In August 1998 the Swedish Akhal-Teke association arranged an official grading and show of Akhal-Tekes, invited judges were Tatyana Ryabova and Geldy Kyarizov. The points and verbal comments are filed with the horse owners and the results of the show, with grading points as well as breed value classification was published in the Swedish Equestrian Magazine "Ridsport" No17/1998. The points and the breeding value classification has been used by us in the marketing of our studfarm since then as the gradings are official and we have had no reason to believe that those could be changed as the horses has not been graded by an official or ackredited representant for the General Stud Book since then.
We have always been careful in our marketing to mention grading points and comments from other sources than ourselves to give people interested in our work a more objective picture of them. Obviously we have selected our breeding stock for qualities we like to see in our horses and our selected horses have traits that we have in our breeding goal and are selected according to our breeding plan.
Therefore we see the grading and other tests more as a quality signature from objective experts in either breed type or the modern sport horse traits that is of more interest to buyers and others interested in the breed. We would not exchange one of our selected horses due to a grading point from a judge.
Since 1998 neither Tatyana Ryabova nor Nadya Abramova (who are the only ackredited or approved judges for gradings of horses that are to be inscribed into the General Stud Book) have seen or graded any of the horses that are mentioned below. As the studbook covers the period up to the year 2000 the breeding value points as well as the breeding value classification can only be valid for that period.

In the judgement protocols dated August 8, 1998 I read the following grading (type-conformation) and breeding value classifications:
Almaz 8.0 - 8.0 Elite
Gayadagi 7.4 - 8.0 Class I
Alma 7.0 - 8.0 Elite
Guldenze 7.5 - 7.5 Elite

In the General Stud Book published in 2005 covering horses registered to the year 2000 I read the following points type-conformation-breed value classification and year of grading:
Almaz 8.0 - 8.0 Class I year 2000
Gayadagi 7.2 - 7.0 Class I year 1999
Alma 6.5 - 8.0 Class I year 2000
Guldenze 6.8 - 7.5 Class I year 1997

other points to mention is that Alma and Guldense that both had elite classed offspring at the show in 1998 are given a 0 for quality of offspring, Almaz who had all his offspring elite classed in 1998 has 6.0 in quality of offspring, while Gayadagi who in 1998 had no offspring and since then has had one offspring Gadim born 1999 who is out of Alma, has the point 8.0 for offspring this in spite of the fact that Gadim has never been graded. So if Gayadagi gets an 8 for Gadim who has never been graded , how can the dam of the offspring that obviously has resulted in an 8 for breeding value get a 0 when she at least had at that point one elite classed daugher, Yasemine?
Alma has also been given the point 6 for her pedigree, when her full sister, Morena, has the point 7 for pedigree.

My conclusion is
1. that the figures for the above mentioned horses published in the General Stud Book are false and should be corrected to be in accordance with the protocols from the official Swedish Show. The years for when the gradings were performed are wrong and must be corrected. We can prove without doubt that we had a show in 1998 and what points and comments that were given.
2. It is against all moral and ethics both towards the breed, the breeders, the promotors/sponsors of the breed to change official grading and classification results without an explanation. This would not be accepted in any other breed!, especially those who are developed enough to have strong stallion owner's associations (it might be the time to create such an association for this breed ) offical grading points cannot be changed at any time that is suitable for the stud book manager!! Unacceptable.
3.There are obvious errors in the pedigree points for Alma and Morena, one of them must be corrected full sisters cannot have different points for pedigree.
4.An explanation for how Gayadagi can achieve 8.0 for offspring without having one graded offspring must be presented.
5. If we have found the above mentioned errors for four horses, how many other errors are there in the 10th volume of the General Stud Book?
6. It is a very big risk to have horses officially graded by T. Ryabova as she is obviously capable of changing points and classifications she gave herself at any point.
I therefore strongly recommend those of you that still will have your horses graded to make sure that you have signed protocols with points, dates and classifications before you let T. Ryabova leave you farm or the show ground and as soon as possible publish those documents.

Today I feel like the mismanagement and dysfunctionality of our breed association wears and tears you out and it is a big shame for the heavenly breed to have ended up in this miserable situation. I as a small breeder feel helpless and ready to give up at this point.

