№ 1209-1212. The domestic horse breeds

The Vladimir breed is a breed of shire horses, grown in Vladimir and Ivanovo regions. These horses are marked by their big height, sound constitution, harmonious body-build, mighty sinews. They are hard-working, and differ from the other shire horses in mobility and energy. The record on urgent delivery at a trot achieved by the Vladimir breeds the absolute record for heavy draft horses of all breeds.

The Orlov Trotter is the oldest and the most beautiful of breeds developed by Count Alexei Orlov. This breed combined the beauty of the oldest European breeds and the dryness, tittup and use of the horses of a new type, inherited from their Arabic ancestors. This is growth (160-165 centimeters in shoulder), big enough but at the same time very dry horse with good harness forms. The most typical paint of more than a half of all the Orlov Trotters is grey, in youth sometimes they are dapple-grey. There are also black, chestnut and sometimes red horses.

The Don breed was influenced by many other breeds over a period of its history. Cossacks brought from their raids horses, such as Karabakh, Turkmenian, and Persian, so it has been mostly influenced by their Oriental origins. From the middle of 19 century the Don breed was upgraded using Orlov and Orlov-Rostopchin and Streletsk sires. In this period the Old Don originated from the steppe ancestors was turning into the breed for the stud-farms. In the 19-20 centuries the Don breed was greatly influenced by the Thoroughbreds. Now the Don breed has such qualities that make it irreplaceable in the horse schools for children, in farming, in riding and even in the hippotherapy.

The Vyatsky breed is one of the most interesting one in the history of the Russian horse-breeding. Even now its origins are not found. Some of the literature resources mentioned that these horses are descendents of the Estonian clippers, brought by citizens of Novgorod and Pskov in the Vyatsk, Kazan and Perm province near the year of 1720 under the Peter the Great or even earlier under the Tsar Alexei Mikhaylovich. The Vyatsky breed was so well-known that it was even mentioned in the letters and works of A.S.Pushkin, M.E.Saltykov-Shedrin, V.K.Korolenko. The information about this breed is also given in the V.I. Dal’s “Explanatory Dictionary of the Live Great Russian language”.