Caspian Horse Society of the Americas
www.caspianhorse.com
Despite of the fact that the Caspian is diminutive, many mistake it for a sizable horse. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is a breed standing under 12 hands, but appears deceivingly like a larger, well proportioned horse. A photo of a Caspian without a person standing beside it for perspective gives the illusion of the much larger Thoroughbred or Arabian.
In fact it looks like a miniature Arabian, yet it is a distinct and unique breed. It has the floating Arabian action with the head and tail held high. The delicate head of the Arabian with classic dished face, protruding eyes, wide flaring nostrils, silky mane, and flowing tail are attributes of the Caspian, except it is even more exquisitely refined and elegant than an Arabian, but in a pony size. It is a horse, however, not a pony, because of its perfect proportions and gaits, although it stands at only 11 to 12 hands on average.
The Caspian Horse is the ultimate athlete. It is small and tractable enough to be easily handled by the youngest child or the most inexperienced adult. Its remarkable endurance, fluid movement, natural jumping abilities, and kind, willing temperament make it an all-around superb horse, excelling both under saddle and under harness.
The Caspian Horse has great intelligence and courage. It learns quickly, is extremely curious, and loves to be active. It is people friendly, affectionate toward its owner, and very entertaining for spectators. The Caspian Horse is notorious for stealing hearts away.
History
This little horse has been traced back to 3000 BC, almost 5,000 years ago, making it possibly one of the oldest breeds of horses in the world. Its history is as colorful as the horse itself.
Though under 12 hands, the Caspian is an elegant little horse. Kristull Ranch
As a small, wild horse, it roamed west central Iran seemingly forever. Since its territory was bounded by the sea on one side and mountains on the other, its purity was maintained over the centuries.
It was a highly prized breed. In ancient history, the Caspian Horse was used in royal ceremonies and was offered to Persian kings as treasured gifts. Pictures of Caspians decorated the walls of ancient palaces.
An image of a Caspian Horse graced the seal of King Darius the Great; on his trilingual emblem of 600 BC, small horses are depicted pulling the chariot of the king as he shoots arrows at a fierce lion. It was important for King Darius to have a horse that was agile, quick, and reflected well upon his own athletic prowess and courage.
King Shapur is also depicted on a bas-relief being carried in triumph by a Caspian with the king’s feet nearly touching the ground. Another relief shows the investiture of King Ardashir with small Caspian Horses. In the Oxus treasure, small horses are portrayed in gold pulling a royal golden chariot.
In more recent history, the shah of Iran hosted a celebration in 1971 at the ancient palace of Persepolis. During the celebration, Prince Philip and Princess Anne visited the royal stables, which housed Caspian Horses. They watched eight-year-old children race with Caspian stallions, which was quite impressive to the British royal guests.
Proportionate head with a long neck add to the Caspian’s horse appearance. Victoria Tollman
During this visit, Prince Philip expressed his concern about the rare breed, so small in numbers and vulnerable because they were only located in one region. Little did he know how prophetic his concerns were, because several years later the Iranian Revolution broke out, making future exports of the Caspian Horse almost impossible. Before the revolution took place, the Shah of Iran presented Prince Philip with a pair of Caspians, which was exported to Great Britain.
Prince Philip was also instrumental in helping export several other small shipments to Great Britain before the Iranian Revolution. Most of the Caspians living and being bred outside of Iran in the last thirty years came from these crucial shipments. In England, the Caspians participated in various royal events, and Queen Elizabeth presented ribbons at several Caspian breed shows.
Conservation of Historical Importance
Louise Firouz, a U.S.-born Cornell graduate, and her new husband, an aristocrat linked to the former shah of Iran, moved to Iran in 1957, which was Mr. Firouz’s native country. The couple established the Norouzabad Equestrian Center for children of families living in the country’s capital of Tehran. One of the difficulties Firouz faced was providing appropriate mounts for some of the smaller riders. This proved to be a catalyst for her pursuit of what were rumored to be very small horses in the remote villages around the Caspian Sea. Her search eventually led to the rediscovery and preservation of this ancient lost breed of the royals—the Caspian Horse.
Firouz and her husband lived close to the ancient Persian capital, Persepolis. On the walls of this ancient palace, there were rock relief carvings of the Lydian Horse, which had a small, prominent skull formation similar to that found in many other artifacts resembling the small Caspian. These ancient carvings depicted a small horse of the royals that had the same appearance as the Caspians. Firouz’s knowledge of these artifacts, combined with her first sighting of a Caspian Horse, resulted in the historical rediscovery of the ancient lost horse. She first saw the small breed in the mid 1960s on a horseback expedition in the remote mountainous regions of Iran, just south of the Caspian Sea.