1. Todd Keith05/16/2006 12:36:02
Homepage: http://www.beknazar.com

It seems with the Alma/Morena points that the owner is more important than the horse itself. Morena was owned by Tito and Alma by us. Look at Osman's points in the 10th studbook as well. He was given 7.8 (on his MAAK papers) in type before being exported to our farm. His "official" points for type in the stud book are 7.3 (!!!) once we owned him.
When Sasha and Leonid saw him in Sweden he was given 8.3+ in type. That is quite a difference!
It is a shame that politics within the breed have become more important than the breed itself.
Todd

2. Jessica 05/16/2006 13:31:31

I think it is to flattering to refer to the errors as politics, I insist that the errors are due to incompentence and the misuse of resources for modernising the equipment used for record keeping. If it was really politics, us being punished for critising, Alma should have been moved back to the part bred section of the studbook where she was inscribed until she was bloodtyped in Sweden and those errors were detected and she could be registered with her correct father, Agnets, into the pure bred section of the stud book. Strangely enough she was supposed to have been bloodtyped when she was inscribed into the part bred book but obviously there were mistakes made or maybe the test came up with ten possible fathers and the one that wasn't sheep herding at the moment was chosen, but that we will never find out as it is a secret.
We were only lucky I guess as many others in west have seen their pure breds being moved to the part bred section by the record keepers in Ryazan.

3. Leonid05/16/2006 14:49:02
Homepage: http://www.shael-teke.ru

It is very sad. Such situation with full sisters Marta and Melana.

4. Todd Keith05/16/2006 17:10:31
Homepage: http://www.beknazar.com/

Leonid,
Maybe it is because you are on the shit list on not Marta's owners...
Marta's points for pedigree were 7.3 and Melana's 7.0.....
Full sisters.... strange again.

5. Leonid05/17/2006 01:25:02
Homepage: http://www.shael-teke.ru

It is nothing for me. I am ageinst of the valuations. Valuation is go-between me and my costomer and I don't want to pay for this.

6. Nathalie05/17/2006 04:21:55
Homepage: http://www.alamanstud.com

It is a very sad situation because studbook is the only reference for the akhal teke breed
So how is it possible to have a right evaluation of the quality of horses ?

7. Tabitha05/17/2006 06:56:00

Well.. so the studbook clearly is not reliable then...
When Agan was graded last year all I received were the grades itself... I would have appreciated the full paper: according to my MAAK papers when a horse is graded the MAAK papers mention the height/girth measurements at the moment of grading and the grades and the date of grading.
I as naieve AT-owner would have expected that at the mometn of grading all those data would have been written down on my official MAAK paper or that I would receive a new MAAK paper.

Non of those things happened.

On top of that:
According the MAAK rules for grading horses get points for movement also. However from persons present at the grading I heard that non of the horses were judged on movement.

I as owner would like to get not only the grades but also the comments on my horse and to why those particular grades were given. All I received were static grades, no comments whatsoever, no signatures (to proof it's they are the official grades, that would be nice too) and no grading list as shown on the MAAK website: [url]http://www.maakcenter.org/ENG/BREED/grading.html[/url].

You can imagine I was very disappointed about all this.

Not to mention the fact that according to his grades he should have received class I. Yet he was placed in class II.
Now I don't know why, I only can guess... perhaps his measurements? or his parentage (that grade was low, the rest were average)? But the MAAK gradign rules say that horses are placed in their respective Class based on type grades. So that means he should be class I and not class II.

I thought the grading would make me clear as to where my horse would stand in breed value, now I only have more questions as before. All I figured out is that my horse appearantly is not worth breeding to. But it would be nice to know why.

8. Todd Keith05/17/2006 07:43:25
Homepage: http://www.beknazar.com

Leonid,
I understand your point more now. But this does raise the question of the correctness of the studbook information. I was told that the points for pedigree were calculated from a matrix. How can this change between siblings? I did a quick check for other full siblings last night and found the following with different points:
2783 Lolla 6.5
2779 Lada 7.5

1192 Dorkush 8.0
2768 Keik 7.0

2780 Lama 6.7
2781 Lansada 7.0

2835 Mesele 7.5
2854 Molva 8.0
Magrib 8.0

2965 Fonema 8.5
2966 Fortuna 8.0

Most of these horses are reported as being graded the same year so any changes in the parents classes would not reflect on the horses points. In Russia you have the breed shows. Here we do not have this opportunity yet and rely on the studbook information to market our horses and their offspring. This makes this information very important to us. It is a shame that this incorrect information will be available to future breeders who might use it and not understand it's TRUE value (= 0).

