Talk:Arabian horse

Source note

Additional source on the world of the 1980s: https://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1064442/1/index.htm

These horses are very difficult to photograph that their attributes are identifiable. In the published photo the background is makes the head shape difficult to recognise. Azd0815 (talk) 03:23, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

“Influence on other horse breeds” section due for fine-tuning

Article should be updated based on new research adding to the strong evidence that the Akhal/Teke/Turkoman, not the Arabian, is the breed of foundation stallions of the modern Thoroughbred.

More specifically, while role of Arabians is indeed suggested by stud books, it should be noted that modern DNA research suggests differently.

“Contrary to popular belief, we could detect no significant genomic contribution of the Arabian breed to the Thoroughbred racehorse, including Y chromosome ancestry.”

“Recently... an analysis of horse Y chromosome haplotypes has indicated that the Y haplotype of the “Darley Arabian” actually originated from the Turkoman[/Akhal-Teke] horse, an ancient breed from the Middle East and Central Asia that is... also an “Oriental” type breed.”

“Five of the race-use [Arabian] horses carried the Tb-oB1* haplogroup attributed to the “Byerley Turk” foundation sire of the Thoroughbred breed. Tb-oB1* is found within a variety of breeds and lineages, including the Turkomen[/Akhal-Teke]. Therefore, these five horses may carry Y chromosomes derived from ancestors common to both racing Arabians and the Thoroughbred breed.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-66232-1 Greenineugene (talk) 16:38, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

We probably have to put some thought into this, as that IS the way it's getting read, but I'm not ready to race in and change things yet. The "TBs are't descended from Arabians" is kind of a red herring and an oversimplification of the science. True, the Darley Arabian has a Y-DNA that traces to the same lineages as some modern Akhal-Tekes, yes. But that is only Y-DNA, one line of a pedigree, and who knows how far back that goes. (For example, Thomas Jefferson had Y-DNA in common with what today are an ethnic group of Moroccan Jews, but we don't say he's a Moroccan Jew...) Any horse has a lot of other ancestors besides the tail-male line. Several studies showing substantial Arabian DNA in the Thoroughbred, and more interestingly, Arab Y-DNA has popped up in other Thoroughbred-descended breeds (i.e. with Thoroughbred sire lines). Also, the Caspian horse may be closer to the common ancestor of both the Arab and the Turk. So these articles about studies are overbroad once you look at the actual content. It is also well-known that the Mu'niqi strain to which the Darley Arabian belonged was claimed to have been "contaminated" by a "Turkoman horse" introduced about 350-400 years ago. All of this also ignores the reality that the horse was bred and purchased in Syria, and had generations of other breeding from the Arab lands outside his sire line. A final thing no one is mentioning is the rumors that in the Soviet era the Russians imported Thorougbreds to cross on the Akhal-Tekes to make them faster. So in other words, finding Y-DNA in Akhal-Tekes that matches Thoroughbred Y-DNA might be a lot closer than one thinks. They claim that all such "experimental" breeding has been taken out, but just as Arabians were known to have been crossed on the Andalusian horse as recently as the 1800s, it's reasonable to question things like breed purity. Until the modern era, people cared about pedigrees, but they mixed and matched. The closed stud book is a recent phenomena. But let's chat more. Montanabw^(talk) 02:45, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

The nature paper is a primary source, to be added on wikipedia a secondary source is needed. Julia Domna Ba'al (talk) 05:52, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ealdgyth:: your thoughts? I know of at least three different peer-reviewed studies on this issue, each with somewhat different results. (Can email full texts or cite to Pubmed here) Do we have a good geneticist in the house? Montanabw^(talk) 16:49, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I do pedigrees. Not genetic studies. I go to several folks when I need those interpreted, but they aren't on wikipedia. I agree with Julia above, these are all primary studies and ideally we wait for secondary coverage to interpret them. I am certainly not up to interpreting them ... --Ealdgyth (talk) 18:07, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I’ve been reading them and it’s enough to make your head explode. My biggest gripe is that one study clearly indicates Arabian ancestry in several European warmblood breeds that descended from Thoroughbred sire lines, yet the other study doesn't. The other thing is that they are super hush-hush about the pedigrees of the specific horses used, so who knows what the heck they based their conclusions on. Montanabw^(talk) 00:41, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Genetic study

I never thought thoroughbreds descended from the Arabian horse we see today. I never doubted the linage of the Arabian until I read this article. I am no expert on Arabians but this is some food for thought. https://www.paulickreport.com/news/bloodstock/study-did-thoroughbreds-really-descend-from-arabians/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackal10782 (talk • contribs) 20:54, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

A reason has been given...

Phrases such as "According to Jérémie Schiettecatte, Earliest osteological evidence for the horses in Arabia were found in Bahrain in a middle of the 1000 BC." are gibberish. They are not understandable or grammatical English. Nor is "Furthermore Elwyn Hartley Edwards also added it is possible that the Arabs also had influence in the breeding breeding of legendary Nisean horse, since geographically the breed theoritically was bred in western Iran of Medes." or "Edwards further remarked the possibility that the Nisean were also infused with Arabian horse breed." This is a Good Article - it's prose is supposed to be not just understandable, but easily understood and clear. These three sentences are not even understandable, much less clear. And the sourcing is substandard - the Schiettecatte source is talking about horse bones in general - not specifically Arabian horse bones. But (as near as I can make out the sentence inserted in the article) "for the horses" is suppossed to refer to Arabian horses? Or is it? It's hard to tell. Anyway - this is such that the editor who inserted it (in good faith, I'm sure) needs to have a much better grasp of English before attempting it again. Ealdgyth (talk) 23:43, 5 March 2022 (UTC)