Tersky (breed)
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[edit] The Tersky (Terskaya)
The Tersky (or Terskaya) breed is a warm-blood breed of horse with a very limited open book. Renowned mainly for its silvery, grey color its pedigree may not contain more than 1/8 of thoroughbred blood, ½ of Arabian blood or 1/8 of Trakehner blood. Its closest ancestor is the Streletsky horse, from which breed it originally derived.
The Streletsky
Officially recognised as a breed in 1948, the Tersky breed originally stems from the Streletsky which was largely decimated by the Russian army during Soviet times in order to accommodate the Russian cavalry. Because the Streletsky was both attractive and an extremely efficient cavalry horse the effect of the wars following the 1917 revolutions and the popularity of the breed was such that by the time the Russian cavalry was officially disbanded in 1923, only two Streletsky breeding stallions could be found (Tsenitel and Tsilindr).
This sparked a desire to recreate the endangered breed and in 1925 the famous Red Cavalry officer and life-long horse advocate, Marshall S.M. Budenny, personally ordered that these two stallions, along with a few pure-bred mares should be put to stud to rescue the Streletsky. Unfortunately specialists soon realised that the surviving horses did not provide a large enough gene pool for the breed to survive, and the Streletsky breed name was retired.
Creating the Tersky Breed
Over the next few years a few more pure-bred Streletsky mares were located and they, as well as additional mares of complementary type (which, in addition to various Streletsky crosses, including Don, Kabardin and Arabian, and Lipizzaners from Hungary) were added. Arabian stallions were also used in order to enlarge the gene pool and decrease inbreeding.
The breeding program continued until threat of attack by Germany in 1941 prompted the removal of the herd to western Kazakhstan, a journey that took 21 days and covered a distance of 900 kilometers. By 1945 the entire herd came back east, to the Stavropol Farm, (in the Northern Caucasus) which remains the largest stud for the breed today.
Despite the recent editions of the Tersky Stud Books (1990, 1992 and 2000)the consequences of inbreeding continues to hamper the Tersky breed and in 1988 it was estimated that a mere 1700 horses could be called a pure-bred.
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