Todd

9. Nadja05/17/2006 11:21:27
Homepage: http://www.akhalt-service.ru/

Requirements to an estimation have been officially changed in 2002. requirements to measurements, an origin and quality of posterity have very strongly changed. Therefore to all horses has been made reassessment . Also have come in the new book with new estimations. We too had horses who in 9 book were elite. By new estimations they began 1 class. In Russia too a lot of dissatisfied. But new estimations are officially authorized in the Russian ministry for studbooks.

10. Jessica 05/17/2006 12:28:08

Tabitha. I'm sorry to hear that your horse was graded class II. If you like his looks, and mostly his character then you still made the right choice, that is the most important.
To make you feel better I will tell you about the day I got my first big doubt about the breeding value classification. I went to Finland to look at a stallion called Saljut, his father Sumbar, is the maternal great grandfather, to your horse. Saljut was given class I as breeding value and I looked at him for a client who wanted a nice riding horse, Saljut had four club feet and parrot mouth. Since then I do not trust the breeding classification system much. I guess your horse wasn't that bad?? And he still got class II.
However, there are few class II horses in the stud book as those horses wouldn't be interesting as breeding animals, we found one stallion so far in the 10th stud book, Murager, he is the father of the stallion Murgab that was bred by Insterburg Stud farm and exported to Canada, Murgab was mentioned in this blog as he was marketed as multiple World Champion.

It is certainly not easy to be a newcomer to this breed!!

Who should you believe, the breeders, the studbook, stallion owners??

The grading experience you had is shared by many, many owners and breeders in Europe as well as in the USA. Many of them have contacted us and expressed the same feeling of utter disappointment as you have.
You are not alone!
For those of us that have experience from other horse breeds it is even more frustrating as we have been spoiled by a completetely different approach to genetics, population management, breeders, horse owners, data quality, stud book intergrity, marketing etc, than what is experienced with the Teke associations and stud book.

11. Nadja05/17/2006 14:10:00
Homepage: http://www.akhalt-service.ru/

Jessica. Who put a class elite for Paikhas? A mare is simple enough. Closer to a class 1, instead of elite.

12. Leonid05/17/2006 14:12:02
Homepage: http://www.shael-teke.ru

Nadia, estimations, wich are officially authorized in the Russian ministry are nothing. Only we - breeders must decide this question. We do this bussines and do investment into this breed.

13. Leonid05/17/2006 14:27:01
Homepage: http://www.shael-teke.ru

It is interesting, ministr created this estimations himself? This estimations were created in VNIIK without consultations with breeders.

14. Nadja05/17/2006 15:44:15
Homepage: http://www.akhalt-service.ru/

Leonid, we with you already repeatedly discussed it by phone. I have not changed the opinion. I want to have estimations from people, they are not owners АТ horses.
It is necessary to reckon with opinion of the law. It - anarchy. Any laws are thought out with people. And them not always assert by voting.
I know your opinion. We shall not be repeated.
I agree that the previous system of estimations is obsolete. She needed to be changed. And I agree (basically) how give an estimation now.

15. Jessica 05/17/2006 15:51:11

Nadja. The Swedish Akhal-Teke Association had the honor to have Alexander Klimuk and Leonid Babayev as judges at our national (or was it international, ring secretary was Maria Marquise, UK we had a Norwegian stallion in the show as well as a Spanish handler!) breed show in 2003. I must say that I think we all learned a lot from them during the judgeing of the Swedish Tekes.
Paikhas was awarded elite class by those judges. However, they had the possibility to look at her from all angles as well as in walk and trot. Breeders might have different breeding goals and preferences and if you think she is simple you are free to have that opinion.
We have had Tatyana Ryabova (1997,1998), Geldy Kiarizov(1998), Leonid Babayev(2003) and Alexander Klimuk (2003) to help us out in the evaluation of the breed type of the Swedish Tekes, I would say that we are lucky!

16. Jessica 05/17/2006 16:05:11

Nadja. Who is we? As I have been involved in the "selection" of judges for a few breed shows I must say that the integrity and competence of the judge is more important than if the judge owns horses.
The the breed plan that will be the foundation for the instructions for judges, should be worked out by professionals that can openly declare their economical interest in the breed.
These professionals must earn the approval/trust of the people that show horses for inspection and openly declare any economical interest in the breed.
It is wrong to have the same person that works out the breed plan, works out and approves instructions for judges, inspect horses, approves other judges, publish the studbook, runs the breeder's association(national as well as international), sells, owns and deals horses and semen of the breed.

