WHAT IN THE WORLD
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Mr. Jiang’s wife and two sons with the stallion they purchased.
Mr. Wen Chu of Yihe Farm outside Beijing would be the exception and has shared Mr. Jiang’s enthusiasm for longer. Mr. Chu has been involved with the Arabian horse for more than 20 years after seeing an importation of Arabians from Japan in 1993. They were a gift from a Japanese business owner to the Chinese government. Mr. Chu was completely enthralled with their beauty and began to shift his business interests towards Arabians. He studied as best he could on the Internet, but his most important learning came on his frequent trips to the U.S. and the Scottsdale Show. The first horse he imported was the black stallion and multiple champion Matinee Bey (NV Beau Bey x Classique Design). A tall and imposing horse, Mr. Chu presented Matinee Bey at the Longines Global Masters equestrian event in the iconic Birdnest Olympic stadium in Beijing in 2011. Mr. Chu chuckles at the memory, “I said this is a champion from America.” Soon after, Chinese began to import Arabians with two consistent characteristics, they were tall and black. “I guess they thought this is what makes a champion,” he said. “But those horses were not good quality, it took a while but soon other Chinese began to realize there were more important things than how tall and what color the horse was.”
Most recently, he campaigned Canadian Reserve Champion Futurity Colt and U.S. Top Ten Futurity Colt RD Trivago (Bey Ambition x Serafina FM). From my perspective, Mr. Chu is the modern patriarch of the Arabian horse in this country. The Arabian horse in China, however, predates the Japanese importation that captured Mr. Chu’s attention by centuries. The first record of Arabian horses in China was in 681 AD. During the Tang dynasty, Arabian representatives visited China 37 times. During at least seven of these trips, they presented gifts of Arabian horses to the Chinese rulers. In terms of the more modern era, the first information we have is in 1934. Chiang Kai Shek of the Kuomintang government purchased 10 mares and a foal from the British in Iraq. Cui Bu Qing, a subordinate of Kai Shek learned cavalry tactics in Japan. When he returned to China, he advised the Kai Shek government to acquire more Arabians for this purpose. So in 1937, Cui Bu Qing procured another 23 Arabian horses from Iraq. Of course, Kai Shek eventually succumbed to Mao Zedong and the communists, beating a retreat to Taiwan. The descendants of these early imports, however, remain in Qingzhen in southern China for military use and to improve the quality of local horses. I spent a pleasant afternoon in January 2015 with Dr. Zhenshan Wang of the China Stud Book Committee, drinking tea and looking at pictures of these Iraqi imports. Dr. Wang has a particular passion for the history of the Arabian horse in China and is happy to share his knowledge and information that he has collected. For his part of this history, he is working to establish the first Chinese Arabian studbook recognized by WAHO, and I think China is lucky to have him. China is also fortunate to have Tao Li and her husband Da Lai whom I initially met at Mr. Chu’s Yihe farm in 2014. The next time I ran into them was in 2015 when they wanted a picture with Debbie and me at the Beijing Turf and Equestrian Association’s annual meeting. The duo trains for Mr. Chu, and when I saw them sit a horse, I was blown away with their abilities. I shouldn’t have been. They are from Inner Mongolia and the blood that courses through their veins conquered most of the known world in the 13th
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