In 1965, a study was initiated to determine the range, nature, and historical precedent for a horse of this size in Iran. Archeologists, zoologists, equine historians, and genetic researchers contributed a wealth of information to the investigation. From this research, among many other extensive findings, it was determined that the horse depicted on the walls of the ancient palace of Persepolis did actually exist and the depictions were not mere renderings of an imaginary small horse. The study’s results supported Firouz’s theory that the little horse residing by the Caspian Sea was indeed the five-thousand-year-old lost royal horse of Persia and probably the most ancient domestic breed in existence.
In 1965, when Firouz first saw the horses, they appeared somewhat rough from lack of nourishment and were covered with ticks and parasites. Upon close inspection, however, these horses showed distinctive characteristics similar to the ancient artifacts with which she was familiar. They had the same large, protruding eyes, a prominent jaw, large nostrils, a dished head, and a high tailset. During her first trip, Firouz rescued three horses, which were dubbed Caspians. The former owners of these misused, overworked horses had no idea of the ancient breed’s near extinction.
This yearling colt has the Caspian’s characteristically slim build with a deep girth. CaspianHorse.org
Between 1965 and 1968, Firouz conducted a careful survey and estimated that there were only fifty Caspians along the entire southern coast of the Caspian Sea. She painstakingly built and nurtured several Caspian foundation herds beginning in 1965. One herd consisted of seven mares and six stallions that she had purchased to form the foundation stock for a Caspian breeding center in Iran. After her breeding successes, the Royal Horse Society (RHS) of Iran confiscated her herd in 1974.
She started a second private herd in 1975, consisting of twenty mares and three stallions. In 1977, this second Caspian breeding center was forced to close its doors, and the RHS declared a ban on all Caspian exports and collected all remaining Caspians. Sadly, due to the political climate, most of the RHS horses were lost. Fortunately, Firouz was able to export nine stallions and seventeen mares, representing nineteen different Caspian horse bloodlines, from Iran to Europe during the early 1970s. These twenty-six horses made up the European foundation herd.
Due to her efforts to save Caspian Horses from starvation and slaughter by exporting them during the early years of the Islamic Revolution, in 1979 she and her husband were repeatedly arrested and detained. At one point, Firouz went on a hunger strike to gain her release and left the prison emaciated and weak. She experienced the decimation of her beloved Caspians when they were run across land mines, used for food, and attacked by wolves during their escape to foreign countries in hopes of survival. She worked side by side with leading researchers and presented information about Caspians to worldwide audiences of scientists and archaeologists. She was the guest speaker for the first International Caspian Conference held in Houston, Texas, in 1999.
With Iran’s many political upheavals during the 1980s—the overthrow of the Shah, the Islamic Revolution, bombing during the protracted Iran– Iraq War, threats of famine—and the Caspian’s close association with royalty, its survival remained precarious. The Caspian breed fluctuated between political honoraria as a national treasure and the threat of political seizure as wartime food.
At the end of the Iran–Iraq War, the 1992 International Caspian Studbook listed just thirty-eight registered Caspian horses still surviving in Iran. Firouz captured additional feral horses or purchased them when she could during travels throughout the country. Working with modern genetic methods, she established the fact that none of these horses were lineal relations of the European horses. DNA studies proved they were all part of the same unique gene pool and were all purebred Caspian Horses.
The number of Caspians in Iran is still quite small, and exportations out of Iran are still extremely difficult. The last exports occurred in the early 1990s with a small shipment arriving in Great Britain after a tortuous journey through a war zone where bandits attacked and robbed the convoy. In December 2003, there was a small herd of Caspians housed just outside Bam, Iran, that was reduced to one stallion due to an earthquake, a tragedy for such small numbers of remaining Iranian Caspians. Conserving the Caspian also became more of an issue with the death of Firouz in early 2008.
The Caspian Horse is listed by the Equus Survival Trust as a critically endangered breed. It is indeed a rare breed, as there are only nine hundred Caspians in existence. The breeding of the remaining horses is carefully managed, and their numbers are slowly growing worldwide. Due to their unusual history, there is little chance the breed will become too interbred to remain viable.
Scientific Research
Elwyn Hartley Edwards, an equine historian and author of The Encyclopedia of the Horse, relates that the Caspian to the fourth horse type from which all modern-day breeds derive. Dr. Gus Cothran, who has conducted extensive DNA research, concurs that the Caspian Horse is in an ancestral position to most breeds.
Among the other fascinating findings of extensive research are the four basic skeletal differences found between the Caspian and all other breeds:
1. The Caspian skull shows a pronounced elevation of the interparietal bones, and the Caspian possesses no parietal crest.
