A Turkmen Akhal-Teke horse, a breed known in China as "heavenly horse" and believed to be the mount of the legendary Genghis Khan (1167-1227), flew over the ancient Silk Road into China Monday, bringing greetings for the Chinese year of the horse.
The 8-year-old horse, Ahdash, which means white stone in Turkoman, is in good condition after a travel of about seven hours, said Cao Guangfu, general manager of an air freight company under China's Civil Aviation Administration.
The horse, loaded in an open-top container on board an Il-76 cargo aircraft, flew from Turkmenistan to Tianjin, a port city some 120 kilometers from Beijing, before arriving in the Chinese capital by truck late Monday afternoon.
The Turkmen Akhal-Teke, the oldest purebred in the world, is an ancestor of the English thoroughbred. As a national treasure of Turkmenistan, its image is featured at the center of the national emblem.
"The noble-looking horse responds and runs fast," said Wang Tiequan, a research fellow at the animal husbandry institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Wang has seen at first hand the talents of the breed, which can cover 1,000 meters in 67 seconds on flat land.
A token of friendship
Emperor Hanwu, who ruled the Western Han Dynasty over 2,100 years ago, was amazed at the beauty and speed of the creature when he got one from Central Asia. He called it "heavenly horse" in a poem that was later reproduced in many history books.
Though the breed has rarely been seen in China during the past seven or eight centuries, its glory and mystery remain. In Chinese literature the steed is depicted as "being able to gallop 1,000 kilometers a day and another 800 kilometers at night."
It is also known in China as a "blood-sweating horse", as people say it sweats a red, blood-like liquid as it gallops along, a sign that indicates its extreme vitality.
Scientists have not figured out what the red liquid is. Some say it is sheer illusion, while others say it is blood from wounds on the horse's back left by parasites.
The stallion was "a token of friendship" between Turkmenistan and China, said Boris Orazovich Shikhmuradov, Turkmenistan's ambassador to China.
Horses were regarded as family members in Turkmenistan and were presented only to very best friends, he said.
(People?s Daily June 18, 2002)
