Punjab bred army horses. The Lower Jhelum Colony grants around Sargodha carried an obligation to keep brood mares, and the Army Remount Department ran a breeding operation across the province for a century.
The Nukra, a white or grey Punjabi riding horse, is the ceremonial animal: ridden by the groom at a wedding, by Nihangs at Hola Mohalla, and in tent pegging.
The Marwari and the Kathiawari are Rajasthani and Gujarati breeds also kept in Punjab. The Punjab horse and cattle fairs at Muktsar, Jagraon and elsewhere are where the trade happens.
Tent pegging, in which a rider at a gallop lifts a peg from the ground on a lance, is a Punjabi and north Indian sport with international competition, and Indian and Pakistani teams are among the strongest.
Nihang horsemanship at Hola Mohalla, including standing on two horses at a gallop, is the most spectacular of these traditions and is performed once a year at Anandpur.
The horse economy survived the end of cavalry because Punjabi weddings and Nihang dals kept demanding horses.
The Marwari and the Nukra are the breeds kept for show and for weddings, and the horse dancing at melas is a distinct competitive discipline with its own trainers.
The colonial horse breeding operation was enormous. Remount depots and stud farms across the Punjab supplied the cavalry, and horse breeding was a condition attached to some canal colony allotments.
The trade now is entirely in show animals. Prices run very high, the market is thin, and there is no studbook or registry of any consequence in the state.