Speculations on the origin of the Arabian horse breed

Arabian horses are widely believed lobe one of the oldest breeds in the world. There are many legends regarding their origin, some of which date back even to the times of King Solomon. The present study attempts to determine the real origin of the breed through the analysis of mtDNA sequences from American and Polish Arabs that are deposited in GenBank. The findings show that the origin of the breed is heterogeneous and that the diversity among particular sequences grouped into ten haplogroups is significant. A set of identical and similar sequences was found by comparing Arabian sequences to those from archaeological samples and present-day horses representing different breeds. These results permit formulating the hypothesis that the Arabian horse breed was created from many different breeds and populations, and the concept of breed purity, might refer, at most, to the present population with a history that does not exceed two hundred years. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.