ANALYSIS OF HISTORICAL DATA ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF TUVAN HORSE BREED
The article describes the history of development of the Tuvan local horse breed based on the analysis of archival materials and other sources. Published and unpublished manuscripts, documents and reports which reflect the history of the development of horse breeding in Tuva and characterize the Tuvan horse, as well as present the history of improving the Tuvan horse breed and breeding intrabreed groups of horses, were analyzed. The bulk of the sources were the funds and archival documents of the All-Russian Research Institute for Horse Breeding. In order to improve and enlarge the Tuvan local horse, stallions of the Kuznetsk and Orlov horse breeds were mainly used. The improved horses had the following data on average in terms of height at the withers, body length, chest and pastern girth: 143.8; 149.2; 167.5; 19.4 cm, respectively, with fluctuations of 131-158; 134-167; 150-187; 17-23 cm, which indicates a fairly significant variety of values of these indicators. As a result of certain selection and breeding work with the best crossbreeds, the Upper Yenisei horse breed was bred, which has its own history of origin, economic purpose and distinctive features, which made it possible in 1993 to test and officially register the breed as a breeding achievement.