Jeremy James, author of
The Byerley Turk: The True Story of the
First Thoroughbred, became involved in an
intense scholarly quest to trace the origins of the "first
thoroughbred". His on-horse search took him via Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia,
Romania, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Belgium, France, and his native English
shores, and then Ireland by car. His textual search involved a prowl across
languages, particularly ancient ones—Ottoman records in Arabic script and
Ottoman Turkish—as well as Polish, German, Latin, and old court French. His
interest in writing this book stems to his years traveling for the
International League for the Protection of Horses as an equine nutritionist,
which enabled his to gather extensive information on horse breeding and
intercultural methods of viewing and appreciating equine creatures.
The story begins in the
Balkans, 1678, with a Tekke seyis, a Steppe tribesman who functioned as "groom", a very simplistic English translation of what his job entailed. Good augur begins with the birth of a foal on the auspicious 15th night of Shaban,
in the 8th month, on the Night of Justification takes place; the
timing is filled with auspicious omens, every one that sooth-sayers have been
predicting in addition to other augurious omens: born in the black of a storm
in torrents of water amidst thunder and torrents, with the rare Whorl of the
Spurs pointing most auspiciously upwards upon his back, a blessed augury for “safety
in battle”. People would kill for such an auspicious horse. The seyis somehow
knowing his destiny is entwined with this horse and so emboldened dares to name
his master’s horse following proper traditional naming rules—beginning with the
first name of the father’s name (Ates - Fire) and having one letter of the
mother’s (Zarif – Elegant) to give her honor. Thus, the seyis, awed by
the omens, dared to announce the only possible name for the colt—Azarax, Son of
Fire.
Three years later after the minutest care in training Azarax
and his stallmate Bora, the pair of colts along with their seyis was sent to war. Beneath the fluttering Holy Standard,
beneath the flying Crescent Moon, the Turk army led by the Sultan, the Grand
Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, stuck out on their war horses that were to cast dung
on the tiles of the Nave of St. Peter’s in Rome. Insignificant seyises look after horses after the whim
of the masters and Envir Altinay Paşa, a skilled horseman,
had become the seyis’s new master,
and accordingly could choose among the choice horseflesh for his mounts. The seyis regarded him and intuitively knew
that no matter how skilled a horse-rider this man was, he was not in communion
with the horse his rode or even aware that a horse and rider must intuitively
connect; the Paşa was unaware of the inner voice of
horses that responded outwardly to the rider, he was a mechanical rider and
could not command the spirit of a horse. When Paşa
rode Az, he could not feel the fire of the horse but the resistance of
disconnect, so he choose Bora as his mount. The seyis was not unhappy at the
choice; Az’s destiny was yet to be revealed and such perfect horseflesh should
not be wasted on such a self-filled man.
One quiet day while waiting for battle, the seyis quietly takes Az along with Bora
for a run on a sandy beach. He allows Az to set the pace—from a quarter trot to
extended trot, a slow canter to a slow gallop and finally of Az’s own volition
a fully stretched out gallop that seems to absorb energy from the sun, the wind
and the sea, and as they streak along Az stretches even further to absolute
maximum velocity whereupon the seyis
easily turns into the cantle-less saddle, draws his bow and releases three
arrows into his last three hoof prints, the mark of a horseman archer. Two
hearts, two minds, one will. No one knows the power of Az or the skill of the
quiet seyis. Their destinies are still to be revealed.
In war the horse feeds on food that he would formerly have ignored.
The seyis has raised his colts on
diets that give strength and when he can he continues to give them fruit—figs, pomegranates,
peaches and pears—he puts garlic in their barley balls to rid them of worms
because he knows the secret phases of the moon and the timing of medicine.
Intuitively he watered them profusely when other seyises said no, not to water a hot horse, and his horses now
carried muscle and weight and did not look pinched nor parched, their tongues
were not dry and their eyes had not shrunk into their skulls. “Instead their
eyes glistened, their bellies were filled with the seeds of the fruit and green
grass, they moved with the power of the barley, and were not consumed by the
worms.” To a Persian seyis the Tekke seyis, as he mixed dates with a raw egg,
barley, chopped figs, skinned pomegranates and sliced pears, said, "it is
important to give the horse the best feed so that his skin radiates the shine
of the inner sun.” The Persian seyis
walked away shaking his head and threw a measure of barley to his horse,
wondering why his horse’s coat did not glow, exude good health and feel soft to the touch.
After feeding his stallions, the seyis lay between the hooves of the horses and fell asleep, knowing
that the horses would stand vigilant all night and the three of them would
remain together and safe. He does not drink raki
with the other seyises, he has not
sword or shield and others say he will die. He does not but lives strong in
tight relation with his horses who do not mingle either; they are a
three-entity team. They protect each other and take confidence in their tight
bond.
Turks know the history of good horseflesh, and many strong
horse breeds have evolved. Azarax was a Karaman horse, lighter in bone than the
Germiyan, two of the breeds that came from the Steppe many centuries before.
They are tall fast horses, flat of knee and wide of forehead, with brilliant
eyes, broad backs and high intelligence. They are horses of spirit and fire, of
ego and pride, with hard blue feet and flashing teeth. They are afraid of
nothing. Cross them and they will kill you. They are Turks, pure Turks.
But not all battles are to be won, for in every battle a
side must lose, and so it was with the Ottomans. With Bora killed in the heat
of battle, only the seyis and Az
remained alive, the duo were even more connected. Capture. Az was captured by
the British empire, the enemy. Feeling his bond and his destiny still entwined
in that of Az’s, the seyis requested
to go with and care for the horse. The faithful groom, connected to his horse
whose destiny was perhaps starting to unfold, felt that their threads of
existence were still entwined in the spiritual world. The seyis went voluntarily, loyally and ended up in England where Az
was either to be sold as a breeder or to a horse track. The seyis snorted that such a destiny—the
race track, a place for middlings—could not be for the great powerful war horse
with such auspicious augury, born in the storm and carrying the Whorl of the
Spurs.
