Pergenbek

Pergenbek = perfection!  A gorgeous masterpiece from Stavropol stud (Alexander Klimuk) in Russia.  For all of my model horse friends out there - this is what a good akhal teke stallion is meant to look like.  Paint him any shade, he would look great in any color!  If anyone wants to sculpt a teke, this a very good example of what breeders strive for.  Almost flawless!  Stunning body conformation, good angles, good croup, strong leg bone, great shape and size of feet, drop dead gorgeous elegant swan neck, powerful sloping shoulder, decent height, noble head, ect.  He's put together extremely well.  A good riding horse and excellent breeding stock.

Only a handful of stallions in the world are of this quality, and Klimuk has raised a couple of them.  It's extremely rare in the akhal teke breed to accomplish such a high degree of success!

The icing on the cake is that his movement is incredible too!  Great sporting quality.

The reason that I'm posting this is because sometimes being overly "exotic" isn't exactly the greatest thing.  I posted the photos above of Pergenbek for a reason.  As artists, it can be fun to seek out the most outrageous otherworldly horses on the planet to sculpt - but in reality the subjects themselves can be real nightmares.  I see many akhal teke sculptures that are a far cry from what I'd personally deem as "beautiful" and correct.  A good example is the stallion Ekemen.  There has already been a sculpture made of that particular horse in all of his hideous horrible disgusting glory.  I have a couple copies of the sculpt that I plan on re-doing in the future.  The stallion himself was a total trainwreck conformationally.  (I loathed him, he was such a fugly piece of junk!)  Sometimes just because something looks "exotic" and typey doesn't mean that it should be made into a sculpture.  With that said, I'm not knocking the artist at all - she did a very good job of capturing his features on her model.  She totally nailed him in her sculpt.

Mister gross - Ekemen.  Everything put together in the wrong way.  He was completely useless for any kind of work under saddle, and personally I have yet to see any of his offspring that I would care to own.  Compare Ekemen's conformation to the gorgeous stallion Pergenbek in the photos.  Artists, please pick your subjects carefully!  If in doubt, ask top breeders their thoughts beforehand, no matter what breed of horse you are choosing to sculpt.