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European Wild Horses; originally posted by Dfoidl
Topic Started: Jan 9 2012, 06:44 PM (28,359 Views)
NewLeaf
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I'm inclined to believe that the UK auction had what they thought was a genuine item, considering the other items in the sale. Private ownership of an item like this would not have been unusual at the time it was supposedly made. The link I gave may or may not be a genuine sale, there is at least one other site posting the same animal that is a scam. That it is for sale is not sure proof either way.
It looks nothing like a Fjord or much like any of the current mongol breeds, though it could be a well chosen mutt, or an older style of mongol pony (though why anyone would have gone to that trouble I do not know. I feel it's more likely to be an actual tarpan, or a local mutt, than an imported pony). It also has signifigant fading. If it is not a 'tarpan,' it is still an older specimen. I do find it striking that it is much closer in shape the the 19th c illustrations than to what we think of as wild, though it seems that could be the taxidermist playing to his audience as much as the sketch artists. Or sheer coincidence.

@Copperhead, how easy would it be to shorten the hip? I'm guessing it would be hard to tell without a picture from behind, but could the hide have been cut?
I'm hoping the hide being stretched explains his very akward neck!
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NewLeaf
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He is, apparently, one of the early re-bred Tarpans, mounted ~1930.
77in (at the head) by 106in.
http://content.yudu.com/Library/A2in2k/SummersPlaceEvolutio/resources/index.htm?referrerUrl=http%3A%2F%2Ffree.yudu.com%2Fitem%2Fdetails%2F1409937%2FSummers-Place---Evolution-Catalogue
Edited by NewLeaf, Feb 11 2014, 04:00 AM.
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Dfoidl
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Quote:
 
He is, apparently, one of the early re-bred Tarpans, mounted ~1930.

Good to know, that doesn't surprise me at all. Early Heck horses were influenced by the Przewalski and other bay/bay dun horses like the Gotland and Icelandic pony.
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Copperhead
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NewLeaf
Feb 11 2014, 03:51 AM
Great find! At least we know where it came from now.

I spent a great deal of time in a friend's taxidermy shop and know that you can make animal look absolutely nothing like it's former self if you're unskilled (he is actually very skilled though). The pelt itself doesn't hold the shape of the body, just the general dimentions. If a specific pelt didn't fit a smaller base, you can just cut off the fur that wasn't needed. Taxidermy has gotten better (easier?) through the ages with the introduction of foam forms where all you have to do is alter the form a little bit (shave off some foam or add some plaster) and add the pelt.

Posted Image

The darker part around the muzzle and eye is plaster but in essence, you can tell thats a deer head. They even have forms for the ears. You literally don't have to reconstruct a figure from scratch anymore.

Older taxidermy was more challenging because you had to recreate the animal by hand, meaning you just didn't have to add the pelt. You have to rebuild the actual animal structure and MOST taxidermists weren't Michelangelo. Imagine spending all that time reconstructing a horse just to have the pelt not fit! Simple fix: cut the pelt so it would fit to the form instead of redoing the whole form.

A lot of taxidermists never even saw the animal they were working on. For instance, my friend just got done with an african lion. He's never seen one up close so he bought a book on lion conformation. If this person never saw a tarpan, how easy would it be for him to get a hold of tarpan anatomy references? Probably not so easy, so he probably just put together a form and made the pelt fit as best he could.

I've seen taxidermists cut away bits of pelt they didn't need or want and I've seen them take a scrap piece from another animal of the same species and add it to the one they're working on as a "filler".

Whats a horse generally look like? That was probably the tarpan taxidermists thought when he reconstructed the form. Long thin legs, long neck, a back and a rump.
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Copperhead
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I just did aquik image manip to show you how the pelt might have been incorrectly mounted.

Posted Image

The thick black lines represent the animal's bone structure.

The red line upfront is where the taxdermist created the shoulder. However if you look at the coloring of the pelt, you can see a faint darker line above the red line which indicates that the neck should have started somewhere higher. I made a black line a hair above the natural line to pick it out better. If the shoulder on the taxdermy figure would have been brought up higher, it wouldn't have given the neck such a long appearance.

