Selective Breeding of the Horse in Arabia Begins

Horsebreeding and horsekeeping might have begun in Arabia itself as a prestige symbol, associated only with the rich and powerful. But when the wave of Parthians threatened to engulf Europe at the dawn of the Christian era, the value of the horse continued to prove its worth and views changed.

St. John wrote, "And I looked, and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death." The word rendered as "pale" by translators could also be rendered "light dun"- the characteristic color of the early Equus species that would have carried the invaders from the east. From a military viewpoint, the proto-Arab, as it then was, had the grave disadvantage of being too small for a charger. When horse breeding in Arabia became a religious duty incumbent on the less rich and less powerful, this meant three things:

First, that other livestock kept by the Bedouin- his sheep, goats, camels- would have to be content with a smaller share of available drinking water and even grittier grazing than before;

Second, that breeders themselves would have to make due with less dates, less barley, less camels' milk, and even less fish (in certain parts of Arabia near the coast, protein in the diets of horses was supplemented by dried sprats from which the oil was first extracted);

And third, that the slogan "Quality Before Quantity" would be hammered home in no uncertain fashion. If piety compels a man to bankrupt himself and starve his family and flocks in order to breed horses, he might as well breed good ones.