Stud Farming

the breeding of horses on stud farms to produce purebreds, improve breeds, and create new breeds and types. As early as the 14th century there were royal “breeding herds” in Russia. The state’s first stud farm, the Khoroshevskii, was organized in the late 15th century near Moscow. Numerous palace, monastery, and boyar stud farms existed in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the early 18th century, state, private, and military stud farms were created to raise horses primarily for the army. In the 19th century, private stud farms were most common, and the state farms gradually disappeared. One of the best-known private stud farms was the farm owned by Count A. G. Orlov-Chesmenskii, where the famous Orlov trotter was introduced. Despite the considerable development of stud farming in prerevolutionary Russia, a radical improvement in large-scale horse breeding in the country was not realized.

The Soviet government laid the scientific foundation for the planned organization of stud farming. In accordance with the July 19, 1918, decree on the breeding of pedigree livestock, stud farming was subordinated to the development of large-scale horse breeding in the country. The state stud farms of the USSR are large, diversified, well-equipped sovkhozes that specialize in horse breeding and its allied sciences (for example, cattle breeding and sheep breeding). Stud farms supply pedigree horses to the state stud stables and pedigree horse-breeding sections of kolkhozes. In large-scale horse breeding, sires that have been raised on stud farms and have undergone trials on racecourses are used to improve the horse population. The stud farms of the USSR have not only greatly improved many old breeds but have developed new ones, such as the Russian trotter, the Budennyi, the Tersk, the Kustanai, the Novokirghiz, the Soviet and Russian heavy drafts, and the Torii. In 1972 there were more than 100 stud farms in the USSR engaged in breeding saddle, trotter, and draft breeds; they have produced the finest pedigree animals. The best-known stud farms for Orlov trotters include the Khre-novskoi (Voronezh Oblast) and the Moscow. Russian trotters are bred at the Zlynskii stud farm (Orlov Oblast), the Smolenskii and Aleksandrovskii farms (Kursk Oblast), and the Dubrovskii farm (Poltava Oblast). Thoroughbred saddle horses are bred at the Voskhod farm (Krasnodar Krai) and the Kabardinskii farm (Kabarda-Balkar ASSR); the Don and Budennyi breeds are produced at the S. M. Budennyi and Pervaia Konnaia Armiia farms (Rostov Oblast).

Stud farming outside of the USSR originated in the 11th and 12th centuries. It reached the height of its development in Western Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, at which time such internationally known breeds as the Thoroughbred, Standard-bred, Brabançon, Percheron, and Ardennes were created. The most prominent modern stud farms outside of the USSR that raise the universally popular Thoroughbred include Newmarket, Limestone Stud, and William Hill farms in Great Britain; Bois Roussel, Mortefontaine, and Mesnil in France; Claiborne Farm and Spendthrift Farm in the United States; and Graditz in the German Democratic Republic. Arabian horses are raised at El Zahraa in Egypt, Janów Podlaski in Poland, and other stud farms. The breeding of race horses is particularly widespread in the United States (where it has reached the height of its development), Canada, France, Italy, Sweden, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Australia. The best-known farms in the United States that breed the American trotter are Hanover Shoe Farms, Castleton Farm, and Walnut Hill Farm.