Date: April 2000
Q: It is true that there are only "a few" Akhal-Tekes in Turkey, in contrast with our historical attachments to the Turkmenistan territories. It is a pity. From time to time, presidents of Turkic republics; mostly Turkmen president; offers Akhal-Tekes to their Turkish colleague who leaves them to the military riding campus. As far as I know, they have been all males. Our riding teacher in our club in Eskisehir, who used to be an instructor in this military campus, has told me that they had difficulties to work with Akhal-Tekes, most probably due to the absence of know-how at that time. He
is sure that they require relatively much longer time for worming up before any jumping performance. He has also told me that they could not succeed to get females from Turkmen's as "it was not allowed to let them go out of the country", which seems to be a wrong information.

A: Very intersting to know that somebody from turkey is on our list .
I would like to inform You that You have in Turkey or You had the father of my stallion Azan ( You can see him on www.akhalteke.net) he won the competition in Moscow in 1998 for the best type and best allure ,and his father Atbassar won in Turkey a competition in dressage , unfortunatly I don't know wich year, it'll be good if You can find some information about this stallion who was a gift from Turkmenistan to Your country ,myinformations are from the president of the Turkmenian Equestrian Federation Hope that Atbassar is still alive
Guy Khoury
II: Yes, Atbassar is in Ankara, kept in the military riding team campus.