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Todd Keith was born in Massachusetts, USA. He came to Sweden in 1987 to study Systems Analysis at the University of Uppsala.
At the University of Uppsala he met Jessica Eile born on Gotland, Sweden, who was studying Communications and Linguistics.
Jessica had been working with horses since childhood, beginning with riding and showing the native horse of her home island the ancient Gotland Pony.
Jessica’s mother, Gun Eile, teacher of Russian Languages at the Royal Institute of Technology, started to do research on the Akhal-Teke breed in 1987 , she published articles on the breed in the 80’s in Swedish Magazines.
In 1989 Jessica and Gun where invited to visit an Akhal-Teke stud farm in Russia. Thanks to this visit, they could purchase their first Akhal-Teke stallion, Almaz in 1991.
Todd and Jessica now live on their stud farm 40 minutes north of Tampa. They run their own IT-business and spend as much time as possible with their Akhal-Tekes.
In 1997 Dr Tatyana Ryabova visited the KaraKum stud farm for the first time to grade the Akhal-Tekes there, she was on the stud farm for the second time in 1998. In 1998 also Geldi Kiarizov, Horse Minister of Turkmenistan visited the stud farm.
In 1996 T&J founded http://www.akhalteke.net/ the biggest web site on the breed, Todd also published the first digital version on the stud book for pure bred Akhal-Tekes on the web site, this digital version Todd is now carrying with him on the field in his Palm Computer. The digital stud book is also used by Dr Tatyana Ryabove in her work as the stud book manager.
In 1997 T&J founded The Swedish Akhal-Teke Association where Jessica was the president until March 2005. The Swedish Akhal-Teke Association founded The European Elite Sire Trophy in 1998.
In 2003 Alexander Klimuk of Stavropol Stud and Leonid Babayev of Shael Stud judged the Swedish Akhal-Tekes at a show arranged by the Swedish Akhal-Teke Association, the KaraKum Akhal-Tekes where highly graded and the Best in Show was won by a the KaraKum breeding Rosanna.
Todd and Jessica travel around the world to see as many Akhal-Tekes in the flesh as possible, eventhough their archives of pictures and original documents on the breed is large after many years of collecting facts, they realize the importance of meeting as many individual horses as possible to judge movements and temperament as well as type and conformation.
They have also been invited to judge Akhal-Tekes in Russia and Turkmenistan.
Akhal-Tekes in the US, Germany, Italy, England, Finland, Russia, Czech Republic and Turkmenistan have been visited by T&J.
The KaraKum Akhal-Teke stud have sold horses to continental Europe, USA and Australia.
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