The neck might look really thick because the artist didn't put a crest line in there to define the crest.

To the rear you'll see the smaller red line where I've pointed out (from coloration) were the Point of the Hip was on that particular animal when it was alive. The black line below it shows where it should have been on the mount. If the butt had sloped with the hip, he would have had a more anatomically correct rearend.

The pot belly this taxidermy specimen sports is completely fictional. The artist had a general idea of how the belly rounded but failed to make any definition in the rib/hip/stifle area.

I hope this helped. I don't know the conformation of a tarpan, of course, but these are the basic points on every horse and the artist seemed to have made a good attempt (after all, we can see its a horse) but missed at the basic anatomy.
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NewLeaf
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This is fantastic!
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Copperhead
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Its basically the difference between this
Posted Image

And today's
Posted Image

I'll stop now...lol
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NewLeaf
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Is that Custer's Commanche?
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Copperhead
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Yup! The whole process is kind of amazing. It goes to show you what a good taxidermist is capable of, even with primitive supplies.

Not bad considering the taxidermist used this
Posted Image

Posted Image

To make this
Posted Image

Which is very close to the original item
Posted Image

Its very easy to screw up a mount even with the supplies we have today. It took real skill to do this by hand and make it look good without the use of a foam model. Our tarpan friend wasn't so lucky, apparently.
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Dfoidl
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i noticed that strangely there are actually very few bay dun primitive horses although bay dun probably was a very common wild horse colour. Fjord, Icelandic horse and Mongolian come to my mind at the moment.
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NewLeaf
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Dun is strangely rare among Mongol ponies, considering the historical and genetic acknowledgement of interbreeding with the Tahki, and that there are some Tibetan valley breeds that are commonly dun. Some breeders prefer clarity of color, which I could see being a problem with duns, but it still seems odd.
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NewLeaf
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This may be of interest
http://equinetapestry.com/category/livestock-conservancy/
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Copperhead
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Thats an interesting read. It lost a lot o credibility for me when it suggested Arabians were only 200 years old, though.
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NewLeaf
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I believe she's referring to a study that claims Arabs are a Victorian construct, rather than claiming it herself. It does have some merit, in that our ideas of breed purity are fairly modern. The arabian type is beyond doubt much older, but at what point do we consider a breed a breed and not a type? Is it the earliest recognizable type (arguably assyrian)? When documents are first kept (between the 8th and 14th centuries)? When breeding is limited to a certain population (an early modern phenomenon)? When the studbook is "closed" (within the last two-three centuries)?
Or is it some combination of these? We consider the American Paint a breed, but the Morab is generally still considered a hybrid, even though the pedigree requirements are stricter. Many warmblood breeds have very little pedigree requirements, but are considered breeds. Others have strict pedigree requirements, sometimes to the detriment of the breed, but no set type.
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Copperhead
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Theres some food for thought that I might have to sit and ponder.

The American Warmblood has absolutely no pedigree requirements other than one parent must be a hot blood (lighter type) and the other must be a cold blood (draft type). Europian warmbloods are extremely strict in their pedigree to the point that horses must go through inspection to be qualified for breeding, registration and branding (stallions who don't pass are gelded and mares just aren't bred).

I know the Arabian Horse Registry has horses with pedigree that go all the way back to nameless horses who were pulled from the desert region. I believe the simple term for this was just "Desert Horse" in the pedigree. I'm not sure how far back dated that was. I'd have to do some research.

Breeds are really hard to create these days. The Morab is an Arabian/Morgan cross, but in order for it to be a true breed, two Morabs would have to make a third Morab with no other features present other than that relating to the Morab "type". The Appendix (Thoroughbred/Quarter Horse) can't ever be a breed. It is only a crossbred. There are Appendix horses who look TB and Appendix horses with the same lineage who look QH. Cross an Appendix with another Appendix and you get a mixing pot of conformation and genetics that will never look the same twice. Once you get over that hump and can actually get a similar looking foal each and every time that resembles it's parents (and grandparents and so on), then you have to get it recognized in the general population and horse people are extremely stubborn about that.

However, when the Arabian was officially recgnized as a breed and not a type, I don't know. Its an interesting question and one I'm going to look around for.
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