​FRIENDS OF MARWARI / KATHIAWARI HORSE UK
Affiliated to the Indigenous Horse Society of India
UK Chapter ~ Established 2008
Pilot DNA Study
There are many rumours and misbeliefs about these two horse breeds, and much has been passed down like 'Chinese Whispers' over the centuries. Therefore, following on from the Historic Timeline produced for us by Beverley Davis (see below) we decided to conduct a small pilot DNA Study to let science confirm or deny the myths.
We collected root tail hair samples from a mixture of horses spread across a diverse area, and had help from three independent organisations (Weatherbys Ireland DNA Laboratory, Countrywide Livestock Ltd and Rare Breeds International in collating the results.
The findings indicated that a further more extensive study would be necessary, but the indications are that the Marwari and Kathiawari breeds are related closely to eachother, are also related to the Turkoman breeds and are set apart from the other Indian indigenous horse breeds.
Read the report compiled for us by Countrywide Livestock Ltd (who were also responsible for defining the Caspian horse breed DNA and aiding in its survival), by clicking on the picture on the right to open or downloand the pdf document.
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The Marwari breed is also similar to the Akhal Teke horse breed from Turkmenistan and our recent DNA analysis is showing the Marwari and the Akhal Teke are close together in the horse DNA group. Find out more about the Akhal Teke by the Team Teke GB website www.team-teke.co.uk and also www.kyzyltekes.co.uk
Historic Timeline on the Origin of the Marwari & Kathiawari breeds
In order to get some clarification on the history of these two horse breeds, we enlisted the expertise and knowledge of Equestrian Historian Beverley Davis, and she methodically produced an 'Historic Timeline' relating to the Marwari and Kathiawari horses.
This 'Historic Timeline' put known artefacts, historical events, archeological findings, written scriptures etc together in a time sequence and this indicated that these two horse breeds were in fact around in Northern India, and more importantly domesticated for riding, long before Arabia recorded using horses for riding and in warfare.
This therefore indicates that the Marwari and Kathiawari breeds are most probably older than the Arabian, which has long been thought of as the oldest horse breed, and this 'Historic Timeline' also confirms the Indian belief that the two breeds did not originate from Arab bloodline. The Kathiawari does indeed seem to share some of the features of the Arab, but it could be that the Kathiawari was in fact the catalyst for the Arab horse breed, not the other way around. These findings prompted us to go forward with our pilot DNA study (above).
Read Beverley Davis' report by clicking on the picture on the right to open or downloand the pdf document.
