Pforr's Russian Imperial horses

 Salvete omnes,

J.G. Pforr also painted, in ink, two horses of the Russian  Empire. 

the 1700s brought large scale horse breeding by various Russian, Coassack and tribal people of the Don and Volga steppe areas. The studs were organized and produced horses for the army and the state, especially under the long rule of  empress Yekaterina II (Catherine II ), whose armies conquered most of the Pontic and Volga steppes and  in Siberia etc. The nobility rode German, Dutch, Spanish, Polish, later English horses, as evidenced in these two portraits above.

Travelers from the West observed that Russian horses were accustomed to grazing all summer months, without the need for grain, when on campaign in the Pontic Steppe (and Russian and Ottoman empires clashed numerous times during the 1700s, while there were rebellions and uprising of the peasants and nomads of these steppes).

perhaps a Russian Cossack or a Kalmuck watering two horses, one bay and one palomino

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Valete

Horses - Mammalia AD 1870

 Salvete Omnes,

Today is August 1, and on this day Polish people commemorate the tragedy of the Warsaw Uprising 1944 - Powstanie Warszawskie 1944.

I wrote  my thoughts about this tragic historic event in some posts eg this one in 2019.
Pacem Aeternam to all those fallen.

Ad rem, back to horsing around - :) 

Mammalia - is a tittle of this book published in 1870 in NY.  It is an  'olden' book, but many horse 'facts & factoids' contianed therein stand firm still today . The book, authored by Louis Figuier  , was illustrated by French artists of the period -  Edouard Riou, De Neville and Mesnel.

The illustrations are interesting and well done, while the text is both entertaining and informative , eg about the Camarque horse (and other French breeds of the period).

colors - 

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enjoy

Valete

Estonian Native Horse and genetics

 Salvete Omnes,

while perusing academia.edu subscriptions and searching for the Birka warriors etc I came across Gus Cothran's page on academia. 
I guess I started my adventure with horse genomics by reading prof. Cothran's articles etc.
So in his(and esteemed colleagues)  2019AD article -  Population Genetic Analysis of the Estonian Native Horse Suggests Diverse and Distinct Genetics, Ancient Origin and Contribution from Unique Patrilines- (link) we have a study of the Estonian Native Horse -    University of Oklahoma livestock and breeds page - wiki page, breeders pages. 

The horse averages 147cm at withers and about 430kg in weight (I guess the stallions). Its gene pool includes Mongolian horse and the Yakutian; Scandinavian horses like Gotland Pony, Norvegian Fjord, and Islandic Pony; British Isles horses - Exmoor and Shetland,  Polish Konik and Carpathian Hucul... 

This small horse might have been part of the horses' pool used by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth armies as between 1569-1629 Duchy of Livonia was part of our Polish state. Also, it is reasonable to infer that some Polish stallions left their progeny among the herds of the Estonian horse during that period.  After 1620s the Duchy of Livonia was conquered and annexed by the Swedes who already held the northern part of Estonia. It all ended with Peter the Great of Imperial Russia conquering all of Estonia during the Great Northern War. And Estonian horse became popular in Imperial Russia.. and so on until the present it is the native breed in the independent Estonia. 

Valete