The Disappearance of the Turk: The Cultural Politics ofThoroughbred Horses in the Ottoman and British Empires

Between 1650 and 1750, the English Thoroughbred horse was created from Ottoman imports grafted upon native racing stock in an asymmetrical Anglo-Ottoman exchange, with appropriation leading to naturalisation and radical assimilation. The Ottoman Empire was a rich source of equine genetic material of the superior bloodhorse type. The Ottomans were equine multiculturalists. For Evliya Çelebi, the küheylân (Arab thoroughbred) was as Ottoman a breed as any other. Evliya never speaks of “Turk” or “Turkoman” horses as Western visitors did; instead he particularizes the breeds of the steppe, employing the Tatar term aġırmaq (thoroughbred), and identifying the Nogay and Karaçubuk as ‘thoroughbred’ breeds. Yet it was this “Turkoman” lineage of early imports such as the ‘Byerley Turk’ that was most originally formative for the English Thoroughbred, evidenced by studbook records, contemporary observers, phenotypical resemblances, and recent genome research. From the evidence of Evliya Çelebi, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Sir John Malcolm, Lady Anne Blunt, and others, this essay argues for the formative influence of the Ottoman “Turkoman” genotype that, as a consequence of imperial rivalries, British prejudices, and equine bloodstock politics, has been erased from history. The impact made by Ottoman imported horses constitutes an instance of collective, rather than individual, equine agency.