There is an ancient sport played in Central Asia, Afghanistan and other countries which trace their origins to central Asian nomadic tribes, the sport is called:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzkashi
This sport seems to be of very ancient origin probably dating back to Median tribes.
Interestingly the word Pathan seems to be comprised of two words Path + Han. The word Path gives rise to another word Pattha in Urdu, i guess.
It seems that the people writing the family names "Han" predate the word Pathan. Kurds which are also horse riding people connect with people of Media as their predecessors.
Words like Duhan, Trihan, Chauhan seems to be battlefield troop movement terminology, there are lot of similar words which form lot of family names.
The above stated sport seems to come from ancient horse riding people trying to save their injured or dead people during wars that took place on horseback for hundreds of years in central Asia, Afghanistan, etc. The beheaded sheep symbolized an injured person in pain, riding a horse in injury causes more pain but the injured person needs to be carried back to the base camp for recovery, shifting the injured person from one horse to another was necessary as horse would get tired with two warriors on a long distance all these events are symbolized by movement of sheep by people on horseback . This is an ancient sport where skills of horsemen and horses were tested in a war like situation to prepare for real war casualty retrieval.
Why a sheep? because these tribesmen were mainly central Asian horse riding animal/sheep rearers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medes
It seems that Pathans, Pashtuns, ancient Median tribes men, etc., come from the same roots.
All have been horse riding people have been recognized in different cultures at different points of time with same/similar words. A simple example is the word "Ashvameadh", which stands for people who perform horse sacrifice in Indian context directly connect with Scythian tribes of central Asia. While "Meadh", which in Indian context is recognized by a work these tribes performed. The local people/ tribes living in India would have connected the word ""Medh/Meadh", with the work these tribes performed when these tribes arrived in Indian subcontinent, while in central Asia upper Iran these tribes were ancient people residing in that region for a much considerable amount of time. This shows that these tribes migrated at certain point of time to Indian subcontinent. This also means that although these tribes were from the same roots and these tribes came at different periods of time as warriors, travelling tradesmen, soldiers who were lost, tribes which were displaced, etc.
The linguistic context/recognition of these tribes is very ancient in India, that means that these tribes were living, travelling in Indian subcontinent since ancient times. Can these tribes be recognized through the same work even today? Hard to say, because of numerous kingdoms, wars, etc., identities could have changed over a period of long time. These tribes could be recognized through the accumulation of people, as these ancient warring clans stuck together during ancient wars so they were able to save their ancient identity in some form or other. Horses have been lost by these tribes and replaced by "Hal", which means "solution in Hindi mathematics and an added wealth to religion and business" and so have been their traditional way of life.