Horses in Iran

The history of horses in Iran goes back to Greek sources from ancient Persia, which mention horse worship and the practice of hippomancy. Today, Iranians breed several breeds of horse, most of them Arabian, in particular the Koheilan and Saklawi lines.

History
Horses played an important cultural role in ancient Persia. Herodotus and Ctesias attest to the practice of hippomancy (divination by horse), which continued into the Sasanian era. According to Herodotus' Histories, the Nisean horse was considered sacred in the 5th century BC.

Darius exploited this Persian belief in hippomancy to ensure his royal legitimacy. It is possible that Darius used this ruse or propagated the story to appease his people, who strongly believed in hippomancy. Georges Dumézil sees it as a possible Indo-European rite of enthronement. Persian military horsemen may also have been diviners.

In 1965, an American, Louise Firouz, rediscovered the Caspian horse in the Elbourz mountains, on the shores of the Caspian Sea. In the 1970s, the Royal Iranian Horse Society proposed the name "Persian plateau horse" to designate a group of fairly heterogeneous horses bred in the tribal areas of the Iranian plateau with various Indo-European influences.

Breeding
The DAD-IS database lists 21 breeds of horse currently or formerly bred in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Bakhtiari, Basseri, Caspian, Dareshuri, Ebian, Haddian, Hamdani, Iranian Arabian horse, Jaf, Kahilan, Kurdish horse, Persian Arabian, Qarabagh, Qashqai, Saklawi, Shirazi, Sistani, Taleshi, Taropud, Turkemin and Yabu.

The CAB International study (2016) distinguishes three main types or breeds of horse in Iran: the Persian Arabian, the Persian Plateau horse and the Turkoman, divided into numerous subtypes, whose characterizations remain unclear. It also mentions the existence of the Tchenaran horse.