarding the seven stallions for whom he cared about in Agdam. When the bombing started, Shamsadin’s family had to flee. But later, at his request, the director of a stud farm gave him two trucks to go back and pick up the horses.

"My father always said that these horses are our breed and our bread," he says. Shamsadin returned to Agdam, which was still under sniper fire, with two more drivers. "We were just lucky that the horses were not killed. They were still alive,” says Shamsadin. “Some of them had never been ridden in a truck, but that night they obeyed us. I think they knew what was happening."

“It took 40 minutes to load seven horses, tie to wooden cross-beams at a distance from each other: we know that stallions, if not kept in individual stalls, are inclined to attack each other.”

The next winter, mares and stallions were brought to Baku. According to an eyewitness of those events, who asked to remain anonymous, about 70 animals died from hunger. Handan Rajabli from the Ministry of Agriculture believes this assessment is wrong. In his opinion, the cause of death of animals was a change of climate as the horses were brought from highlands to Baku with coastal climate conditions. “Not only horses, but also people died at that time. The government failed to make this an issue priority.”

Will the program worked out by the government help the situation today? We’ll wait and see. Owners of private households are still hoping that they will be able to revive the breed. "The best horse that I have ever had was my Karabakh horse. That's why I'm trying to save them," says German horse breeder Verena Sholian.


/Vesti.az/