17. Jessica05/17/2006 16:26:17

Nadja. I understand that the instructions for judges and for grading have been changed since 2002. For me it means that those points should be applied to all horses that have been inspected after 2002. How can a horse, like for example Almaz, that was inspected in 1998, be reevaluated in 2000 for new grading rules that came into effect in 2002? For me that is not possible. I do not agree with the new rules and I have chosen not to show my horses for inspection since 1998, I protest against the obvious fact that points are being given to horses on paper when the horse has not been inspected since the new rules came into effect. If I have misunderstood anything I apologise and ask for a more thorough explanation of the present, I would say, confusing situation.

18. Leonid05/17/2006 21:53:16
Homepage: http://www.shael-teke.ru

Nobody dos not know and dosn't look new instructions of estimation, beside of staffs of Institute.

Nadia, anarchy means situation when Institute can decide all points of breed life and breed politic with ignore of opinion of society. In this case Institute cane change instructions every day and every hour.
Nadia you work for Akhalt-service, are you sure that owner of this Stud has same opinion? I supose, you, like person with letter off Akhalt-service, have to realize official opinion of this Stud. In different case your opinion is only your privet opinion.

19. Leonid05/18/2006 00:25:21
Homepage: http://www.shael-teke.ru

By the way, mother of Paikhas Parikhan is, not less then Champion of the breed in 1998. She is far from simple.

20. Tabitha05/18/2006 04:21:19

Jessica,
Thanks for your sympathy. I am really happy with my Agan and he's really becoming wonderfull at the moment. Now he's in training and his muscles start developping and everything is ok about him.
I have strong suspisions it was mostly his size that did it, but well I don't know that for sure since I don't know the measurements taken at the Grading.
He was gelded the week after I received the gradings ... and started growing and hasn't stopped growing since!! If it was his height then perhaps his classification would be different now.

So I have learned my lesson: grading is an estimation at a given moment. At an other moment the grading might be different.

If I had realized this at that time and I would have been in the position to keep him stallion (have my own farm) then I probably would have waited another year or two before letting him be graded again. If I ever get in the luxury position of being able to become a breeder (which is not likely to happen ) I'll just follow my own instincts...

By the way: I was expecting not to high grades since he was not really big at the moment and had no muscles whatsoever due to an accident and the resulting mental trauma the year before. But class II ... that was a shock.. And his grades for type and conformation were ok. I wouldn't have given him an 8 or 9 either. So I'm content with the 7's he got for that... but well there the question's come since the maak grading rules say that with those grades for type he would be estimated class I....
Ok I take that back... I just went to the MAAK website to check again (like I did yesterday) if I wasn't telling lies and now the table saying what grades are nedded for which class has changed. Now it also tells you what grades are needed for parentage and measurements and so on to end up in which class. That makes it more clear!

This topic really is effective !

21. Tabitha05/18/2006 04:37:05

I just read that horses that are never seen get grades too (in Jessica's comment). That's really weird.

I was thinking Agan had a low parentage grade because perhaps some of his ancestor's in the last 4 generations were never seen and graded and therefore he never could get high points for parentage.

But so I was wrong about that then

22. Leonid05/18/2006 04:45:59
Homepage: http://www.shael-teke.ru

Tabitha, estimation is joke and nothing more. Horse must be pure blood and nothing more. If you have pure blood horses, you can breed them, like pure blood horses and put studpapers for them. All other points are nothing and joke of VNIIK. MAAK hasn't to this joke nothing. We (breeders) are very stupied and delicate, so Ryabova (staff of Institute) took this MAAK to her pocket and we are very glad of this.
My congratulations, you bought horse for your headache.
Institute uses this estimate for this scandals.
Status of pure breed excluses any estimate.