And indeed Az’s destiny was unfolding. The seyis knew when he saw Robert Byerley
that here was the man who would sever his own connection to Az but who would
lead Az to his full destiny; here was the man who would control the great horse
that no one other than himself had ever really had control of before. These two
would be connected, and the seyis
knew his own destiny and role in training this mighty horse had been fulfilled.
It was time to sever their connection so that Byerley and Az could be
strengthened through their new and predestined bond. Robert Byerley, the
unusual leader of men and principled former Parliament Justice of the Peace who
refused to sign an act that he felt was unjust, bought Azerax for £1000. Byerley was to lead his own men to war and when
he rode Az on the first day, he knew that here was a horse that was superior to
any he had ever ridden and perhaps ever known, and together they would be safe
in their togetherness in the war.
Byerley’s horse became the darling of the greater part of
the English army, and his fame traveled before him. The horse seemed to know
intuitively where the cannon balls would fly and when to side-step. Cavalry men
gladly followed Byerley’s horse, who fought at the forefront of battles,
side-stepping with the large cavalry successfully side-stepping also. He became
a mascot in England and known as the King of all Horses, Protector of the
Regiment, the Horse with the Sixth Sense. He was a charm, a mascot, an augury;
it was counted good luck if he walked across a person’s path and good luck if
seen drinking. Fortune was to the person who would gaze into his fiery eyes.
Years passed. He retired with Byerley on his country estate.
He aged and seemed to look whistfully into the past at times as if in search of
his first master, the seyis, and at
others as if seeing images in the future or of another realm. The Byerley Turk
died in his stable on March 16th, 1703. Byerley buried him not a
stone’s throw from where he died and knew that the great war horse had achieved his paradise. The Turk’s grave marker
was that of a tree, to grow mighty and tall and to feed on the physical
strength of the great horse that fought with vigor and pride in multiple wars
and to show stature and power to future generations.
 |
The Byerley Turk, a painting commissioned of the famous horse along with his native Turkish groomsman,
the seyis, who was captured with the mighty stallion and took care of him during their early times in England. |
The seyis had
completed his destiny with Azarax, the Byerley Turk. Captured by Christian
forces, he escaped after seeing that Azarax’s destiny for greatness was being
fulfilled, and so he returned to the Privy Stables in 1690. At the age of 37 he
succeeded the baş imrahor, Master of
Horse of the Ottoman Sultan in Istanbul, and was said to have taken horse
breeding in the Ottoman Empire to new heights. He was killed in the second
Siege of Belgrade in 1717 at the age of 57.
In 1791, James Weatherby, nephew of the first James Weatherby,
first Secretary of the Jockey Club, founded in the Star and Garter Coffee House
in London, published the first General Stud-book. In it, he laid down the
commonly-accepted principle that all lineage of all thoroughbred racehorses
could be traced to three foundation sires: The Godolphin Barb in 1729, The
Darley Arabian in 1706, and the Byerley Turk in 1686.
Old Turkish horse-training methods:
The seyis stayed
day and night in the field with Azarax; he lived like an animal himself, always seeing to the minutest detail of Azarax’s diet, his brushing, his care,
his emotional well-being, and training him for his role as a battle horse. His
role in leading Azarax to his destiny was a pure symbiosis of man and horse.
Living with and game playing were crucial to the training.
Day 1
– laying his hands upon the foal and gazing into his eyes—a connection of souls
Day
2-3 – placing on a headstall, embued with the blue bead to ward off the
Evil Eye of a djinn; within two days
Az can be lead; teaching him not to pull; no whip or fear tactics ever used,
just firm confidence, encouragement and awards; establishing an intuitive
closeness with the animal
Subsequent
days – riding Zarif (Az's mother) with Azarax following, increasing Az’s trust
and his strength; rubbing Az’s head and praising him after crossing a river,
reinforcing no fear in water
Within
1 week – a sack loosely tied on
the colt’s back; a few days later, tightened and loaded with objects that
clank; the seyis at all times
projects trust and the clanking pots are allowed; by the end of a week, the
colt carries a kagan shield, a
saucepan with stones in it, a sack stuffed with clothes and on top a puppy. The
seyis walks along always projecting
safety, confidence, security.
By
summers end – another colt is added to the training and the seyis now is training two. Az has
transferred his playful affection to Bora, the new colt. The seyis feels jealousy but does not allow
these thoughts. He must train these colts, especially Az, to achieve his
destiny and to do so, Az must learn to associate and interact well with horses.
He is a horse; no, he is a king of a horse and must learn to be that king.
Following
weeks – the two colts schooled in unfamiliar sights and sounds—waving
flags, lighted fires, small firecrackers, pistol shots. Bora slightly nervous
but Az seems deaf, indifferent; his spirit is splendid.
By 2
months – nothing alarms the colts, not smoke or fire, gunshot or
powder; they avoid sticks and stones hurled at them, they carry saddles and
follow the command of humans.
1 year
– the colts are weaned by their mothers, not taken away prematurely
After
weaning – stirruped saddles fitted on horses and the slight seyis steps into the saddle briefly and
steps out; the colts are never overbalanced, frightened, panicked.
At 3
years of age – the colts with their seyis
are ordered to report for battle duty. Out of the 1000s of horses the seyis can recognize the voice of his
horses, and they among the 1000s of seyises
know his. They are an intimate threesome.
