9 Mar 2016

Yakut Horse - A Gutsy Survivor

We all have seen all kinds of horses, but last weekend, in Helsinki Horse Fair,
we saw something new... A small, beautiful brown horse, Yakut horse.



There he was, charming every one!

First question was: "where on Earth is Yakutia?"

Yakutia is in northeast Asia. It covers 20 % of Russia and it´s four times as big as France. The country has only about 1 000 000 inhabitants. Over 70% of acreage is mountain range
and the highest point is Mountain Pobeda, 3 147 m. Climate is continental and it´s coldest
area of Siberia. Winters are long and hard, summers short and hot. In Yakutia you get everything between -50° C and +40° C.



There is tundra and taiga, polar nights and light summer nights. In Yakutia you find endless steppes, enormous wasteland and huge rivers. Yakutian lakes are full of fish, forests full of berries and wild animals. To survive in Yakutian wilderness, the animals have to stand extreme cold - buffalos and these unique horses can - and they know how to find food under ice and snow.


See more pictures in www.capitalbay.news

Yakut horse looks a lot like Mongolian, Icelandic or Przewalski's horse. Finnhorses are also related to this breed. In Yakutia the horses live wild but also domesticated. They are used for transportation, riding and producing milk and meat.

Yakut horses are gutsy and tough and they can be ridden earlier than "ordinary" horses. They don´t wear shoes and their wintercoat can be 10 cm long. Height is about 140 cm but even if they are that small, they can carry a man. They have four gaits: gait, trot and gallop. Yakut horses are not suitable for dressage or showjumping because of their size and build, but they are a perfect companion for trail riding, no matter what kind of conditions. They are kind, cool and meek but a bit stubborn.



There are not too many Yakut horses outside of Russia. In Helsinki we met the lucky lady, Kristina Mäkäläinen, who had brought her three year old stallion, Zardon, to the show.

"My father comes from Tiksi. It´s a small town in Yakutia, on the coast of the Arctic Ocean. When I was a child my father told me about these extraordinary horses", Kristina remembers.
"He told that the horses lived on their own, wild. He also said that usually the horses  werewhite or yellow and he, as a small boy, wore boots made of horse leather. It all sounded
so fascinating, exotic and exciting..."

"Since I was a child I´ve been dreaming of having a Yakut horse... A friend of mine had the same dream and then came a day we decided to look for ones and bring them to Finland! Bringing horses from Siberia to Finland would have been very expensive and complicated,
but we were lucky enough to find a breeder near Moscow."

"We brought four horses with us: mares Myshka, Zolodinka and Fialka and the stallion
Zardon. Buying and bringing horses from Moscow to Finland was quite an experience, but next time we will go all the way to beautiful Yakutia..."


Zardon is the only Yakut stallion in Finland. He´s still young, only three years old.
He lives at the stables in Espoo, Nupuri.
Nupurin Hevosvaellus in Facebook
www.nupurinhevosvaellus.fi

"Zardon is the `dear boy´ in our family. He is the only stallion in the herd
and considers himself as the `BOSS´", Kristina says laughing.

Myshka lives now in Lapland: 
At this stable they organize trek riding with arctic horses
and husky safaris.

It was fantastic to meet you, Kristina and Zardon!
Hopefully we´ll meet again...

Read more about the Yakutian Horse Breeders:
One of toughest jobs in Yakutia, Russia’s Siberia



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