Horse-Loving President Goes Viral

He has a larger-than-life photo of himself at one of his nation's racetracks. He forces the country to attend races or risk being fired. He even stages beauty pageants for horses. While Trot Insider has covered the exploits of Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov before, his love of the horse recently helped him reach a totally new international audience.

Last Sunday, the country celebrated The Day of the Turkmen Racehorse, a holiday established to honour the noble equine athlete. As part of the festivities, a race with a purse of $11 million was contested featuring Berdymukhamedov as one of the jockeys.

He won the race and the state-run media praised the Presidents' skill as a horseman.

"President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has yet again demonstrated not only his high class as a horse rider, but also his strong will, firmness and courage."

What the state-run media conveniently left out was the leader taking a spill just after the race finished. According to reports from BBC, Berdymukhamedov appeared unharmed some 40 minutes later. Dressed in a national costume, he waved at the audience and the crowd met him with applause.

Later, Turkmen officials gathered all media in attendance and requested that they delete the footage of the “sporting accident.” The post-race footage found its way to YouTube later in the week.

Media worldwide has since jumped on the bandwagon, with Associated Press, Huffington Post and Yahoo! News all carrying the story. Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel lampooned the Turkmen president on Thursday night.