Date: June 2000
Q: Will the use of ART in the breed will increase the quality of the breed in the west as well as save it from extinction?

A: The breed is rare but not endangered and at this moment needs no saving from extinction. 60% of the breed is in Turkmenistan where they do not use AI or ET as they have not the technology to do it.
Maybe they also fear the new technique as they are not familiar with it.
Anyhow they will continue the long tradition of horse breeding in their
country and will probably not need the AI or ET to produce Tekes.
Mediocre horses will be produced with as well as without AI. The only way to try to avoid breeding mediocre horses is to breed the best to the best and today the best sires are not available on frozen semen in the west(in Russia they have collected semen from sires for more than 30 years, only four AT sires so far has been considered good enough to collect and freeze). I think we will have to wait many more years before we, in the west, can see a choice of top class sires on frozen semen.
To make it more attractive for the top sire owners to collect semen there must be a market, the mare owners must be willing to pay the costs for AI, and very few are today. To be honest the new breeding techniques, until today, has done nothing to improve the Tekes.