23. Todd Keith05/18/2006 09:12:20
Homepage: http://www.beknazar.com

Leonid,
I understand your point more and more now. I think you are right that the gradings should be left out, specially now when we see that they are not reliable. I also understand now why Sasha was so upset after the Moscow/Pyatigorsk shows last year. Shows like Equiross become more and more important. There were rumors last year that a certain person "bought" the Moscow show for $50,000... Not sure if it is true but his horses placed nicely... Equiross is not yet corrupted by the politics in the breed and still being judged by a committee and not a dictator.
Todd

24. Jessica 05/18/2006 09:19:06

Tabitha. Out of curiosity, how high was Agan over the withers when he was graded as a three-year-old and do you also have his cannon bone circumference? It is normal that stallions have a growth spurt after they are gelded. Geldings tend to be taller and thinner than stallions that are normally shorter and more muscled.
You can really see the "gelding gender" in a horse. Agan was graded as a three year old, his final height should be reached when he is 6 to 8 eight years old.

25. Tabitha05/18/2006 10:07:57

Hi Jessica,

Like I said.. I have no idea. I was not present at the grading and those data were not send to me even though I asked (no one received those data by the way) and it had been months since I had measured him miself (1.47 in october(?) 2004).

about the gelding grow spurt... it's too bad we'll never know how big he would have become as stallion.. but I'm really curious how big he's becoming now...

I should still tell MAAK Agan is gelded now I think about it. But I am not really motivated to do so. Too busy with doing nice things as riding my horse.

26. Jessica 05/18/2006 10:16:11

I think that if we should keep the system of inspection of the horses that are inscribed into the stud book we should consider the following two important points:
1. How are the inspections performed and why. In some breeds a horse has to fulfil certain performance, type and conformational criteria to be allowed to be entered into the stud book, there might also be different sections of a stud book and the inspection can tell you to which section the horse will belong to.
The horses that apply for stud book/breed status will have to go through physical on site inspections as well as "paper inspections" and in some cases parentage verfication and veterinary checks for genetic disorders etc.
The inspections are performed by a group of people that are ackredited by the mother stud book to perform the checks.
The owner of the horse inteded for stud book entering will take and active descision to apply for inspection, is informed on the rules and regulations and will, at the point of inspection, immediately get the inspection report and result on a written and signed form. The owner can then make an appeal to a board of appeal with a certain time frame if he feels that the results of the inspection is wrong.
The results of the inspections are also published on a regular basis as well as in the stud books that are published according to the rules.
For Tekes there is one rule for inscription into the stud book, they must show a parentage verification that without doubt show that the horse has both parents inscribed into the stud book.
I cannot find anywhere any rule that say that the horse should be graded and classified and how those classifications will be performed.
When you look in the present stud book you can see that each and every horse is graded and classified for breeding value, it is unclear if the classification refers to estimated or proven breeding value. How, where and when are those inspections performed? We do not know, in some cases the horse is graded from the zootechnical pictures the owners are encoraged to send in for registration, sometimes horses are graded in their pastures without preparation or even without the owner knew about it.
Those two methods for performing such an important task are below amateurism and lack of respect for the breed and their owners.
Like Leonid said, the inspections should be volountary or nonexistant as long as only purity is the criteria for becoming an Akhal-Teke.
Should we keep the inspections, they must be performed according to proven horse inspection traditions by professionals assigned by a democraticly approved board that openly declares their economical interest in the breed.

2. What information is published for each horse in the stud book and what quality does it have.
Let's look at a horse in the 10th stud book, I pick Almaz again as we have already talked about him. He is on page 23 in the volume for stallions, information is published in Russian only, we have transcribed the following:
1127 Almaz
buckskin May 20 1988 Tchagorta, Kalmykia, Russia (gpk 9,248)
155-154-174-19.0 8(pedigree)-8(type)-4(measurements)-8(conformation)-0(performance)-6(offspring) 1 Class 1 Category 2000
Owner: KaraKum T&J Keith, Sweden
4 generation pedigree is presented in a grid.
Not raced. Here official results from the race track are published.
Offspring
a list of offspring is presented here.
Ok, so what does his points tell me:
1. points for pedigree, I can see his pedigree on his page and judge it myself, I do not need anyone elses opinions, numbers are solely based on subjective judgements of the horses in the pedigree.
Subjective judgements i can do myself, I am a breeder and a grown-up.
2. type, subjective judgement made by one person only, type is personal taste, type does not matter for inscription into the stud book, every horse inscribed is already a Teke. I prefer to look at the horse myself and see if he fits to my breeding program. T. Ryabova have no clue about my breeding program she cannot decide what type I want to use. T.Ryabova is not a breeder.
3. Conformation, subjective judged by one person only. As I breed horses for soundness and riding purposes, those points tell me nothing because I have no idea how they are given it does not make sense to me when I look at the point and the horse at the same time. The fact that Tekes are only judged for comformation from the side may explain a part of the mystery but far from everything. I can judge the conformation myself and decide if the faults are good or bad for my breeding program, if breeders cannot do that they, it will reflect in their breedings.
5. Performance, Almaz raced in Tblisi but for some reasons the races were not considered official so it falsely says that he was not raced. If the horse has other achievements that will give me a hint about rideability, temperament (who no one working with the stud book seem to understand is a very important trait in performance horses) etc it is not noted. So I will have to check other performance records and official tests myself.
5. Offspring, Almaz had in 1998 when he was graded two offspring that received elite class the third offspring that is listed has not been inspected but I guess already graded from zootechnical pictures, photoshopped or not, I do not know!
However, I thought that a horse should have at least 10 graded offspring to get points for quality of offspring, but those points are based on subjective and maybe even manipulated data. I will have to check out the offspring myself because I'm a breeder and I have done my homework on this breed and I know what I want.