2. The scapula is wider than in other breeds.
3. The metacarpal and metatarsal bones are much longer and slimmer in comparison to the height of the horse. The spinous processes of the first six thoracic vertebrae show a pronounced elongation.
4. The Caspian has maintained its small, elegant stature of approximately 10 to 12 hands for almost 5,000 years. Research has demonstrated that the Caspian has kept its small size under all types of demographic and environmental conditions, further evidence of its purity, distinction, and unique lineage over many centuries.
Introduction to the United States
In 1966, the first Caspian stallion was imported into the United States, but never sired any purebred Caspians. In 1973, another Caspian stallion was imported and also did not sire any purebreds. In 1994, the first herd of seven Caspians was imported to Texas for the purpose of breeding pure Caspians. They were brought to the Monastery of St. Clare Miniature Horse Farm in Brenham, Texas. From there, they spread to all corners of the United States. With additional imports and local breeding, this band has grown to a dynamic mini-herd of nearly five hundred as of 2003. Three of its stallions made the largest Caspian public appearance at Equitana USA in 1996 and stunned the crowds with their beauty and gentle temperament.
Diminutive gray Caspian stallion with the perfect conformation of a refined horse. Kristull Ranch
The Caspian Horse Society of the Americas (CHSA) was incorporated in 1994 to maintain a purebred and part-bred permanent registry devoted to the interests of the Caspian Horse in the Western Hemisphere. It is a member of the International Caspian Society.
Standards
General appearance: The Caspian is a horse, not a pony, and therefore should be viewed in the same manner as when judging a Thoroughbred—that is, the limbs, body, and head should all be in proportion to each other. Foreshortened limbs or a head out of proportion to neck or body are faults. The overall impression should be of a well-bred, elegant horse in miniature form.
Eyes: Almond shaped, large, dark, set low, and often prominent.
Nostrils: Large, low set, finely chiseled, and capable of considerable dilation during action.
Ears: Short, wide apart, alert, finely drawn, and often noticeably in-pricked at the tips.
Head: Wide, vaulted forehead (in most cases the parietal bones do not form a crest, but remain open to the occipital crest). Frontal bone should blend into nasal bone in a pleasing slope. It has very deep, prominent cheekbones with great width between them where they join at the throat. Head tapers to a fine, firm muzzle.
Neck: Long, supple neck with a finely modeled throatlatch.
Shoulders and withers: Long, sloping, well modeled, with good wither.
Body: Characteristically slim with deep girth. Chest width is in proportion to width of body; it is a fault to have “both legs out of the same hole.” It is close-coupled, with well-defined hindquarters and good saddle space.
Hindquarters: Long and sloping from hip to point of buttocks, with great length from stifle to hock.
Hocks: Owing to their mountain origin, Caspians may have a more angled hock than lowland breeds.
Limbs: Characteristically slender with dense, flat bone, and flat knees. Good slope to pasterns, neither upright nor over-sloping.
Hooves: Both front and back hooves are oval and neat, with immensely strong wall and sole and very little frog. The horse only requires shoeing on the roughest ground.
Coat, skin and hair: Skin is thin, fine, supple, and dark except under white markings. Coat is silky and flat, often with an iridescent sheen in summer. In the winter, the coat can become dense, making the Caspian adaptable to various climates. Mane and tail are abundant, but fine and silky. Mane usually lies flat (as in Thoroughbreds), but can grow to great lengths. Tail is carried gaily in action. Limbs are generally clean with little or no feathering at the fetlock. Some Caspians carry a dorsal stripe. The bone structure is very dense, defying the Caspian’s refined appearance.
Colors: All colors, except piebald or skewbald (pinto). Grays will go through many shades of roan, often dappling and fading to near white at maturity. The main colors are chestnut, bay, and gray. Occasionally, a black or dun color may appear.
Height: Varies with feeding, care, and climate. Recorded specimens have ranged from 10 hands to more than 12 hands. Growth rate in the young is extremely rapid, with the young Caspian reaching most of its height in the first eighteen months, then filling out with maturity.
Action and performance: Natural floating action at all gaits. Long, low swinging trot with spectacular use of the shoulder, as well as a smooth, rocking canter and rapid, flat gallop. Since the Caspian has origins in the mountainous regions of Iran, they have deer-like movements of agility and are superb jumpers.
Temperament: Highly intelligent and alert, but very kind and willing.
When turned out in a field of other breeds of horses, they will most often prefer to graze with their own kind. Caspian stallions most often prefer Caspian mares, and this may be the reason for their intact survival.
Credits: Francie Stull, Kristull Ranch