It seems that every few centuries, Central Asia is invaded by Altaic nomads. A tribe from Mongolia will oust a tribe living around the Altai mountains; they in turn seem to move to the southwest, into Central Asia and Bactria; those who already lived in these areas spread out before them, sometimes into India, sometimes north into the Caspian Depression and Ukraine, or sometimes they simply vanish or are assimilated into the new society. The Ta-Yüeh-chih/Ywati were not the first, and the Turks were not the last.

Who, originally, were these people who have since become the keepers of the Turanian Horse?

Over the centuries, the term "Turks" became a byword with more or less the same connotation that "The Soviets" had for Americans during the years of the Cold War --- with the exception that the Turks became and remained a physical threat. At their height, the Turkic Empire included parts of Persia, all of Bactria, all of Central Asia and much of what is today Western China. Their influence was felt as far away as India to the south, and the Turks maintained diplomatic and trading communities as far away as Constantinople. Wherever they went, they appointed locals to run local affairs. Some Turks settled down; most of them remained nomads.

Did the Turks acquire the Turanian horse when they came to Central Asia, or did they bring their own version of the Turkoman with them? While we usually think of invaders from Central Asia as riding Mongolian ponies (an impression leftover from the time of Ghengis Khan), it is possible that the Turks already had at least a version of the horse which would come to bear their name. Their homeland is not far from Pazyryk, and the Turanian thoroughbred was known in that part of the world from ancient times, so they may very well have already had their own version of the Turkoman when they came. It is actually possible that every invader from Western Mongolia/South Central Siberia brought a Turkoman-like horse when they came to Turan; thus the Turanian horse may have gotten infusions of its most ancient blood in this way every few centuries, which would go far to explain its excellent health, soundness and stamina. Stamps from the formerly independent nation of Tuva (or Touva) show Mongolian riders on curiously Turkmenian-looking horses. Of course, whether or not this actually happened remains to be determined. This will be difficult -- the area is now the border of Russia and Communist China, and also a prime Russian source of uranium. Even celebrated Nobel-winning scientist Richard Feynman (of Shuttle Challenger O-Ring fame, among other things) was not granted permission to visit the area until four days after his death!

Whether or not the Turkmen were master horse breeders when they arrived in Central Asia, or became horsemasters afterward, they took to it readily and became renowned far and wide for their horses. D. Carruthers noted in 1911 that near like Barkhal they maintained "Immense droves of horses [who] were running semi-wild over the prairies. These form an imperial stud and are said to number 15,000, the pick of which are transported yearly to Peking."

The Turkic "nation" was made up of many individual tribes with a very fluid structure. Tribes were constantly coalescing, splitting apart, confederating and reforming. When tribes joined, they generally took the name of either the leading or strongest tribe, or the name of the charismatic leader they were following. Thus when a small group split off from the larger Oghuz tribe, they named themselves after their leader Seljuk. It was the Seljuks, a Turkic people from the steppes of Central Asia, who reigned in Palestine and Syria during the time of the Crusades. The Seljuks conquered Persia and what is today Turkmenistan, and under a later leader, Alp Arslan ("The Golden Lion"), brought down the Byzantine Empire. Later, they, in turn, were ousted from Turkmenistan and Transoxiana by their parent tribe, the Oghuz -- whom we know today as the Turkmen.

Besides fighting their own wars, the Turkmen nomads often signed on as mercenaries for other powers. They sometimes resisted the Mongols, for example, when Attila rode through with them, and sometimes fought against them. It wasn't until the coming of the Russians that the Turkmen were subdued at last.