For me it is enough with name, age, color, breeder, pedigree and
measurement (if they could be taken objectively with tools that as much as possible avoid mistakes, we all know that it is not the case, so what the heck I still have to double check the height!)

And last but not least, I want to use a stallion for my mares in spring 2006, the studbook I got in my mail a week ago is published in 2005 but only contains data to the year 2000?! It leaves a black hole of FIVE years of Teke breeding.

27. Jessica 05/18/2006 12:00:55

Checked Almaz' points for measurements with the table on MAAK's website for how the measurements should be graded and found out the he qualifies for a 5 in measurements not a 4, this is a detail but again a proof that the organisations own protocols are not followed not even by the same person that constructed, approved and implemented them. Time for some serious Quality Management here!

28. Leonid05/18/2006 12:07:40
Homepage: http://www.shael-teke.ru

I am so glad, that you Jessica and Todd came to this point. Necesary to eat a lot of shit fo this coming.

29. Jessica05/18/2006 12:46:25

Tabitha. Enjoy your riding while you can. I have been crippled by pregnancies and stupidity, every now and then I test to see if my body can cope with riding, last Sunday it was time for a new test, unfortunately not a comfortable Teke but a Hannoverian, now I'm walking like an old woman with diapers I think I might be allergic to riding other breeds than the Tekes
However, Tabitha, be aware of the fact that a Russian official have been in Holland and there officially appraised (following official Russian state protocols), your private property in a way that may have caused you economical damage. You have paid the Russian state for this "service" and you should have the right to all protocols involved in this Russian activity on Dutch territory concerning your property.

30. Jessica 05/18/2006 12:48:33

Leonid. Instead of eating shit you should have sent us the stud book

31. Leonid05/18/2006 13:41:03
Homepage: http://www.shael-teke.ru

Eat it with my pleaser.

32. Nadja05/28/2006 12:54:53
Homepage: http://www.akhalt-service.ru/

I apologize for silence. Was on fishing.
Leonid. Concerning new estimations: my opinion coincides with opinion of my chief, concerning change of estimations at horses from 9 studbook. I too am dissatisfied with it. I think, that the horse should change the class 3 times for the life. The first estimation in 2 years. The second estimation in 6 years. And a third estimation not earlier than 10 years when it is possible to judge posterity and serviceability of a horse. But in any way not in 18 years.
Jessica. I think, that the basic problem at Almaz - low growth, which does not allow him to be the elite . 4 and 5 points are a little. But I know the Russian stallions with such growth, which elite. Here I agree with your discontent.
My opinion about Pajkhas - my personal opinion. In Russia horses similar her are appreciated by 1 class.
About Parikhan. Yes, Champion among three mares. It was good luck. It too my personal opinion.
I think, that Klimuk puts high estimations. In comparison with average elite mares, who are given birth at him, Pajkhas will strongly lose. But his this opinion, and he is the qualified expert. You could submit results of his estimation in MAAK. I think, that she would be recognized.
But I agree that the old system of estimations needed to be changed. But it was necessary to change her publicly. And to make more accessible.

