With more horses than the actual human population, it doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to wonder why people often describe Mongolia as the land of the horse. Neither does the legendary history which would have the world's second-largest landlocked country after Kazakhstan amass the greatest empire the world has ever known aboard the loyal and enduring Mongolian horse do little to dispel that myth…

Indeed, at its height the Mongol Empire (1206–1368) stretched from Korea to Hungary, from Siberia to India, including China. Even Beijing was originally built as a Mongol capital, the vast spaces of the Forbidden Palace an evocation of the far-away steppes. It does make you wonder whether it was the land of the horse prior to Genghis Khans’ extraordinary expanse.

Like much of the world’s history, the horse played a large role in the Mongol Empire’s military success. In contrast to most of their enemies, almost all Mongols were nomads and had experience in riding and managing horses from a very young age, and given that the army consisted largely of cavalry units- this came as a substantial advantage. Not to detract from the fact that the Mongols learned and absorbed the war technology and strategies of the empires and kingdoms very efficiently, absorbing cultures and communicating across vast distances with a form of written mail. Lest we forget Genghis Khan’s incomparable leadership and organisation able to foster a sense of unity and loyalty in a very varied ethnic, cultural and tribal lot.

Nowadays, the horse remains a necessary and prominent feature throughout Mongolia’s vast territories, necessary because of an unforgiving landscape, large distances and a lack of roads. Children learn to ride as young as four or five years old and about half the country's 2.8 million people who are semi-nomadic breed horses (estimated at 3 million). The Mongolian horses are semi-wild, most live outdoors all year (at 30°C in summer down to -40°C in winter), search for food on their own, and as a result are capable of great endurance. They serve as riding animals, both for the daily work of the nomads and in horse racing.

The Mongolian wild horse is known in the West as the Prezewalski horse after the Russian naturalist, Nikolai Przewalski, who first sighted several herds in 1879. In Mongolia it is called Takhi and it is purported to be largely unchanged since the time of Genghis Khan (ca. late 12th - early 13th century). The word Takhi means "spirit," a reference to the horse's fierce independence and untameable nature.

Of stocky build and about the size of a pony, although the Mongolians are not particularly taken aback with that term, takhi are dark yellow-brown, solidly built, with a short back and deep girth. Their heavy, shaggy winter coat turns light and sleek in the summer and their mane is stiff and erect like a zebra. The mane and tail are very long, and the strands are often used for braiding ropes while violinists around the world are more than likely to have this as strands for their bow.

The Mongolian saddle is very tall, with a wooden frame. It only allows marginal control of the gait. In most situations, the horse will decide the gait on its own, while the rider is occupied with other tasks (such as herding cattle) and more often than not, a Mongolian horse will choose to canter.

The exact origins of the breed are hard to determine. Riding horses are documented with the nomads of the central Asian steppes since 2000 BC. Tests have shown, that among all horse breeds, Mongolian horses feature the largest genetic variety, followed by the tuwinian horses. This indicates that it is a very archaic breed suffering little human induced selection. The data also indicate that many other breeds descend from the Mongolian horses. In fact, it resembles a lot the cave drawings and paintings found in Europe dating back to the Stone Age, suggesting that in prehistoric times the horse ranged over large parts of Europe as well as Asia.

And perhaps to have remained fairly unchanged after all these centuries is a true commendable feature: original and authentic and not even that bothered about it – now that’s spirit.