The Sudanese Country-Bred is a Sudanese breed of light riding horse. It was bred in the twentieth century by cross-breeding local mares of Barb type with imported Arab or Thoroughbred stallions.[4]: 8
The Sudanese Country-Bred was created in the early twentieth century, when a government programme of "improvement" was instituted, under which local mares of Barb type – of the traditional Dongola and Gharbaui (Western Sudan Pony) populations – were put to stallions of Arab and Thoroughbred stock.[4]: 8 [5]: 505 Some of this breeding was done at the stud farm of Nyala in South Darfur.[6]: 254 While the cross-bred animals were larger, they had lost some of the qualities of the local animals, such as hardiness and the ability to go for long periods without water.[6]: 254 By the 1950s or 1960s few local horses remained unaffected by this process.[7]: 408 [2]
In 1994 the total number of the horses was reported to be 65000.[2] The conservation status of the breed was listed as "not at risk" by the FAO in 2007, and also by the DAD-IS database in 2023.[1]: 111 [2]
The Tawleed, a sport horse breed of Khartoum, was developed from the Country-Bred through further cross-breeding with imported stock, principally Thoroughbred.[5]: 505
Characteristics
The coat colour most commonly seen is bay, followed by (in descending order) brown, chestnut, roan, grey and black.[3]: 221