Product Code Database
The Heck horse is a horse breed that is claimed to resemble the tarpan ( Equus ferus ferus), an Extinction wild equine. The breed was created by the Germans zoologist brothers Heinz Heck and Lutz Heck in an attempt to breeding back the tarpan. Although unsuccessful at creating a genetic copy of the extinct species, they developed a look-alike breed with grullo coloration and primitive markings. Heck horses were subsequently exported to the United States, where a breed association was created in the 1960s.
The Heck brothers bred together several European small horse and pony breeds hypothesized to be descended from the tarpan. They eventually integrated mares of the Konik, Icelandic horse, and Gotland pony breeds. These mares were bred to stallions of a wild horse type known as Przewalski's horse. The Hecks believed the wild Przewalski blood would help to draw out the wild characteristics they felt lay dormant in the domesticated pony breed mares. The initial crosses were made between Gotland and Icelandic mares (who visually closely resembled the tarpan, especially in the shape of the head) and Przewalski's horse stallions (who provided the desired dun coloration and upright mane), and the offspring were then bred to each other. The first foal born from the program who had the desired coloration was a colt born on May 22, 1933, at the Tierpark Hellabrunn. The breeding program continued, using only those horses showing the desired skull shape, bone structure and coloration. Relatively quickly, the breed's conformation and coloration became set, with parents reliably passing their characteristics to their offspring.
During World War II, horses of the desired type were taken from German-occupied countries to use in the Hecks' breeding program. Tadeusz Vetulani, a Polish biologist, had been working with Konik horses, at that point believed to be descended from tarpans, with the goal (like the Hecks) of recreating the tarpan. Some of the horses from his program had been reintroduced to the forests of Białowieża, Poland. During the war, the Hecks removed the animals from the forest and used them in their own breeding programs. Vetulani considered this a "baffling campaign of destruction", and the Hecks' actions effectively ended his breeding program. Some of the resulting Heck horses were sent back to Białowieża, to become part of a hunting preserve for Nazi government officials. The land, and the horses, were returned to Polish management after the war ended. As of 2007, a small herd of the horses remained, living with little interference from humans, in Białowieża Forest, Europe's last remaining area of primeval forest. The Hecks had conducted a similar breeding program in hopes of recreating the aurochs, resulting in what would become Heck cattle.
Several breeders have crossed the Heck horse with other breeds to get a larger horse with some of the primitive characteristics. Breeds commonly crossed with the Heck horse are the Welsh pony and Arabian horse, and a new breed of pony, called the Canadian Rustic Pony, has been developed from these three breeds. In Europe, many breeders cross Heck horses with to produce Field hunter.
Export and crossbreeding
The first Heck horse in the United States was a stallion named Duke, imported in 1954 by the Chicago Zoological Park in Illinois, followed by two mares in 1955. A third mare was imported by the Fort Worth Zoological Park in Texas in 1962. All four horses came from the Munich Zoo and in the early 1990s, all Heck horses in the United States traced back to these animals. Several private breeders in the United States now use these horses for riding and light driving. In the early 1960s, the North American Tarpan Association was founded by Heck horse enthusiasts to promote the breed. In 2002, there were fewer than 100 Heck horses in the United States, most of them having descended from the six foundation horses, all imported from Germany. As of 2013, a small number of Heck horses lived in a feral horse state in Latvia.
See also
|
|
