The Anadolu Pony is a Turkish

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 breed of horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

 developed over 1,000 years ago. They are known for their speed, endurance and hardiness.

Characteristics

The Anadolu is a small pony, standing between 12.1 and 13.3 hands high. The head is small and shows refinement. Both convex and concave profiles are found within the breed. The mouth is small, the nostrils are open and flexible, while the withers

Withers

The withers is the ridge between the shoulder blades of a four-legged animal. In many species it is the tallest point of the body, and in horses and dogs it is the standard place to measure the animal's height .-Horses:The withers in horses are formed by the dorsal spinal processes of roughly the...

 are somewhat low, the chest is narrow and the croup is sloped.

Breed history

The Anadolu Pony is descended from crosses of Turkoman

Turkoman Horse

The Turkoman horse, or Turkmene, was an Oriental horse breed from the steppes of Central Asia, now extinct. Modern descendants include the Akhal-Teke and the Yamud horse breeds. Horses bred in Turkmenistan are still referred to as Turkoman, and have similar characteristics...

, Arabian

Arabian horse

The Arabian or Arab horse is a breed of horse that originated on the Arabian Peninsula. With a distinctive head shape and high tail carriage, the Arabian is one of the most easily recognizable horse breeds in the world. It is also one of the oldest breeds, with archaeological evidence of horses...

, Persian, Karabakh, Akhal-Teke

Akhal-Teke

The Akhal-Teke is a horse breed from Turkmenistan, where they are a national emblem. They are noted for their speed and for endurance on long marches. These "golden-horses" are adapted to severe climatic conditions and are thought to be one of the oldest surviving horse breeds...

, Karbada, Deliboz, Mongolian

Mongolian horse

The Mongol horse is the native horse breed of Mongolia. The breed is purported to be largely unchanged since the time of Genghis Khan. Nomads living in the traditional Mongol fashion still hold more than 3 million animals, which outnumber the country's human population...

 and the ancient Anatolia horse. Some books refer to this small pony as the Native Turkish Pony, or Turk, but Professors Salahattin Batu and M. Nurettin Aral made a distinction in types between the horses in Anatolia as Anadolu and East and Southeast Anadolu.

Anadolu can be translated as "Turkey on the Asia". This is the most numerous Turkish horse breed, with approximately 930,000 alive today.

Uses

It is usually used as a riding horse

Riding Horse

The Riding Horse is a type of show horse in the UK. Riding horses can be any breed, but are generally warmbloods or Thoroughbred crosses.The breeding and showing of riding horses is overseen by the British Show Horse Association.-Showing the riding horse:...

 and a pack horse, and is known to be strong, enduring and fast. It has been bred to live in poor conditions, and is today found throughout Turkey.