33. Jessica 05/30/2006 12:23:44

Nadja. I can agree with you to 100%, now more than earlier, that winning a Russian/"World" Championship is pure luck, or maybe pure politics (you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours)!
To me it is of little importance as my breeding goal to a certain exctent differs from the MAAK policies of rewarding defect and sub fertile animals with world champion titles.
The fact that every mare we have bred and showed has been elite graded by either T. Ryabova, G. Kiarizov, A. Klimuk or L. Babyaev is for us merely an indicator that we are working in the right direction, as there are so many important traits of a horse that is not measured in the breed classifications, such as health and soundness, temperament, rideability, traits that are very important for us. The gradings of a horse can of course be discussed and questioned and a discussion on type is always welcome on my blog.
When it comes to Paikhas in particular, as you have chosen to pick her out as an example of, an in your eyes class 1 mare, that has been graded elite I can only comment that compared to the elite graded mares/fillies I have seen from the total Teke population in Turkmenistan, Russia, Europe and the USA, I think she qualifies for the elite class. However, I'm obviously subjective and I was not the person who gave her the elite grading. Maybe, we need, like you suggested for Gaygysiz already in 2003 a class superelite to?
I am not interested in submitting any grading or show results to MAAK as the results are obviously corrupted once published. How would you, BTW know that any show results would be recognized by MAAK, are you involved in other functions than web development and communications?
About Almaz, again, it was not I that recommended him for breeding, twice graded him elite, ranked him as the third best stallion in Europe and graded his two first fillies elite. T. Ryabova did this, and he still looks the same, she also mentioned his overall quailities as a sire rendered him the elite, in spite of the fact that he is below average height for Teke stallions. Had she graded him class I herself it wouldn't have been a problem for me as long as correct points and results are published. As his points are published in a stud book that cover past history I cannot find anywhere in that time that T. Ryabova graded Almaz class I. If she at this point, hopefully after having graded his pure offspring, which at his age should be more interesting than himself wants to change his classification that is another issue.

34. Nadja05/30/2006 17:23:38
Homepage: http://www.akhalt-service.ru/

At me in general doubts, that Ryabova looked the edited book. Tactlessly in relation to the European horses. Especially Alaman and Ashug have elite 2 - superelite. And a difference in growth on 2 sm. I shall tell more. Some horses in Ahalt-service have one estimations. At reception of the international passport at change of the owner of an estimation are changed in the smaller party. I return such passports back.
Concerning the Championships is a lottery. But on taste and color - comrades are not present. Each judge chooses on the eye. And frequently their opinions do not coincide. Sometimes the best horses do not receive a title. But they always have chance the next year.

35. Leonid05/31/2006 11:23:01
Homepage: http://www.shael-teke.ru

Espesialy when some judges are anknown to society.

36. Leonid06/01/2006 06:28:24
Homepage: http://www.shael-teke.ru

Parikhan was Champion of the breed of Central Russia. There were such Studs like Shamborount, biggest and bestist Akhaltekinets, Russian leggend and some other. I can say that other candidates for this title had scare of such company. She was Champion and this is truth.

37. Nadja06/01/2006 17:07:21
Homepage: http://www.akhalt-service.ru/

Yes I do not doubt of hers Champion's title. Gave a title and will not take away back. But, if to be exact was six mares. Two two-year-old mares (Gi Huri and from Russian legenda). Three adult mares from Shamborant studfarm. And one partbred mare. And it too the truth. But Parikhas was the Champion. I think, that she was the best mare from six. But the structure of mares was mediocre. But I compare with last championships. Quality of horses represented on the Championship very much has increased.

38. Leonid06/03/2006 06:49:10
Homepage: http://www.shael-teke.ru

There was such beautifull mare like Model /Dasht-Malva/, but Parikhan was first. Ofcourse, Parikhan is some boneless, but she is very typical.

39. Jessica 06/03/2006 13:02:11

Horses entered in a show are judged for what they look like the day of the show and how they compare to the other horses in that particular show. Basta. Parikhan in 1998 was the winner of her ring and I do not think that any of us that attended thought that the judges had a difficult job to pick her as the winner at that time.
When a horse is inspected for being entered into a breed stud book the horse is compared to the breed standard as well as how the horse compares to the whole stud book population. Therefore the inspection points will tell you more about how the horse compares to the world population of horses. Parikhan is class elite.
I'm sure that Parikhan who is a beautiful Teke would do good in a breed show today, she might even win, depending on the competition.