Farm Achalteke Tukleky 

Although the Akhal-Teke is rightly considered the oldest "purebred" breed in the world, it waited the longest of all purebreds for its stud book, until 1941 (the General Stud Book for English thoroughbreds was published in 1791, 1793 respectively, the studbook for the Arabian purebreds was published in 1918 (USA) and 1919 (GB).

The Turkmen, like the Bedouins, did not keep any written records of horses; all information about horses and their pedigrees was passed down orally from generation to generation. The first written records come from the Transcaspian stud farm , which was founded in 1897 on the initiative of the governor of the Transcaspian region, General Kuropatkin, who, as an experienced cavalryman, recognized the exceptional qualities of the local horses. Although he repeatedly tried to obtain money from the tsar's treasury, in the end he had no choice but to spend money from the regional budget on the project. A young officer of the Caucasian Cossack Regiment, G. A. Mazan, became the head of the Transcaspian stud farm.

At the time when the Trans-Caspian stud farm was established, Akhal-Teke breeding was in crisis. After the Battle of Goek-Tepe, many horses left with their owners for Iran and Afghanistan, or were sold through Persian middlemen to the British army in India (in the 1880s and 1890s, over 200 of the best Teke mares were exported to India, followed by over 60 stallions during the British intervention in 1918-19). In addition to the overall number, the level of care for the horses also declined - with the ban on alamans, the Turkmen lost an important source of livelihood. Mazan, in order to motivate the Turkmen to achieve better results, organized financially subsidized breeding shows and horse races, and the Turkmen were given the opportunity to use the stallions at the Transcaspian stud farm free of charge, where Mazan managed to gather the real stars of the time. The results were not long in coming, as evidenced by the enormous success of the Akhal-Tekes at horse shows in the early 20th century. And then World War I began...

At first, the Akhal-Tekes were subject to conscription for the needs of the army, but again, thanks to Mazan's efforts, who drew attention to the critical decline in the number of horses, they were eventually exempted from mobilization. His fears were confirmed by the first official "census" of the Akhal-Teke population in 1916, when the total number was 627 horses (67 stallions, 560 mares) + 2 yearlings and 32 two-year-olds. Another milestone was the October Revolution in 1917. To the credit of the Turkmen, it must be said that they tried to fight against the Russian Bolsheviks with the support of the British (British intervention 1918-19), but after the British left, they were defeated in 1920. In 1924, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic was established. With the new order came the need to map and record the horse population in the new republics. In 1926-27, an expedition was carried out by a zootechnical commission consisting of K. I. Gorelov, A. M. Bogushevsky, and G. S. Neelov, which mapped the Akhal-Teke population in the Ashgabat and Merv regions in detail, including photographs and physical measurements. Their expedition was followed by the work of the Tashkent Research Station for Horse Breeding in 1933-36, which supplemented further data. Archival materials from the Transcaspian Stud Farm and data from the stud book of the 69th Ashgabat Stud Farm were also used. At the same time, Turkmen breeders themselves also helped. In 1938, a meeting of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences was held in Tashkent, which decided to publish a stud book. The first breeding plan for the breed was also presented, emphasizing the principle of preserving the purity of the breed (admittedly, the damage with the English thoroughbred had already been done – but more on that another time). In 1941, the "State Stud Book of Central Asian Horse Breeds" saw the light of day, which included Part III. Akhal-Teke and Yomut horses (Part I was devoted to Karabai horses, Part II to Lokay horses). The stud book contains a "List of stallions that had a significant influence on the breed" – here we find, for example, 2a Boinou, 6a Dovlet Ishan, 8a Mele-Chep, etc. (There are 10 stallions in total on the list), and two further sections – the main section, which lists purebred Akhal-Teke horses or horses with a maximum of 1/8 of other riding breed blood (basically only descendants of the English thoroughbred Fortingbrass, who appears in the pedigree of 9 Ak Belek and on the maternal side of 020 Kara Kunon) - 287 stallions and 468 mares are listed in this section. A special section of the stud book is dedicated to Anglo-Teke horses, with a maximum of 50% English Thoroughbred blood – 46 stallions and 86 mares are registered in this section. The English thoroughbreds that can still be found in the pedigrees of Akhal-Teke horses are Blondelli, L'Ermitage, Burlak, Galachad, Lemell, and Fortingbrass. The book also includes a list of 109 stallions that were moved to the North Caucasus, but their origins cannot be traced back. In 1952, the third (or first) PK was followed by the fourth part, in 1975 by the fifth, in 1981 by the sixth, in 1988 by the seventh, just one year later by the eighth, in 1993 by the ninth (the last to include the entire Turkmen population), in 2005 by the tenth, and after a long hiatus in 2018 by the eleventh.