The Asturcón has been known and described since Roman times; it is mentioned in an epigram of Martial, and by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia, where he describes its characteristic ambling gait.[6][7][4]: 448 The Latin word asturco was later used for other similar small horses with ambling gait.[6]
At about the time of the Spanish Civil War, the population of the Asturcón separated into two distinct parts, one in the sierras of Sueve and La Vita, and the other further to the west, in the sierras of El Palo, La Bobia [es] and Tineo. The two populations are genetically distinct.[4]: 449
A breeders' association, the Asociación de Criadores de Ponis de Raza Asturcón, was formed in 1987;[8] at the time there were 23 mares registered in the stud-book. At the end of 2003, there were 1181 head registered, in the hands of 94 breeders.[4]: 449 In 2007 the Asturcón was listed by the FAO as "endangered-maintained".[1]: 108
The Asturcón is thought to have given rise to the extinct Irish Hobby, and has been used in attempts to re-create that breed.[9]: 440
Characteristics
The Asturcón is a small horse: height at the withers is usually in the range 130–147 cm, and never exceeds 147 cm.[10] With an average weight of some 300 kg
In the early twenty-first century the only coat colour admitted for registration in the stud-book was black, with no marking other than a small frontal star. There was a small population of bay Asturian horses of Celtic type, but they were not registered in the Asturcón stud-book.[4]: 449 In the breed standard published in early 2012 by the Government of Asturias, the permitted coat colours are black, bay and chestnut, still with no marking other than a small star.[10]: 4 [3]
^Breed data sheet: Asturcón / Spain (Horse). Domestic Animal Diversity Information System of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Accessed April 2023.
^ abcdefMiguel Fernández Rodríguez, Mariano Gómez Fernández, Juan Vicente Delgado Bermejo, Silvia Adán Belmonte, Miguel Jiménez Cabras (eds.) (2009). Guía de campo de las razas autóctonas españolas (in Spanish). Madrid: Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Medio Rural y Marino. ISBN9788449109461. p. 438–41.
^ ab"Asturco", in: Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short (1879). A Latin Dictionary. Founded on Andrews' edition of Freund's Latin dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
^Pliny the Elder, Karl Friedrich Theodor Mayhoff (editor) (1906). Naturalis Historia. Lipsiae: Teubner.
^La Asociación (in Spanish). Asociación de Criadores de Ponis de Raza Asturcón. Accessed October 2018.
Horse breeds thought to originate wholly or partly within Portugal and Spain. Some have complex or obscure histories, so inclusion here does not necessarily imply that a breed is predominantly or exclusively Iberian.
