‘Beasts of war’: Afghan buzkashi horses prepare for traditional battle
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan — The rugged men of northern Afghanistan raise their buzkashi horses to be warrior princes, ready for the savagery of polo with a headless carcass.
Mounts, like their riders, must be brave, strong and fast to compete in the traditional sport of buzkashi, which means “dragging the goat” in Persian.
The game involves ripping a 50-kilogram carcass from the fray of horses and dropping it in the “circle of justice” traced on the ground in lime — after doing a lap of the field at a full gallop.
“Only one horse in a hundred stands a chance in buzkashi,” said Haji Mohammad Sharif Salahi, the president of the buzkashi federation in Balkh province, whose family has owned horses for 100 years.
“The stallions of General Dostum cost up to $70,000. Some of Marshal Fahim’s reach $100,000,” he said, referring to the Uzbek warlord living in exile in Turkey and the late Afghan vice-president Mohammad Qasim Fahim.
“Everything depends on their strength and their resilience,” said Salahi, wearing a tawny karakul hat, as he rubs a ruby-ringed hand on the neck of an enormous chestnut measuring more than 18 hands (1.85 meters).
“They are trained to respect and behave calmly, but if you let go, this one eats the others.”
Balkh has more than 150 buzkashi horse owners, some with more than 400 steeds. Dedicated events draw 500 horses but that figure can go up to 2,000 if it is a wedding celebration.
The horses are fed well, brushed daily and showered every other day.
“Every breeder has his recipes and superstitions,” said French horseman Louis Meunier, who rode for a buzkashi team in Kabul from 2007 to 2009 while working for an NGO in the Afghan capital.
“Beliefs vary from one valley to another: here the chestnut is considered the most intelligent, there the black for being the fastest,” says Meunier from Jordan, where he now lives.
But he is dismayed at the new taste for huge horses, describing them as “beasts of war”.
He warns: “The horse (is) becoming an object of speculation, a political tool to show strength.”
But 82-year-old Habibullah, a Kabul buzkashi rider wearing a sheepskin hat, sticks to his little gray nag and dismisses the beliefs about the ideal steed.
He said: “I do not care whether it’s black or white, a horse must first have courage.”